Author: MOHAMED TERRA

For my remix project I was planning on remixing my research paper on how black struggle is currently represented in music. I was thinking about making a presentation on slides for this. I want the slides to be creative rather than just restating my points. I’m not sure yet about how I am going to execute this, but I was thinking of including fun strategies in getting the audience engaged. I also want to try my best to make it much more visual. By this I mean that I don’t want to include too many words on the slide. I could also focus the presentation on Lil Baby, Jay Z, and Kendrick Lamar, since these were the three artists that I mentioned in my paper. I am also planning on recording my voice over the presentation so I don’t have to get up and present in front of the whole class. I feel like the main thing that will stay with this project from my research paper is the sense of seriousness, since the topic is about a serious issue. The main challenge for me is definitely fitting everything I want in the time limit for my presentation. My main motivation is that I am able to choose everything about my project. What I write about, how I write about it. I am also motivated to finish the semester off strong and feel satisfied with that work that I have completed

This picture that I took was to capture the memory of my friends and I going on one last bike ride before everyone went off for college. I knew these people my whole life and we always went on bike rides. This one was to reminisce all the those times and to do it one last time before we officially enter the next chapter of our lives. I edited this photo to make the dark colors darker and the light colors lighter. I was just experimenting with a few editing styles, and when I came upon this one, it really stood out to me. This editing the shows that we are moving towards the light, symbolizes that we have a bright future ahead of us. This photo can be interpreted as both sad and exciting. Someone can see this as people living their last childhood memories, while another person can see this as people that have accomplished a lot and are awaiting an exciting future.

For this revision experiment, I decided to do it with my older brother. I explained to him that my paper was about how black struggle has been represented in music in the last couple of years, and then I summarized my essay and had him take notes. I believe that my verbal summary pretty much matched my paper, mainly because I have read my paper so much so I knew what I wrote down. One thing that I realized that I can work on is when my brother asked me about how all these artists can relate to each other. I feel like I can write a whole paragraph on that and how they all intend to spread the same message at the end of the day.

1. Reed makes the connection between the 1978-1992 “retrenchment period” at CUNY and the Covid-19 pandemic such that they both resulted in many people to lose their jobs. The policy of financial exigency, resulted in the termination of many CUNY employees. Reed talks about the budget cuts, increased tuition fees, and other reasons that make the connection with the Covid-19 pandemic.
2. Reed uses the term death cult in the context of describing the events that resulted around the ‘retrenchment period.’ He uses this term to explain that the rise of neoliberalism and economic downfall were destined to lead to the problems that it did.
3. The reasoning that the LatinX Student Alliance group gives for demanding more diversity in their curriculum, is that the current lack of diversity was a result from the history of removing colonized and minority groups from the system and putting them at a disadvantage. They believe that education should be a reflection of the world and not just a ‘white washed cannon’ and creating diversity is a major first step to providing equality for minority groups.

 

https://jamboard.google.com/d/14ZESA8UiYOsq0CyKmIfz5rUCGapUDCd8-YMjppi7xyc/edit?usp=sharing

The revision strategy that I used for my draft is ‘To Say Something Better.’ This revision strategy revealed to me that there are so many areas in my writing that I can not only elaborate on, but also make it a whole paragraph. The main reason for why I chose this revision strategy is because when rereading my draft, I knew that I could write so much more and elaborate but I wasn’t sure which areas I could fit in more writing. The main thing I am struggling with now but am working on is being able to connect all my paragraphs into a conclusion without just giving a summary of what I wrote.

After reading, “Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the Limits of Representation” by Keeanga-Yamahatta Taylor, I am not shocked when it comes to the lack of diversity amongst politicians in the past years. We can agree the we are slowly moving towards more diversity with the 8 year president in Barack Obama, and the current vice president Kamala Harris. My main problem when it comes to people bringing this topic up, is that they believe that the United States cannot be racist or can’t be accused for having a lack of diversity, because we had a black president, or because we have a woman of color as our vice president. Ultimately, there is a clear advantage for white men when it comes to politics.

According to Keeanga-Yamahatta, the ‘limits of representation’ is the idea that colored people are not provided with a fair chance at being heard in a political stand point. Their ideas aren’t being taken into consideration and they are put at a disadvantage in the political space.

The work of art thatI am very interested in discussing is the song, “The Bigger Picture” by the musician, Lil Baby. He released this song on June 12th 2020. This artwork was released in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. Lil baby tackles the topic of police brutality and the racial motivation behind it. Lil baby’s message is that we need to speak up about what is happening with people of color being wrongfully murdered by police. Police were put in place to keep everyone safe, not to see and treat people by their color. I chose this particular artwork, because I love Lil baby as a musician, and his music plays a major impact in my life. On top of that, police brutality is a current issue that I feel really passionate about.

Potential thesis: This artist’s work shows the truth behind police brutality, in an attempt to spread awareness and let people know that it is best to speak up.

David Wojnarowics “untitled”

1. The author makes great use of rhetorical properties to portray his message and also give the viewer room to interpret their own meaning for the art. Already before reading it, you can see a picture of a kid with a half smile, in the very center with lines of words surrounding him. I believed that this was meant to symbolize the kid being the center of attention. The half smile being shown on the kid, along with the image being in black and white, gives it a dark feeling. Also, the author repeats the words ‘One day’ which is clearly purposely done to make certain aspects of his writing stand out.
2. This text resonates with the social and political concerns of today. Generally, the text in this art talks about a kid battling his way through diversity when all odds are against him. Today, there are people who are put in disadvantages through choices made by people with power.
3. The conclusions that I can make from this text to build an argument for what impact art might make on political or social concerns, is that it contains a powerful message that is being expressed by some minorities that wouldn’t be able to be heard otherwise.

In the city of New York, small businesses and community essentials are slowly dying out and being replaced by big companies that have enough money to pay the New York rent. Personally, as a kid, I would always go to this small store by my house that would fix any damaged or stained clothes. The neighborhood loved the owners of this place but sadly, I remember walking up to it, and the building was under reconstruction. I waited 2 years to see if he was renovating the store, but it ended up being an office building that had no public use. What ends up happening because of this, is the demand for certain services increases, which makes stores pushing the prices through the roof. Not many people can afford these price jumps, which is the main reason for high amounts of poverty and homelessness in New York. One great argument that Dickinson’s text brings up, is that these small stores that are being replaced, had workers that were working for their family and living on paycheck to paycheck. When the store gets replaced, they are forced to look for a new job, in which that process could take several weeks. This is obviously plays a huge impact on their financial status. Their spots are being replaced by the upper class. Slowly, New York is going to be mainly a profit based area, with no value for public needs.