Author: revans1

Kyle Korver’s article has highlighted one of the biggest problems in today’s society. Fortunately for the cause, Many of Korver’s teammates are of the oppressed race and therefore had to come easier for his “awakening”. To awaken one person it took an influence of an entire league. In order to try and awaken UNE would take an unbelievable amount of movements. This would require a lot of strong,weak, and a shift in social habits of the “mostly white” UNE student population. I think it would be very hard to start the movement with more than just your strong ties due to the fact that it doesn’t affect most of the population. In that case, I would have to use my strong ties to get an important influence. I would also have to advertise for the situation that would not only notify them of the current issue but also educate them on this social justice problem.  We would have to convince them that racism is a problem. Second we would have to convince them that even if it doesn’t affect them that they are apart of the problem by not doing anything about it.

 

Raymond Evans

English 123

Eric Drown

4/29/19

 

With today’s society, we have researched and come to understandings of what it takes to create a large social movement .We have also seen many different perspectives of what racism is but how it is viewed throughout different people. We have also learned about the problems surrounding race, identifications, and the natural human habits that our society needs to change in order to actually create change.The past articles specifically “Civil Rights to Megachurches” and Kyle Korver’s “Privileged” we can see how strong ties, social habits and weak ties can all work together to  social movements being created. Here at UNE we struggle with our diversity as a whole;but done correctly an anti racism social movement can be accomplished effectively.

 

In Charles Duhigg’s “From Civil Rights to Megachurches” , he explains that “ social habits are why some initiatives become world-changing movements while others fail to ignite. And the reason why social habits have such influences because at the root of many movements be they large-scale revolutions or simple fluctuations in the church as people attend is a three-part process that historians and sociologists say show up again and again. Of movement starts because of the social habits of friendship in the strong ties between close acquaintances. It grows because of the habits of the community and the weak ties that hold neighborhoods and clans together. And it endures because of movements leaders give participants new habits that create a fresh sense of identity and feeling of ownership.”  He identifies the key terms of strong ties, weak ties, and social habits. He sheds light into the reason why movements grow so big due to these relationships. He examples the Rosa Parks story and how her being the figure she was with her relationships of strong ties in large groups they were able to create a voice for the civil injustice that occurred. He mentions how her ties felt a natural pressure to act out and speak up to the oppositions facing them. He also explains how weak ties have sometimes almost the equal role of strong ties. Weak ties may have access to things such as social media outlets, people of political power, or maybe just people in different areas with a strong base of people to spread the word. Kyle Korver’s “Privileged” sheds a light on what Duhigg would explain as “social habits”. He says “ when it comes to racism in America think that builds in sports ability tends to be as seen as more or less the same thing. But I’m beginning to understand how there. As white people are we going to have to send our forefathers? no, I don’t think so. But are we responsible for them? Yes, I believe we are. And I guess I come to you realize that when we walked back from the systemic racism police reform, workplace diversity, affirmative action, better access to healthcare reparation? It’s not about guilt. It’s not about pointing fingers or passing blame. It’s about responsibility. It’s about understanding that when we’ve said the word equality for generations that we really meant for a certain group of people. Not understanding that out when we spell the word inequality for the generations that we’ve really met slavery and its aftermath- which is still being felt to this day. It’s about understanding on a fundamental level that black people and white people, they still have it different in America. And that those differences come from an ugly history….. not some random divide.”This quote personally opened my curious brain to think more about the mindset of the majority. He speaks about how he himself can start to be apart of the solution by changing his social habits. Korver came to realize a few things about himself that would be very crucial of getting the majority race to understand about the movement. He understood that he would need to be educated on the history of racism in America, he will have to listen to the people who do know about, he will have to “ support leaders who see racial justice as fundamental — as something that’s at the heart of nearly every major issue in our country today. And I have to support policies that do the same”; and lastly that he will have to do his best to get out of the way so that the voices of the marginalized can be heard.

I think it would take a powerful effort to start an “anti-racial” movement here at UNE.Personally, as a student of color my strong ties are very important connections. I have a handful of powerful weak ties as well. People like Erica Rousseau, who knows a wide range of people with a platform and very strong support. I can choose from to start this movement here. I have a huge group of athletes that I know would help me  start this movement and get it known to the student body. I also have a good relationship with my basketball coach and our Athletic Director who seem to favor things such as social movements or bettering our student diversity.I would consider my relationship with our school president as a weak tie, but he would be very important with this process.

