Searchin’ for the Sand

[This is a sound off based upon Peggy McIntosh’s points in her essay “White Privilege and Male Privilege”] 

“13. Whether I use checks, credit cards, or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.” When I read this point that Peggy McIntosh made in her writing of “White Privilege and Male Privilege”, it jumped out at me for a few different reasons. 

I believe that if a black person is going through a check out line at a radio shack or something with a few things that tally up to a couple hundred dollars and pays in cash, he or she would get a few glares. At the same time, if it were a white person, I believe that no one would think twice about it. This reminds me of an experience that I had at my local Staples store. 

My calculator broke so I went to Staples to get a new one and there was an older, mid 30’s black man in front of me in line. He paid for his stuff with a credit card and the cashier who happened to be white, asked to see his ID to make sure it was actually that man’s card. When I got up to pay for the calculator I also paid with a credit card and didn’t get asked to show any kind of ID. At the time I was a year younger (16) and was nothing but a skinny white kid so looking back on it now, it doesn’t add up. The man that paid before me certainly had a better chance of having his own credit card than me, so why did he have to show ID and not me?  

[This is a sound off written about one part of the novel Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. My class was only through chapter 11 so i chose to write about chapter 10 and the themes i came across.]  

I think that chapter 10 of the Invisible Man has been the best, deep, and interesting chapter so far. It includes many themes and symbols that play an important role in the novel as a whole; in addition, it’s just a good chapter. It starts off with the narrator beginning his work at Liberty Paints and what happens on his first day is unbelievable and full of underlying messages.

The narrator’s first job is to put 10 drops of this black chemical into this brown paint and then all get mixed together; in the end you get a beautiful white color. Now lets take a look at that….black and brown getting mixed together, doing work, and all that just to finish with a glossy white paint. That just jumped right out to me; black (and brown) people are doing all the work and in the end it’s just the white that comes out nicely on top. Then the narrator starts to put in the wrong chemical and the paint turns out grey and he gets fired from that job. There is another symbol right there; if for any reason a combination of black and whites (grey) comes out on top, there has to be a problem (the wrong chemical). Not only that, but then someone who would probably be black is punished (the narrator getting fired).

The other thing that jumped out at me, and really just leaves me with a question, was the fight that broke out between the narrator and Brockway. This time period is obviously a bad one for black American’s and they should be uniting rather than fighting. That being said I didn’t really come to any conclusion about why they were fighting. Maybe it is the power struggle that was talked about in class, but why would black people back then be fighting for power when they knew they never really had a chance at it?

[This is a sound off written about the shooting at Virginia Tech. It was also in response to an op-ed that my English teacher wrote.]  

I completely agree with your first line of your op-ed, “The horror at Virginia Tech should cause every school in this country to reevaluate their crisis plan.” Not only should they do that, but they are going to reevaluate their crisis plan. Schools need to have a better security plan to protect their students. That being said, it still really wasn’t the schools fault. Really anyone can walk onto a campus with guns; Americans rely too much on decency of their fellow Americans. We get this idea that since we’re in American, nothing that bad can ever happen. There needs to be better gun control laws throughout the country; it should be harder to buy guns in theUS. Guns are stupid to have at home; they hardy serve a purpose. Why do people need guns? The only answer to that is to protect themselves from other people with guns. The bottom line is that nothing good can come from having household guns.  

[This is a sound off comparing Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and the short story The Birthmark. Then a sound off about convicted sex offenders in relation to The Scarlet Letter.]

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and short story The Birthmark are obviously pretty similar in the fact that they both are fixated with some kind of mark. In The Scarlet Letter, it is the scarlet letter and in the short story it is a birthmark. A reoccurring theme dealing with these two marks is sin.

In The Scarlet Letter, the Puritan community that Hester lives in believes that adultery is a sin, and she is marked and remembered for that forever by wearing the scarlet letter until death. A member of the community said, “At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne’s forehead. Madam Hester would have winced at that, I warrant me. But she,-the naughty baggage,-little will she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown!” (The Scarlet Letter 49) There it is clear to see that the Puritan community hates Hester’s actions and wants the punishment to be a lot worse than what it is; as if being branded for the rest of your life without being able to forget what you have done isn’t enough.  In The Birthmark,Aylmer believes that his wife’s birthmark is a Godly imperfection, a sin. The marks that Hester and Georgina carry are both considered to be a sin or of sin.

