For this painting, my focus goes straight towards the young girl and the record player. As the screen was turned on to look at the picture, my eye instantly turned to those two items as they are the only two objects in the area with any form of bright coloring put on them. The artist may have decided to use technique in order to differentiate from what is important for the viewers and what is there to simply fill space. While scanning the work, I noticed that there are owls flying around the girl as she is standing in an empty home. From using context clues, I can see that she is dreaming. Looking for a new reality, away from the one around her. When the artist was putting this picture together, having the birds fly around her with their wings soaring high was an opportunity for the audience to have an understanding of what the message was the he was trying to present to his crowd. She gazes out into the night sky, pondering what could be of life and all that is around her.

For many young black girls growing up around different parts of the United States, there may have been a point in their adolescents where they questioned their beauty. Because of the standards around what has been classified as beautiful in society, fare skin, blond hair, and blue eyes, they often find themselves thinking that they lack the characteristics of beauty. The book, The Bluest Eye, takes on this theme in many varying stories told on the perspective of males and females throughout. Towards the end of the novel, the author writes that beauty ‘was something one could do.’ Quickly, I was able to analyze the phrase and see that the author wanted to give readers the message that true beauty comes from within. A person with a thoughtful personality and a natural caring soul should by far be considered more beautiful than someone with simply a pretty face. One can not be given the right to call themselves ‘beautiful’ if they do not have the soul to match. I have many times tried to repeat this message to myself as again, like many young ethnic girls living in America, I did not see myself matching the societal standards created centuries ago. For the author herself, this message could be meaning something more to as as there is a chance she felt and shared the same viewpoint as myself and millions of other little brown-skinned, kinky haired girls. To me and the writer alike, being beautiful should be classified as a characteristics rather than be used to described the physical attributes of a person. There are individuals in society who posses the most gorgeous lock and bright, glistening eyes, but have the ugliest souls to match. Having a hateful, judgemental attitude can have the ability to take some of the greatest ’10’s’ and knock them down to become a ‘3’. I have also come across others who may not have the best sense of fashion or chose to not wear makeup, but have the kindest souls and will go the ends of the earth for their friends and family and that, in turn, makes them a ’10’.

In the novel, the readers meet a new character, Cholly, who grows up through some very difficult situations and experiences that causes a lot of self-reflection upon himself. As a nine-day old infant, he is abandoned by his mother when she wraps the baby up in newspapers and drops him off at a nearby railroad. Her aunt sees what the mother is doing and instantly becomes upset and runs after the child and scolds her mother. After that experience, Aunt Jimmy, Cholly’s mother’s aunt, takes the baby in and raises him from that point on. From the very beginning, of the memories that he recollects, he has always felt as though no one cared about him. Hearing about his birth story was the start of an emotional journey for the young, growing Cholly that the the audiences learns about. He is growing up trying to figure out why everyone treats him the way that they all do. There is even a questionable moment of loyalty for his guardian, Aunt Jimmy. When she passes away, he tells himself the only way that he can feel like a true man and have the opportunity to experience true love is if he runs away from his new home living with his uncle and search for his birth father. Building a relationship with the one person that he has never seen or herd of is all he feels that he needs to get that feeling he has been yearning for since is earliest thoughts as a child. Through all of the trails that he has gone through growing up, as an adolescent, he was always on the mission of fitting in, trying to gain a sense of belonging in any crowd of peers he was involved in. That can be seen as helping him to shape the person that he ends up becoming in his adult years as he goes on the journey to reunite with his father in hopes of attaining the love he is missing and the purpose for his life.

After reading these few pages in The Bluest Eye, I was able to identify the whiskey as the most important symbol for this chapter. In the beginning when Freida is touched inappropriately by a man, she becomes distraught and says that she is ‘ruined’ because those were the words she has heard from her mother about other girls and women in the neighborhood. When Claudia finds her sister all distraught, she realizes that they now have to go out and find a way to get whiskey in order to ‘preserve her youth’ after the incident. It becomes a huge mission for the girls and walk all around the city in order to find someone with or get someone to purchase a bottle for them. The two end up going to a friend’s house because they both know she is an alcoholic and can get the whisky from her with no problem. It turns out that the friend is not at her home and they have to travel even further. One of the girls suggest that they should just go home but the sister says that getting that bottle is too important, no matter how much trouble they are going to get in. Having whiskey was seen as the saving grace for Freida and the two went to grave lengths to search for it. Though the whiskey was brought up in this one portion of the story, I felt as though the two girls were in search of the alcohol to finally make themselves beautiful in the eyes of their peers.

