Issues Brief

My partner is Audrey Arner.

The policy we are advocating to change is a section of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2015 which allows a specific mining company to mine the holy grounds of Native American tribes for copper. This was initially dedicated as a place that could not be mined by President Eisenhower out of respect for the Native American community. This section was added onto a bill that has been passed for 53 consecutive years. They weren’t going to simply not pass such an important bill because of a small section. I believe it was wrong to pass this legislation on such a large bill, especially when it has nothing to do with national defense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_P._%22Buck%22_McKeon_National_Defense_Authorization_Act_for_Fiscal_Year_2015

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/apaches-and-allies-rally-at-capitol-to-save-sacred-oak-flat-from-massive-mine_us_55aff2f9e4b08f57d5d3747d

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/13-native-american-issues_us_55b7d801e4b0074ba5a6869c

This I Believe Rough Draft

Surprisingly enough, I’m from a school I never actually attended. It’s an idea I’ve been in love with since I took my first high school American history class. Allow me to explain. I’m biracial. My mom is black and my dad is white, and I feel a profound connection with the story of the Little Rock Nine of Central High School, the first site of racial integration in a public school. So yes, I am from a school I never actually attended. In actuality, I went to a conservative Southern Baptist private school in Little Rock, Arkansas for 14 years of my life with a graduating class of 63 people. Of those 63 people, four were black and two were half-black, including myself.

My high school was a place where I, the other, often conformed and behaved like the majority. In a sense, I suppressed one half of my culture in order to better fit in. It was easier this way. By only expressing my white culture, I avoided the inevitable conflicts and ridiculous comments that seemed to follow the few black students at my school that actually retained their culture. I remember sitting on a bus one day, angrily texting one of my few black friends after hearing someone say, “Throw a piece of fried chicken out the window so the black people won’t come get us.” Hearing this wouldn’t have been very surprising if I was in eighth grade. It was not eighth grade however, but my senior year of high school. I was amazed that a senior in high school could actually think that was a funny statement and was even more amazed to hear people laughing at his poor excuse of a joke. I had made up my mind to say something—a rare occasion for me—when a friend of mine told me I should calm down. In that moment, I realized something: even my closest friends from high school would never understand. It simply wasn’t something they could empathize with.

I assumed that coming to Penn State would be better. And to an extent, it has been. Everyone isn’t so conservative and close-minded as they were at my high school, and there are definitely more people of color here. In order to find these people though, you have to search for that small pocket of diversity. I was lucky enough to find one in the Millennium Scholars Program, a program that pushes diversity of STEM fields. Everywhere else, however, is still incredibly white.

Some would use this to their advantage. In fact, when I was applying to Penn State, my dad told me I should only check the box labeled “African-American” on my application. Although it was a comment made with good intentions, I was disappointed to hear the very source of my white heritage say that I should ignore a very important part of myself in order to get more money. I staunchly refused; doing so just felt wrong.

In the white-washed environments I constantly find myself in, I’ll only ever be considered black even though I’m half white. I never had a choice; the world had already chosen for me, [beginning with the one-drop rule tracing all the way back to slavery?]. This became even more apparent when I filled out a class survey here at Penn State. The survey would only let me check one box regarding my race. I remember feeling so conflicted. What did I choose? I felt like I was being forced to choose the culture I liked best. A survey that should have taken me ten minutes stretched on for twenty because I couldn’t make a decision. Finally, I checked the “African American” box. Why? Because it was all society had ever told me I was. The survey wasn’t necessarily asking if I was African American or Latino or Native American. That didn’t matter. It was asking whether or not I was white. It was asking whether or not I contributed to the diversity here at Penn State, making their diversity stats look better to those applying next semester. All the other options on the survey may as well have read “not white.”

I believe that this mentality of only being able to be one thing is a morally wrong and very limiting mindset. I believe that I shouldn’t have to feel obligated to suppress half my identity to make others feel more comfortable. I believe that society shouldn’t force me to choose. I believe in checking both boxes.

 

There are few small things with wording, but this is the gist. There’s also a certain part in brackets that I can’t decide if I want to take out or not.