There are many social habits that are problematic to the full power of this movement. One of the biggest social habits that will be ran into is that this topic will be touchy for most of the majority due to the lack of knowledge and inexperience to the subject. As Korver said, the majority does not know that they are not responsible for their ancestors doings, they should not feel guilt. They should feel responsible and be open to listening and learning about what’s going on in our world today. I feel as if we can just get people to overcome that fear or that initial feeling of guilt it would help people be open to talking about it. As far as spreading it, I would have to develop ties with the people who have access to social media accounts, and things like the media group to get people used to seeing what I am trying to do. In doing this, it may cause a situation similar to what Duhigg explains; that people will undoubtedly start to feel the need to speak up and act out.

As a student at UNE, I believe we need to take ownership and view the lack of diversity here as a problem.  As a community we need to target UNE’s social habits of diversity and how the marginalized students and faculty are seen and presented.  As a community, we need to open the topic of conversation so that we as a school can grow.

 

To get a better grade I need to improve on my reading process by posting my annotations on what is being read. With integrating my own ideas with readings I need to include more quotations. I need to do a better job meeting all of my deadlines as well as working with my classmates to create a better essay.  I also need to do more of the prewriting while trying to answer the essential questions as well as coming to office hours to learn how to discipline myself while writing.

Raymond Evans

ENG 123

Eric Drown

February 11th 2019

Expressing my abilities to integrate my own personal ideas and opinions is something I never thought that I personally struggled with. My problem when first walking on campus was learning how to correctly write what I was was trying to say along with my opinions and observations of what i am reading and learning about. For example in my Yoshino essay i learned and found interesting that there are people like Appiah that think identities are a lie. I used the quote “identities can break people apart just as much as it can pull people together” because i was very interested and thrown back by the fact that even the person saying this has an identity to people. What he is writing about is his opinion and makes him unique of course but as a writer would he not like to be identified as that? Also another question I had about this was what would his alternative be to things like names that give not only people but objects an identity to everyone. I used this as an object of analysis in my essay to later explain what i personally felt he meant as well as what should be learned about what he is saying. I used Kenji Yoshino’s idea of “covering” as well in this essay to provide background information. I used the quote  “focused on what pulls us together instead of what pulls us apart.” He defines True Self as the self that gives an individual the best feeling of being real which is the most exciting way for a person to feel like they are existing. True Self is the most honest way a person can exist with themselves and also coexist with the objects and the world surrounding them. Yoshino says it correlates most with self “spontaneity and authenticity”. I also used the Appiah quote to change the direction of the conversation so that people I could talk about how people with a different way of thinking approach the idea of having an identity. “People do not realize that as a society it is and should be ok to have different people in different groups throughout different communities. These differences should be embraced into what makes our culture and society unique.” I use this quote in my own words to offer my stance and give a reader a new idea to wrestle with about my essay. I use after I shared Yoshino’s stance and opinions to give an insight of what I wrestles with abd show what conclusions i came to.

 

Raymond Evans

ENG 123

Professor Drown

February 9th 2019

 

A person’s identity is one of the most personal and private values that anyone can have in their life on this earth. It can be used to define who they are, helps them make up what they want to be or maybe even not who they are but who they want to be portrayed as. Throughout history and especially today people are now ashamed or manipulated to feel that if their true identity is not going along with the current mainstream, they will have to hide it or portray themselves in maybe a different way. For some, such as gay americans, it may be hiding their sexual orientation. For others, it can be something as simple as changing their name. Kenji Yoshino has taken a very deep and educated look at why the society in the United States forces people to hide their identity. For him this isn’t just a personal hiding, he sees this as a civil rights issue that needs to change.

 

