Author: WANZHI XIE

I took this picture yesterday while I was standing in the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge. The sky in this photo was originally colorless because of the rain. Then I wanted this photo to have an evening sunset, so I edited it with my phone. I made the colors of the picture more vibrant, added shadows to the background part of the bridge, and the sky became redder. This change gave me a more visual sense that the Brooklyn Bridge connects the two sides of Brooklyn and Manhattan. I think it gives people a sense of hope after seeing this photo. Since no matter how long the road ahead is, walking to the end is a beautiful thing. In this photo, I also see the stark contrast between the smallness of humans and the huge bridge. I hope the message this photo sends to the viewer is that the bridge was created by the wisdom and efforts of many people. When small people come together, they can accomplish what one person cannot do and become less small.

I chose strategy #5, “Reorganize your essay and discover new ideas in the process” to help me revise my draft. The main problem I had with the draft was that it was difficult to work around the thesis statement ideas from different perspectives. Since this exercise helped me in the process of sequencing my paragraphs, I could see if my logic was clear and if I was making the same points over and over again. I could also clearly find out if my main idea was being explored in more depth around my thesis statement. My thoughts became clear and organized with the help of this stratagem, and I think I can write more about the connection between materialism in the book and life.

1. The connection between Reed’s 1978-1992 “retrenchment period”  at CUNY and the Covid-19 pandemic is that in both periods public services were cut in New York City to avoid bankruptcy, leaving students without education and faculty without jobs. During the CUNY “retrenchment period” many faculty members were laid off and CUNY’s new colleges, such as Hostos and Medgar, were threatened with closure. And budget cuts led to more than just layoffs; they also led to skyrocketing tuition, so many students could not continue to attend without a free education.

2. Reed uses the term “death cult” to denote the impact of the change in tuition at CUNY, which was designed to provide access to education for many students who could not afford it, and the increase in tuition has made it unaffordable for minority students, so they have lost their original opportunity, and in this case, death. refers to these opportunities to receive an education. These changes have had a negative impact on education in New York City.

3. Reed’s advice to the anti-racist and anti-austerity groups at CUNY is to share everyone’s ideas, and CUNY should unite to analyze the impact of ideas together to be more powerful. It is only when these groups protest and labor movement to express their ideas that they will be noticed and have more opportunities to solve problems.

After reading the article “Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the Limits of Representation” by Keeanga-Yamahatta Taylor, I learned that the term “limits of representation” refers to the fact that different classes have different situations and that one person represents only a small portion of the race. From the article, we know that Biden chose Kamala Harris as his vice president in part because of her skin color, but she does not represent the majority of black women. According to the article, “Black women are, in general, one of the most oppressed and marginalized groups in the United States.” This illustrates that black women face a lot of pressure from society, but society doesn’t take care of what they think. However, Kamala Harris has the power and money to ensure that people will listen to her voice. From my point of view, even though Kamala Harris is from the Democratic Party, she cannot achieve all the goals promised by the Democratic Party. Kamala Harris is a representative of black women, but she cannot understand and represent the experiences of black women from the bottom because she was educated and faced with experiences that made her successful, and that is the “limits of representation”.

The piece of art I chose is the 1925 novel “The Great Gatsby,” written by F. Scott Fitzgerald for the research paper. This is a middle-length novel set in 1920s New York City and Long Island. It focuses on depravity, idealism, obstacles to change, and dramatic social change, and depicts the lives of people in the 1920s. This novel mainly describes Gatsby’s pursuit of love and the heroine Daisy’s entanglement, but ultimately ends in tragedy.

The reason I chose this book is that it was written in the Lost Generation, when society was generally materialistic and impatient, and in the background of those articles about crazy parties, extremely luxurious mansions, and lifestyles of fun all day long, everyone was lost in paper and gold, profit first, pleasure first, and humanity was to some extent distorted. This book is called “The Great Gatsby.” I think the greatness of Gatsby is not reflected in his fidelity to love, but in his greatness in such an era. He lived a luxurious life, but not lost in it, and he always did not forget their original intention, adhered to a goal, and remained optimistic, which is his greatness. It has a realistic and cruel ending, where the ideal will be defeated by reality. Therefore, I think it is a reflection of the great abundance of material things while the human spirit is constantly lacking.

For the piece of art, I decided to choose Andrian Piper’s “Decide Who You Are, Anita Hill.” From that picture, I saw a little black girl sitting on the ground looking ahead, looking like she was thinking about something. The red letters may represent what she is thinking about. The rhetorical properties of this work represent its social significance; it reflects the author’s support and encouragement for the little girl and the way society’s words towards the victim can influence their thoughts and behavior. The red words bring a strong emotion, which means that those words represent what is happening to her now. The picture says, “I hate to do this,” “you are overreacting,” “you are oversensitive.” It makes me feel that she feels dislike for some things, but then someone accuses her of having a view on things. After searching, I found out that this girl had been sexually harassed and was a victim. This piece is related to the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, and it reflects the attitudes of society towards victims at the time, but the point of this piece is to encourage people who have been hurt to have more courage to speak up. Society should give victims some tolerance and help them to get out of their phobia and have some positive impact. My conclusion from this article is that the voice of society should not put more pressure on victims and that they deserve to be encouraged rather than afraid to tell their stories.

When I was reading my two paragraphs and doing sentence analysis, I noticed that I used mostly compound and complex sentences in my writing. I think these types of sentences are an expression of my writing style because I have a lot of ideas that I want to express. I am not surprised by this result because compound and complex sentences make my ideas more focused. I realized that the complex sentences were difficult for the reader to read. There are too many things trying to be expressed, and the sentences don’t link smoothly enough, which makes it confusing to read. The result brought me the insight that I should not repeat too many similar topics and sentences, which would make the content feel one-dimensional. To accommodate these problems, I will highlight the sentences in which I want to express my ideas and cut out some repetitive words to make my writing look more concise and clear. I will also make a list of the keywords I want to express first, and then connect the keywords into sentences. I believe that sentence style affects the overall style of an essay. Combining different sentence styles can make my essay express ideas more vividly and imaginatively. Sentence structure correlated with other edits and revisions I planned to make, with the themes and sentences of each paragraph producing correspondence. Sentence structure plays a key role in the flow of the essay. The correct use of sentence structure will make my essay more attractive and persuasive, as well as express a clearer theme.

When I read the articles “Racial Capitalocene” by Francoise Vergès and “New York’s Invisible Climate Migrants” by Sophie Kasakove, I noticed that they both mention that different races will have different living environments and that low-income races are more vulnerable to climate change or other external factors that make their living environments worse. In Françoise Vergès’ article “Racial Capitalocene,” published in 1987, “Toxic Waste and Race in the United States,” it is stated that “race was the single most important factor in determining where toxic waste facilities were sited in the United States” and that “three out of every five Black and Hispanic Americans lived in communities with uncontrolled toxic waste sites.” This shows that the feelings of black and Hispanic Americans are not taken seriously by the government and that they live in a poor environment where their physical health may suffer as a result. Furthermore, in “New York’s Invisible Climate Migrants,” Sophie Kasakove says, “many of those who stayed after Sandy were forced from their homes anyway. In the years following the storm, homeowners in areas affected by Sandy were foreclosed upon at twice the rate of those in similar neighborhoods elsewhere in the U.S. ” It demonstrates that many low-income residents were forced out of their homes due to climate change, but the government did not help them overcome this problem. Overall, race determines the living environment in which one lives. Low-income people have to live in a bad environment because they do not have the funds to improve their lives, and the government chooses to neglect the needs of low-income people.