Late Post Week 15 April 21

While I am not a huge activist in saving the environment, I think it's important that we try to do so. I have done many beach clean-ups over the years, I recycle as much as I can, and I conserve water...most days.  I really got a new perspective on saving the environment after I read the blurb about Rachel Carson on pages 1166-1167. Rachel Carson wrote a book called "Silent Spring," which is about killing the environment. She got the idea to write the book after her friend told her a bunch of birds died after she sprayed a mosquito control. In her book, Carson touched on the data of the impact of pesticides on, not only natural ecosystems, but also on human health. Her book raised quite a controversy within the chemical companies, but it also started a new era. The environmental movement has been going on for quite some time now and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Nowadays, we use more safer products for our produce. We also do other things, like feed our animals better meals instead of giving them steroids, and we recycle our plastics and glasses and papers. The environment is not doing so well and we need to help it become a better place. With people like Rachel Carson leading the way, we have to do our part and take action. I only takes one person to make a change.

Late Post Week 13 April 7 Readings

The pictures in the documents of the April 7th readings all depict nations who finally achieved independence after long struggles. Africa achieved independence led by the African National Congress. The poster has many bright colors, like the flag, which stand for population (black), rich land (green), and gold that provided the country's wealth (yellow). The poster shows of a hang holding the flag, as a sign of freedom and proudness. Vietnam's struggle against the American military stopped in 1975. Their poster shows of a man in a uniform holding a bouquet of flowers high in the air. In the background, a plane on fire is going down, but the man is still smiling. In this poster, there are not as many stand-out colors like the African one, but it is just as nicely colored. The independence of Israel was in 1948. Their poster shows a wide, vast, empty land and some grapes on the side. The poster is full of wonderful colors. The emptiness of the poster--no people are in it-- is probably depicting that they are now free of impostors in their land. The last poster is depicting Arabian independence from Palestine. This poster shows a man walking under what must be a sun with an axe in his hand. This poster is not colorful; it is all black and white. It does not stand out very well against the others. I like the African one best because it really shows the happiness of the people who are now independent. You can see a lot of people in the background holding up flags, and maybe even some smiles on their faces. The hand in the center holding the African flag seems really strong and proud to be holding that flag. This poster shows the most happiness out of all the others and that is why I like it best.

Late Post Week 12 April 2 Reading

The one picture that pops out at me is the one of the woman doing work. First of all, it is known that not a lot of women worked  during this time. It was almost unheard of that a woman would work. Not only is this woman working, she is working with a mallet and chisel (if I am getting the names of those tools right). Basically, she is carving something. Personally, I have only seen this job done by a man. I'm not saying only men should do this job, but I have never seen a woman depicted as doing it. Not only that, but this is not just a picture. This is a poster that was hung in China for everyone to see. The caption on this document says "the liberation of women from ancient limitations and oppressions in order to mobilize them for the task of building socialism" (page 1081). It also says that "'Women Can Hold Up Half the Sky; Surely the Face of Nature Can Be Transformed.'" I think what the poster is trying to say, and trying to depict, is that women should do exactly what men do. They should be able to do anything a man can do, no matter what the task is. Women are here on earth and they need something to do, not just sit home and take care of the families. Put them to work, make the work equal and be done with it. And I agree with this! I think the Chinese communists were right in thinking that women need to be equal. Women should be treated as equals everywhere.

Late Post Week 11 March 24

I have always been interested in stories about the Holocaust, especially real-life accounts from the people who lived through it. Etty Hillesum was no exception. Even though the little blurb in our textbook was short, I became immediately attached to her. She was a brave Jewish girl living in Amsterdam during the time of WWII. She wasn't someone who was scared of what was happening around her, but rather, angry. She didn't like what was happening to people like her and the destruction of her home. Etty was friends with many people who offered to help her out and hide her, but she instead voluntarily went to the camps and eventually died (and of course, I cried when I read that). Etty's bravery to voluntarily go where everyone else was going is incredible. I admire Etty and her brave heart for going where death was almost certain. I am glad her story is one to tell.

Late Post, Week 9, March 12 Reading

One picture that really captures my attention is that on page 894. It shows to African boys from the Congo who have missing hands. They have missing hands because of them being severed from forced labor. Like I said in my previous blog post, I am very opposed to child labor, let alone forced labor. Labor in Africa included building railroads, constructing government buildings and transporting goods. All of these labors were forced and unpaid. In the Congo, people were forced to collect rubber. The people would be out in the forests for days without food. They would starve. And if they didn't find any rubber, or told the "white men" that they couldn't go on, the white men would come to their towns and kill, or chop off body parts of the residents. The forced labor was horrible for the people of the Congo. Reading stories about people getting their body parts chopped off for not doing their job "correctly" is awful and heartbreaking, but seeing a picture really puts in perspective what people really went through. The things these people went through were just completely awful.