In Yoshino’s writing In his writing about “New Civil Rights” he uses the vocabulary of True Self and False Self to create a new way of thinking about civil rights. Yoshino feel as if our civil rights needs to be changed from the idea of group based politics to a reform that everyone is looked as equally. He states  that “ our current civil rights laws only protect things or traits that we can’t change such as skin color, chromosomes, or innate sexual orientation.” These current laws do not protect people from the things Yoshino feels we cover the most. This new civil rights paradigm should be “focused on what pulls us together instead of what pulls us apart.” He defines True Self as the self that gives an individual the best feeling of being real which is the most exciting way for a person to feel like they are existing. True Self is the most honest way a person can exist with themselves and also coexist with the objects and the world surrounding them. Yoshino says it correlates most with self “spontaneity and authenticity”. True Self is who a person really is and wants to be in their own identity. It is the person who has has nothing to cover about themselves and knows their truest relationship with themselves and the world.Covering as Yoshino defines it, is to tone down a disfavored identity to fit into the mainstream. He feels that everyone covers whether subconsciously or not. An example of covering would be one showing their False Self. False self is what gives a person a sense of feeling unreal and a sense of “futility”. It’s the relationship that mediates what is good and bad between one’s identity with their true self and their identity with the world. A False self is often used because people are afraid of being judged for who they actually are to the point where they feel like they need to cover. In our recent years of civil rights there has been many government reforms of civil rights for gays, african americans, even women. But this was not always the case. I believe that people use covering and sometimes cover because they feel the sense that they are protecting themselves from the forces of the mainstream. We can often see on things such as the news where there are certain individuals or groups that we may call “cults” that will judge and threaten harm against people for their certain True Self identities. One example would be the Westboro Baptist church. This church group is known for their treatment and hate speeches against the LGBT community, Jews, muslims and many other social groups. These people understand that when they do these things publicly they will scare people into covering for their own comfortability.

This is what takes unique things out of society.  People do not realize that as a society it is and should be ok to have different people in different groups throughout different communities. These differences should be embraced into what makes our culture and society unique. There are also views like Appiah who believe that identities can break people apart just as much as it can pull people together. This comes with the fact that people may be covering either subconsciously or because they are simply afraid. But a person’s identity is still needed for people to realize who they are and what they stand for to make sense of them.Appiah later says that “People — and when I say people I mean everybody — need these simple stories and labels to help them understand their place in the world. Life is complicated, and the social world is complicated, and identities simply all that for us. And yet these are often just constructs, artificial labels that we’ve created, and our attachment to them can blind us to that fact.” He believes identities aren’t actually real and the human race just made them up to try and make sense of the world. This all matches in with the concept of having a name and why people have identities for things and even objects for what things say and mean. With society as it currently is and having names people will still be forced to have to hide certain parts of them as long as there is what’s called a mainstream which will keep the pressure on minority groups and societies forever be hiding apart of what makes them unique.

 

Covering means to hide a persons part of themselves or their identity to fit with the majority. My extended thought of it is that people will hide part of themselves due to societies judgement or also because they could be in a potential fearful situation or it could also pose as a survival tactic.

2. According to Windscott, true self and false self are both apart of a persons identity. Your true self is something that a person may show in a situation where they feel safe with their identity. A false self is that same person feeling the false hood of their true selves. These are both still heavily connected to that same person

Name stories are very interesting and unique for everyone. Names are special to everyone as it identifies them with the rest of the world.  My name story is unique to me because the story of how I got my name is different and unique to me and my family. I am named after my father’s legal attorney. When my mom was pregnant with me, my father was unfortunately put in prison charged with a wrongful felony. Leaving my mother with the pressures of her pregnancy and taking care of my sister. Our lawyer managed to help the pending case while also keeping my mother’s stress levels low and helping her maintain a healthy pregnancy while my father couldn’t. He would do things such as stopping at our then apartment to check up on my mother and my sister to make sure everything was going smooth. He would sometimes go through the case at our home so that my mother could know what was going on and not have to worry as much. Most lawyers would not push to that extent to make sure that their client’s family is ok. But before that, I was supposed to be Kobe. My mother’s original thought was because my sisters name is Kala was to have my name start with a K as well. Along with that my mother is a huge Los Angeles Lakers fan and was very fond of the name Kobe due to his greatness. My father was originally not on board with naming me Kobe until the Lakers won the NBA title that year with many great performances by Kobe Bryant. The other option for my name was Khalil. This ended up being my middle name as it started with a K but got overridden when my mother decided to name me after the lawyer, but she still very much enjoyed the name Khalil. Also, my aunt was the one who helped influence my name being Raymond. On the final days before my mom went into labor; her and my aunt were having a conversation about my final name, she liked the flow of my name being Raymond Khalil and so that ended up being the final verdict of my name. I personally like my name and I’m mostly referred to as Ray, but I would not change my name as I think this back story to it is unique to me and my family especially my mom; I like my middle name most because I think that it is different and I don’t know many people with that name. I think it lands me in a unique place with my name.