In this episode of Black Mirror, the audience is introduced to a doctor who is seen having trouble with patience’s at his hospital and because of that, he has a high mortality rate due to the patience’s not surviving. To help with that, the owner of the museum came up with a device to help the doctor feel the pain of others to know how to help them heal. The doctor soon uses the device for his own pleasure and ends up murdering someone in order get satisfaction for his sexual needs. Just like that doctor, the museum owner has come up with many other devices that for his own satisfaction as well. In Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye’, the readers read about a group of prostitutes that did not care about anyone and would say belt out racists and sexist remarks. Those people in the novel were only looking for a way to get by in life and earn some extra cash. The owner created those inventions for himself in order to get off by his sick fantasies. Towards the end of the episode, we find out the owner’s true intentions as the visitor exposes his true colors and we learn about past visitors who come to see her dad who is trapped in one of his inventions and inflict pain on him because of his skin color and the crime he has been associated with, but was found not guilty of. The daughter of the ‘captured’ man soon becomes aware that the shop is used as a holding cell for racist white men to take light in electrocuting her father and he is funded through their patronage as well.

In the poem, Toward a Portrait of the Undocumented, the author goes on a tangent of the risks and dangers that he goes through to live a normal life in a country from where he was not originally born, more than likely the United States. Throughout the passages the writers uses descriptive words and phrases, saying he vanishes in the night and becomes invisible when among the crowd of others. All of those little moments presented in the story give way to what the true symbolic items is to come towards the end. The document. To become a citizen, there is a path of tests, meetings, and background checks that people are subjected to in order to receive a simple stamp on a piece of paper. However, that imprint has broken up families across the nation, sent others who were found living here illegal to their death sentence, as there are many foreign countries that suffer from brutal gang violence and harsh dictatorship, and left those for broke and homeless. That one little stamp is the shining hope of life and freedom that some individuals dream of at night while trying to find shelter and or finding comfort through the sounds of bombs and gunshot failing in the late hours. Being in possession of such a cherished item has been able to keep those alive who have been blessed enough to receive it. Americans often bypass the, what seems as, luxury that they are granted if born here and often rant on about how big their problems may seem when sadly there are others who are afraid to close their eyes to get an ounce of rest through all of the horrific turmoil. A stamp should not be used as a determinant if someone is deserving of making a better life for themselves and or their family. Sometimes, a stamp is all that some need to truly survive. Javier gives a quote in the end that sums the entire poem up for the audience to receive the full message, ‘Read me: I am a document without an official seal.’ Immigrants, whether here legally or illegally, are people how come here for a reason, either political, safety, or job needs. Those in that position deserve the same out respect and protection as those who are full citizens of this country. Because they are undocumented, does not make them unimportant.

In the text, Edison, New Jersey, the author introduces us to two characters, Wayne and his coworker who are two delivery drivers for a store that sells an array of items. The two men are usually out, driving around different cities installing cabinets, tables, or other household furniture. Though the readers are able to get a look inside the life of Wayne, we hear most often from his coworker who’s name is not mentioned at all int he passages. Viewers are quickly able to learn who the story tellers is through Junot Diaz’s choice of words, like me, my, I, and other as people following along throughout the story. You are entered into his world as he navigates though society. As the story goes on, you begin to learn more about who this person is as he goes through his morning routine with you, are introduced to family member s and his girlfriend at the time. By doing this, Diaz is able to still keep the integrity of the protagonist’s identity but still can clearly distinguish who they want the readers to establish a relationship with as the journey continues on for the two friends. The anonymous navigator brings us int his work life and quickly begins to talk about the high and lows of the daily operations and also where his mental headspace is at in the present. He validates his presence to those and takes them along as he and Wayne complete tasks assigned to them by their boss and is able to incorporates humor in the process

In the story, the main character, Dean, can be see having a ‘Person Vs. Self’ form of conflict. Though he is excited to join Percy’s plan to take over Ray’s land for monetary compensation, he battles with himself to see if he is making the right choice. As Dean and Ray hang out more and start to build a more intimate relationship, he wonders can he go through with the plan because of the emotional pain it would cause Ray. He would try to say hurtle things, like racial slurs, to help validate his actions, but Dean could never get the words out as it would hurt him much more than it would hurt Ray. While laying together in bed, he even talk to himself, getting a sense of what has become of the ‘relationship’ and asks himself a question to reassure himself to make sure he is still going only for the money promised. Though Dean comes into troubles with Percy that gives eludes to the idea of a ‘Person Vs. Person’ writing style, but throughout the passage, it is Dean himself who he is at war with. He worries about his financial hardships due to his broken car and the stacks of medical bills accumulated by his mother, but he is still on the fence if this choice was the best one to make.

Growing up, I have experienced some of the sort of racism towards family members and myself. Because of that, I have become aware of the ugly side of racism and my views of life have have been completely changed. From that one incident, I am now sure of all the stories that my elders have told me about being called racial slurs and how my parents were followed in grocery stores due to the fact that owners thought they would steal goods. I have been subjected to the ugly part of the ‘American Life’ that others will never have to go through, and now I tend to look at things through a lens. After being called a monkey, I now realize that it is not a simple painting. Through the discrimination, I do not see a child, I see a slave catering to their owners. I see a child who’s innocence is gone. I am looking at true American history. This is my history. From being told as a growing adolescent that my hair is ‘nappy’, I see a poor, disheveled individual surrounded by well groomed adults. I am looking at my younger self as she is wallowing in self pity from her surrounding peers.