Late Post: Week 7, Feb 19

The documents of chapter 17 show images depicting the Industrial Revolution. They show the technology that was developed during that time, such as trains and factories, but it also depicts how the people are feeling during these times. For example, there is a picture a family in train, with a little girl pointing out the window to what looks like a developed city. Samuel Smiles wrote "It brought the country nearer to the town and the town to the country..." What he means is that trains could now take people from one place to the next without having to take a horse and buggy, or even just a horse. The train was a magnificent invention because it helped people go from point A to point B and it is still around and used a lot today. One picture that really bothered me was the picture of women and children working in factories. Child labor bothers me to the core. I think it is just sick that people made children work. I understand that factory owners wanted all the working hands they could get, but did it have to be children?? It is just so wrong and I'm so glad that things have changed today.

Late Post: Week 4, Jan 29

In this chapter, we learned about religion. The Protestant Reformation was when people started to break away from the Catholic church and start their own movement. The Protestants believed in a monastic life, which gave women the opportunity to be nuns, instead of marrying. Reading the bible by yourself was another thing the Protestants believed in, which gave the opportunity for women to become literate. This was important because women didn't have a lot of opportunity for education outside of the family. Protestant ways were taken to North America by the New England Puritans. Their emphasis was mostly on education, moral purity, personal conversion, civic responsibility and little tolerance for competing expressions of the faith. Christianity was spread nearly everywhere around the world, including Spain, China, and Africa. I think it is interesting that so many people from different parts of the world can come together and share the same faith. I myself am not super religious, but if and when I do go to church, I feel a sense of community. I think it's important that something, anything, should bring people together as a common set of interests, and religion was and is one that will always be around for people to share with others around the world.

Late Post from Week 2: Jan 13

Dona Marina was a woman who was born in 1505, and was born in what is now Mexico. When her mother had another child, Dona was sold into slavery by her family. She became a slave of a Maya chieftain in Tabasco, Mexico. in 1519, when Dona was just 14 years old, Cortes landed his troops in Mexico to defeat Tabasco. Instead, negotiations were made, and twenty women were given from the Tabasco authorities to the Spanish. Dona was one of them She came to service Cortes himself. Under his rule, Dona was Cortes' interpreter, cross-cultural broker and strategist. She was also his mistress and gave him a son. When Cortes no longer needed her, he married her off to a conquistador, Juan Jaramillo. Before Dona died, she did one last conquest for Cortes, which happened to be near her home. There, she encountered her mother and half-brothers, but instead of killing them for what they had done to her, she forgave them for what they did.
I see Dona Marina as a strong woman who did what she had to do in order to survive. Her family sold her into slavery, where she could have easily been mistreated, or worse, killed. Although the article in Ways of the World doesn't say much about Dona Marina's hard times, I'm sure she had many. She was a smart girl, which probably helped her be a helper to Cortes himself. Yes, some see Dona Marina as a traitor to her peoples, but she was just doing what she had to do in order to survive. She was sold into slavery, so she had to make the most of it by working her way to the top of the slavery pole and was treated with some respect by Cortes instead of none at all.

Week 14: Religion and Global Modernity

First of all, I would like to point out how amazing I think it is that we live in this beautiful country and we all have different religious beliefs. Sometimes those beliefs are not in our favor, and it causes uprisings of other people with different beliefs to believe what they believe, but in the end, we are all still here and the majority of us are existing together, wether we believe what our neighbor believes or not. In this chapter, it talks about the different religions and how they have come to the United States. It says, on page 1155, that "Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam had long functioned as transregional cultures, spreading far beyond their places of region." That's awesome! Those three religions, and I'm sure some others, have been passed person to person and have spread and expanded from their birthplace. By the end of the 20th century, Christianity rose up to 62% of the populations of places like Asia, Africa and Latin America. This chapter also talks about "fundamentalism," which is where people were outraged by the fact that there were scientific approaches to the Bible, such as the Scientific Revolution and Darwinism. Fundamentalists tried to separate themselves from the secular world. The rest of the chapter talks more about religion all over the world and it's effect it has had on the people. I think that it is very cool that we all have different religions and that we all believe in something different. I truly believe that religion and beliefs are what make us, us. We all need something to believe in and give us hope, wether its religion or not. But in this case, I think any type of religion is important to have because it brings all different kinds of people together.

