March Blog Post

“High ranking Texaco executives refer to African American employees as “black jelly beans… glued to the bottom of the bag” -Keeping it Real By Patricia S. Parker

In all honesty this quote almost has me laughing with how ridiculous it sounds. Black jelly beans??? Come on, now. Makes me truly wonder how those types of thoughts enter someones mind; the idea that skin color makes any type of difference. To me at least, that seems like an easy thought to process, but that's obviously not the case for others.

This quote hits me in a soft spot because my sister is half black. Even though she's my "half" sister, I still see it as we have the same blood all the way. I grew up with my sister obviously and I can tell you one thing, she is definitely not a "black jelly bean stuck to the bottom of the bag" (I'm honestly almost laughing at this again it's so outrageous). I'm not here to defend black people, because they don't need defending, they're human beings. I'm just very dumbfounded over the whole idea of "superior race".

When colonist came to America and established all of the different customs and cultures to each individual area, slave states were definitely a thing. As I'm sure you're very aware of this, I'm not sure people really understand the severity of what truly happened in this nation of "freedom". I'm also not here to give a history lesson, but genuinely here to state the mind-blowing idea that people literally can look at someone who is different than them, and then not only discriminate towards them, but put made-up "laws" and "prejudice" over human connection. 

Not to sound all hippy dippy (I am from Eugene), but in a world that is merely a floating dot in the sky of practically unknown space, I find it pretty interesting that people will fight the bloodiest of wars, and spew out the most hurtful kind of hatred, for temporary power on this Earth, that truly doesn't even matter. We don't matter, yet it's all we know. Human emotion and connection is the only real thing on this Earth that we have. Love TRUMPS all, always.

Blog Post 3

Rex Bartlett
Comms 160

               One of the important things that has stuck with me throughout this past month was the amount of social issues covered that need to be understood and changed.  When we read the piece by Audre Lorde about how true social reform often must come from a place of anger I began to sympathize with movements like Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and those refugees in Europe that are battling for a place to live and for their own safety.  Right wing media demonizes these movements because of their tendencies for violence to follow in their wake but without that wave of actions that may be seen as unacceptable the oppressing groups would never notice the issues and how they are marginalizing their identities.  One of the things that we discussed in class this month that relates to this is when we discussed feminist origins and ideologies and how they are critical for communication discourse.  Women are oppressed so heavily by men in the west and the male focused patriarchal society won’t change to be truly even and neutral unless women act out of anger and prove to men who don’t recognize the validity of their arguments. The ‘alt-right’ has proved that by acting in a malicious and vindictive manner you can gain notoriety and a place at the table and end up with political outcomes that validate your argument.  Faces like Milo Yiannopouls and his outrageous beliefs and social media persona have shown that Audre Lorde is right in her beliefs that socially unacceptable behavior can make the change passive discourse and social disobedience have lost the power to do. I watched ‘Get Out’ over spring break and it too has examples of the importance of violence in protecting oneself and one’s identity. The subtle racism and microaggressions marginalized the main character Chris until the white people were fully able to control him and *Spoiler* enslave him. He must respond with violence to protect himself and in doing so protect all black men from the racism and malevolence of the white people in the movie.   

Blog post 3

Infotainment

Under the class discussion of simulacra - a representation or imitation of a thing - came the discussion of infotainment. Infotainment caught my attention as it is taking the ordinary mundane news stories that appear on TV and turning them into funny and relatable news stories. In the UK we have two similar shows called 'Have I Got News For You,' and 'Mock the Week.' The idea on both of these shows is to beat the other team with guessing either the correct news title, or having the funniest twist on the news title. There are 6 comedians, 3 on each panel acting as a team and one host that asks the questions or shows a picture of the news image.
I chose to talk about this in my blog as these shows reminded me strongly of my family life back home. Ever Sunday it would be a ritual for myself, my mum and dad to sit down and watch these two shows one right after the other. They would often overlap on subjects and it be hilarious to see how differently the teams approach it. I personally preferred Mock the Week as it was a bit cruder and had less political news on it. we never did much as a family but this was something that really brought us together. I never had a strong relationship with my dad but we could come together and agree on this being entertaining. Plus I never read the newspaper or see the news so it was a fun way for me to learn about current affairs whilst getting a good giggle out of it.
The way it relates to Comm 160 is the most interesting way. In almost all circumstances it is about the delivery of the humor. It is about the way that the guests can impose their comedic value on current events and make it not such a 'dull' subject. The way they communicate with each other as well adds to the value of the comedy too. These shows don't seem so common over here. Maybe with Trump as president something will kickstart...