The theme of perfection also appears in both texts but certainly more in The Birthmark than The Scarlet Letter. In The Scarlet Letter, it is implied that to live a life of Puritanism, you need to live a life sinless and perfect. No one is perfect, no one has ever been perfect and no one will ever be perfect and that’s just how things are, and people need to realize that before they do something that will ruin or take someone’s life. Adultery is obviously a bad thing and someone who commits that crime should be punished, but to a certain extent. The last thing someone wants after they do something wrong is to be reminded about it everyday and be treated horribly for it. So people need to be able to accept imperfection; the same goes to the birthmark that Georgina has.Aylmer cannot accept the fact that his wife is not perfect. Aylmer tells Georgina, “…you came so nearly perfect from the hand of Nature that this slightest possible defect, which we hesitate whether to term a defect of a beauty, shocks me, as being the visible mark of earthly imperfection.” (The Birthmark 1) He’s saying something as small as a birthmark is very important to him and he believes it is an earthly imperfection.Aylmer is trying to say that she’d be perfect if not for her birthmark. He can’t take it so he does something drastic by removing it but as it fades away, so does Georgina. Perfection is impossible and the Puritan Society in The Scarlet Letter and Aylmer in The Birthmark needed to just accept that.

One, if not the most important theme seen in both of these texts is the theme of labeling. Hester is labeled by her scarlet letter, and Georgina is labeled by her birthmark. People that are in the community with Hester will see the branded scarlet letter, and immediately think that Hester is this horrible person that sins, and that isn’t fair to her. She is labeled every time someone sees her as a sinner. When Aylmer looks and sees the birthmark onGeorgina’s cheek, he immediately thinks of imperfection and ugliness. Hawthorne said that, “Aylmer’s somber imagination was not long in rendering the birthmark a frightful object, causing him more trouble and horror than ever Georgina’s beauty, whether of soul or sense, had given him delight.”Aylmer is horrified of the birthmark and is just causing problems for him. It is terrible to label someone as horrifying just because of a simple birthmark. Hester andGeorgina don’t deserve to be labeled like this but they are and it isn’t right.

Do Convicted Sex Offenders Deserve A Scarlet Letter?

I believe that the punishment should always fit the crime; the worse the crime is, the more the criminal should be punished. Not all sex offenders should be treated equally. If there is a person who raped a girl and has been recently released from prison, he should get a lot more punishment than someone who was talking about sex online with a 13 year-old girl. A rapist should not be able to go to public parks or live near a daycare center because you can never be too cautious when it comes to rape.

It is a great idea for all sex offenders to register with the police when they more into a new area. Just think if you were a parent of a 10 and 13 year old girl, and a new neighbor moves in and you were not informed that he has once a sex offender. People can have their children be a lot safer and watch over them more because you never know what could happen. A mom can turn her head for a few minutes while her kids are playing in the yard, then look back and they could be gone. I’m sure that the mom wouldn’t turn her head too much if she knew that the person next door is a convicted sex offender.

I think state laws can be too stringent at some times, but it is better safe than sorry. A man that only got arrested for suspicion of a sex offending crime should be able to live his life pretty free, no restrictions like not being able to live next to a school; but he should still be registered with the police. At other times the law is too lenient in some cases as well. In Hester’s case in The Scarlet Letter, how she is treated is too stringent. She shouldn’t be so degraded just for sleeping with another man while she thought that her husband was dead. Adulatory is not as bad as rape or other sex offending crimes, so Hester should not be treated as bad as she is.

[This is the first sound off i wrote and it was just about how my week is going.] 

This week has gone pretty well for being so busy. I have had a lot of work all week but I’m happy that i got it all done and the week is almost over. I still have a math test to take later today that I am pretty nervous about, but that isn’t anything out of the ordinary. I get nervous for any test im about to take. I especially had a long night last night; i worked very hard to get my business letter and my revision of the sentence handbook done, along with homework for other classes. I am happy to knowthat I’m getting extra points for turning the business letter in. I think this project is pretty confusing at the moment but i don’t think it will take me too long to get used to it. I think it is a cool idea and i wouldn’t say im excited about it, but i don’t mind it.