“This I Believe” Ideas, Passion Blog, and Civic Issues Blog Ideas

The main topic I would like to address in my “This I Believe” podcast is the acceptance of different races and the cultures that come along with them. To get this point across, I have two ideas. My first idea is to tie my very existence (I’m biracial, half black and half white, just so this makes sense) to a school I never attended, Central High School in Little Rock, AR (the first site of desegregation in schools), and to parallel its transition of not accepting other races then becoming the school it is today (although it still needs to improve) to my own life and experiences with accepting and embracing both sides of my culture. My second idea is to parallel my transition from my school–a small, close-minded, mostly white Southern Baptist private school in which I spent 14 years of my life–to Penn State (a place where I, because of the Millennium Scholars Program, am constantly surrounded by diversity and people who grew up under different circumstances with different worldviews than I hold) with my transition from almost suppressing one side of my culture to embracing both sides of me.

I think that for my passion blog, I will continue to write about dance. It’s the only thing I can think of that I could actually say I have a passion for. I could probably improve my passion blog by deciding on a common theme for my entries. For example, would I only write about things that I personally have experienced in my time dancing, or would I write about specific types of dance? I could write about types of dance around the world and how they tie into that region’s culture, or maybe I could write about specific dancers that changed the way we view dance today. I think my goal for my blog is to make it more coherent and simply to educate people on things they may have seen but not recognized and to share my love for dance with those who will read it.

I don’t actually have many solid ideas when it comes to topics for my civic issues blog. One that I feel I could write about would be the role of public education in America today; but rather than looking at the university level, I would like to address the role of education from preschool through high school. Something that I’ve found interesting is that people will move to be in a different school district for their children; but if it’s public education, shouldn’t the quality of all school districts be the same? With this topic, I could also look at the pros and cons of private vs public school. Another topic I could look at would be the idea of America as a “melting pot,” the expected assimilation of immigrants when they come to the US, and the cultures and subcultures of the United States.

On the Media’s The Breaking News Consumer Handbook and “The Language of Terror”

Today, more than any other time period in history, media has the ability to shape the minds of the people. With so many different forms of media continually bombarding the phones we now hold so dear, it is difficult to take a step back and view what happens in the news objectively rather than mindlessly accepting the often emotional or incorrect first reports. It is important, however, to be able to filter information presented by the media. In western culture, we often want definitive answers as quickly as possible. We need a face to latch on to, a name to blame. Because of this, we often accept the first “fact” the media throws our way without question. Even on sites as historically unreliable as twitter–the site of the infamous and divisive black and blue vs white and gold dress argument, for crying out loud–we are so desperate for information that we mindlessly accept any tweet or picture we see as undeniable fact. Often, however, these tweets have no reliable source, have become distorted, or were simply made up to get the most retweets. Pictures that go viral on social media are often photoshopped to elicit the emotional response that will get the most likes. Once these posts have made their way into the minds of the public, they are nearly impossible to remove. This mindless acceptance of unreliable information on sources we so often frequent has to stop. Hitting the retweet button on a whim, without checking any facts, is dangerous. Instead, we should fact check before we spread unreliable information. We should check multiple news reports (even these aren’t completely reliable today, so comparing multiple and triangulating reliable facts is probably best) that confirm a tweet’s reliability before spreading it on to the next person; and if we encounter something we find to be false, we should make an attempt to correct the misinformation. Misinformation is a dangerous thing that can lead to irrational fear and generalizations. This is something that we all must fight; we can start with the constant stream of information that passes through our pocket.

Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Miah Sherman
Dr. Kate Rosenberg
ENGL/CAS 137H-138T
1 June 2016
Insert Title Here
When someone says “princess,” the first image that comes to the mind of many is of the Disney princesses. The Disney princesses have been influencing children everywhere for decades; it is not perfect however. Disney plays off the commonplace that all girls want to be a princess coddled by her prince and reinforces the idea that some races are more beautiful than others through the exclusion of certain races. Not only that, but Disney has also mirrored the expectations society places on girls throughout the years. Snow White, released in 1938, was the epitome of the perfect housewife, singlehandedly caring for seven men and taking care of the home while they went to work. Current princesses like Frozen’s Elsa and Brave’s Merida emphasize society’s value of independent women that do not necessarily need someone else to rescue them. It not only shows what society expects of girls’ personalities, but also what it expects of their appearance. In the past, most Disney princesses were white, reinforcing the idea that Caucasian features were more desirable. Now, however, there are many more ethnically diverse princesses, mirroring society’s newfound appreciation of the beauty of other races. Although Disney is beginning to change its image to reflect the progress society has made in respect to women’s rights, it still has a long way to go, as does society itself; other media reflects the unrest society feels about women still being socially unequal to men.
One advertisement campaign that reflects the unrest felt by society is The Autocomplete Truth ad campaign released by UN Women in 2013. The first part of the campaign, the posters, was released in March of that year. On each poster, a woman—each of a different race—is featured with a neutral expression that represents how society keeps them from expressing themselves. The widely familiar Google search bar with negative autocomplete suggestions covers her mouth as if to prevent her from speaking (Case Study). The subsequent video that was produced later that year was just as impactful, if not more so, than the posters. The video begins with a year flashing across the screen, then a cursor typing out a major accomplishment of women that took place that year. A photo or video clip showing the event then flashes across the screen; this happens multiple times, showing many of the major contributions that women have made to society. The years they display as well as the consistent improvement of the video quality emphasizes the move through time and the corresponding contributions of women to society. The music also emphasizes this move through history. The continuous alternation between two minor chords creates a suspenseful and driving feel. The music then continually builds, adding strings to get a more dramatic effect. The two minor chords then switch to a major key to emphasize the significance of the contributions that are being listed. Silence then ensues as the video switches gears to the true problem being presented: the discrimination against women that is still present in the world. The only sound is the clicking of a keyboard as a phrase like “women shouldn’t” is entered into the search bar. The autocomplete results that appear are all negative comments, such as “women shouldn’t have rights” or “women shouldn’t vote” (UN Women). [Insert closing sentence].
The goal of the ad is clear: to expose that discrimination still exists, although some deny it does. Clearly, laws do not necessarily mean equality. Ideologies and commonplaces that are ingrained in a culture cannot simply be changed by new laws that legally require equality. It is a mindset that cannot be changed overnight. This advertisement’s goal was to promote true equality between man and woman, which involves the change of the mindset of a people.
There are multiple reasons why this advertisement is effective. One of these is that the Google search bar is very familiar to most people. Even if the Google search bar itself is not familiar, another search engine’s search bar probably is. The typing of important text in the video was also significant; it makes it seem like an actual person is typing the text as opposed to words lifelessly flashing across the screen. The fact that the autocomplete options that are shown in the posters and video were actual Google autocomplete options in 2013 also makes this piece more effective, especially considering that the autocomplete feature has nothing to do with Google setting what will appear, but with what people around the world are searching for (UN Source). The fact that the video makes it appear like another human being is typing, makes the advertisement feel that much more personable. The music choice in the video was also very effective; the driving nature of the song emphasized the video’s progression through history, as does the change from a minor key to a major key. No one could be more qualified than UN Women to write about the prevalence of discrimination; most of the women on the committee were probably discriminated against themselves at one point or another. The vast number of examples of women making contributions to society proves that women must be important members of society that should be valued. The emotion and the emptiness in the pictures also makes the poster ads very effective. The neutral, almost empty expressions of the women appeal to those who look at it by making them want to find a solution to end the emptiness of those women. The timing of the release of the ad was also timed very well with the progression of the women’s rights movements (UN Women). Had the advertisement been released too early, the biases and commonplaces of that society would have prevented the advertisement from reaching its full potential.
In conclusion, while Disney often encourages young girls to be reliant on others, The Autocomplete Truth advertisement campaign shows what happens to those girls when they become women that must face the reality of the world that awaits them. There is no Prince Charming to coddle them or wake them from a slumber with a gentle kiss; they are thrust out into the harsh world of discrimination that is exposed by The Autocomplete Truth ad campaign with little to no preparation whatsoever for what the world has in store for them. This advertising campaign reveals that discrimination in the hope that when people realize how prevalent it still is that they will begin to correct the baseless ideologies they have formed about women and their ability, or lack thereof, to contribute to society. One reason the campaign is so effective because of the familiarity of Google and its search bar. Another reason the advertisements were successful was because of the effectiveness of the cursor typing, creating the effect of an actual person writing about discrimination as opposed to words flashing across a screen. The music in the video advertisement also made the video particularly effective; it had the effect of making the video seem like it truly progressed through history. Perhaps the most effective of these is the fact that only real Google autocomplete results were used in the advertisements. The fact that people actually still search for the things that appeared on these advertisements is incredibly disheartening to me as a woman; however, I still hold onto hope that the society will progress past this and move into an era where all contributions to society are equally recognized and esteemed.

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