Blog Post #10: The Scramble for Africa

In Visual Source 18.4, we see the left side as the French, who dug up parts of a Muslim cemetery "'churning up piles of bones.'" They also bombed the Arab quarter of Morocco, killing many people. On the right, we have the British, who used to hunt pigeons and local villagers of Denshway. Soldiers were killed because of this. The British were so mad that their soldiers were dying that they hung several people, which we see depicted in the very edge of the right side of the picture. I think this picture is a good depiction of what happened, showing that both the British and the French murdered many people and are now toasting each other to a successful killing spree, while standing on the bones of the dead. It does bother me, though, that things like this still happen in today's world. To me, this picture is showing the French and the British all high and mighty and proud of themselves for killing off people who weren't white. People still do that today. Racism has always been a part of the world's history, and to be completely honest, I don't think it will not be part of it. It's so sad to think that some people can't accept others for who they are on the inside, not the outside. Killing because of someone's color/race has been around since the beginning of time and it's just awful to think that we haven't come very far.

Pages 827-861 Industrial Revolution

This past Wednesday, as you all know, I walked into class late, only to find that I wasn't allowed to speak (which in all honesty was in my favor because I had really bad strep throat), I wasn't allowed to use paper OR a writing utensil, and the men in the class basically controlled my every move because they got to make up the rules. I don't know if any of you saw my face, but I was basically outraged. What made it even worse was that I took a picture and put it on Facebook and every girl comment said "that sucks" but every guy comment said "HAHAHAHAHA"...... Are you kidding me? Anyway, I learned through text that we were playing a game and that women couldn't really do anything at all. The way women were treated during the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th centuries was ridiculous! I'm really not a hard-core feminist, but I do think that the way women were treated during the time of the Industrial Revolution were horrifying! "Women's roles" were to be homemakers, wives, and mothers, while the men went off to work. Sadly, today, most men think women still "belong in the kitchen" instead of out in the world world, working a real job. Yes, some women actually want to do just that, but most of us have things we want to do! Some of us don't even want to get married or have children, let alone be stuck in a house all day doing chores. The story of Ellen Johnston is about a women who had an affair and was a single mother by the age of 17. Some people thought she was a "fallen woman" (someone who gave birth outside of marriage) and they expected her to live her life hidden away from the public. Instead, she supported herself and her child by working in a textile mill. There, she found a sort of confidence that she was higher than a domestic laborer. She was proud of herself and what she had done to make a living for herself and her daughter. Women from history like Ellen Johnston are the women to look up to. She proved society wrong by showing everyone she didn't need a man to make her life complete or to support her in any way. She did it all on her own, even when people doubted her. It's shocking that women today look to celebrities like Miley Cyrus or Kim Kardashian as role models, instead of women like Ellen Johnston.

Response to the SND Article

The story of Francoise and Julie is a fantastic story. What really caught my eye was in the beginning, Francoise and Julie seemed to be friends and partners, but in the second paragraph, it says that Francoise found Julie's health repulsed her. This made me a little uncomfortable. As I kept reading, I saw that Francoise was able to accept Julie's physical and mental health. She was able to look beyond that, and find a good friend in Julie. I always try to see the best in people, and not try to judge a book by it's cover. It's hard though. We are all human and we all make judgement calls within the first minutes or even seconds of meeting someone new. But, as Francoise and Julie's story shows, if you look beyond mental and physical disabilities, then you could form great friendships with people, and I think that's really beautiful.
" That spirituality was grounded in the notion that opportunities for women should not be limited to the two options traditional at the time: sexually active marriage with the family and social responsibilities that marriage implies, or virginal monastic life detatched from the world and generally hidden behind cloister walls."I could not imagine living in a world today where we have to pick either living a life where I have to have children and a husband and "responsibilities that marriage implies" (whatever that might mean...) or be a virgin and hidden away from the world. Why would they make you choose one or the other? I just don't understand why people back in the 15th 16th 17th centuries would think that this was the way to live. Imagine if those were the rules in today's society....Are you kidding?? We would all go crazy.

Ayuba Suleiman Diallo

Ayuba Suleiman Diallo lived in West Africa in 1730. He was a Muslim. One day, his father sent Ayuba on an errand to take a lot of slaves to a location far away from his home to exchange them for paper and other goods. Paper was important for them because they needed to write passages of the Quran on them to sell. Unfortunately, things didn't go  as planned. The captain of the ship didn't want to trade the slaves for paper, so Ayuba took the slaves farther south and sold them for cattle. On the way home, Ayuba was captured and was sold as a slave to the captain that had rejected his offer from before. He was sold to a planter in the United States and worked in the tobacco fields. When he was too weak to work there, they let him work with the cattle. A man named Bluett saved Ayuba by taking him to England. Ayuba eventually made it back home to live with his wives and children. I think that Ayuba is very fortunate to have made it home. You don't really hear a lot of stories where the slave not only makes it home alive, but bearing gifts from their owners, or friends, or whoever they met on their journey away from home. I thought Ayuba's story would be a tragedy, which at the beginning it was, but it turned out to be a miracle. Ayuba was very fortunate that Bluett found him and saved him from a life of horror. I have never heard of Ayuba before and I hope to learn more about his story in the future.

All done :)