Colonizing debate

Team 1
Colonization is over
It's not a personal matter
Benefits for Africa. Development, railroads, global stimulus
Africa became globalized. People were healthier and there was a population increase
Advanced irrigation, communication, and transportation,
Foreign countries wanted Africans to succeed so they paid them, gave them goods and medical treatment.
Abolished sacrificing and cannibalism, which increased life

Colonizers brought resources to colonized countries.
GNP is rising

What are the main arguments presented by Team 2?
Colonizer forced colonized to trade
They weren't equal
Cultural loss
Didn't want to help colonized, wanted the "trophy"
Isn't morally right. The colonized didn't want to be colonized and it destroys their way of life
Leads to genocide usually.
Ireland did have a good outcome.

Colonizers are just using the colonized for their benefit.
They are reducing the cultural value of the artifacts when they take them away from their country
The African people aren't of western ideals so they like their situation.


Crossfire:
J: colonized is morally right if it helps people enough. Tribes have a lot of limits. Are the benefits outweighing the cultural loss
S: no the tribe feels civilized. Why should they have to change? Do you know where the artifacts from Nigeria are being held? Great Britain in museums with captions about how they conquered them.

Crossfire two:
A: why does GDP matter?
S: it shows how the country is doing economically
A: personally seen british museum and artifacts displayed as trophies

Summary
Team 1:
Colonization helped Nigerians get to where they are today
Gave them resources
Gave them equality

Team 2:
Why does why we're here now matter
Colonizers weren't there to help colonized, they wanted to take the resources from themselves.
It's not safe in Nigeria

Grand crossfire:
Sloan: how would you say Nigeria is doing better
Shiraz: GDP. Economic growth is rising.
Alex: world bank was founded in the western country
John: there are Africans working there
Alex: doesn't matter
John: do you think Africans should be able to govern themselves.
Alex: yes they have the right. Everyone has the right to govern themselves.

Final focus:
Team 1:
Without colonization, we would still be hunter gatherers
Developed the colonies
Both started and abolished slavery
Post colonial success is obvious because British introduced recourses.
Team 2:
There is no good reason as to why they didn't reduce the cultural value or exploit them

Who won the debate? Why?
If the first part,I kind of feel like you can't beat the morality of destroying another culture's civilization, but I do feel like john argued his case better than Sloan.
In the second part, I feel like Alex's had more facts as well as talked about the morals. Shiraz talked about the development benefits, and I think he argued well. I think that Alex used the crossfire to his advantage more than Shiraz did.
In the grand crossfire, I feel like team two argued there points better.
In the end, I think that team two won because they pointed out how the culture was lost and didn't develop them for the better.

Things Fall Apart 20-22

Christianity had a huge impact on the Umuofia people. I think that the book is about how Okonkwo's life fell apart, and I think the missionaries had a huge impact on that. I think that in some ways, the things that the white people brought were good or at least not bad for Okonkwo's people. The snuff wasn't a bad thing, and that had to come from somewhere in the United States. However, once they tried to convert the people to Christianity, things well, things fell apart. I think it was  appealing to a lot of people, especially men without titles, because it seemed like a fresh start. Also, they wouldn't be condemmned for an accident in the same way as with the Umuofia's religion. Overall, I think that the missionaries caused  the loss of a lot of culture within Okonkwo's people

Journal 12/3/13

I am doing a mood space, so my essay will be about what I'm planning to do and Ms. Harrison will be my audience. Location 692-715 (pp. 63-65) "Okonkwo did not taste any food...Okonkwo, you have become a woman indeed." What does Okonkwo's reaction to the death of Ikemefuna say about his inner struggle with being a "real man?"

I think that the fact that Okonkwo is struggling with Ikemefuna's death shows his changing definition of what a "real man" is. In his culture, crying is associated with weakness and femininity, so he has to deal with the fact that people see him as weak. Okonkwo his afraid that the fact that he is crying and not eating in order to mourn Ikemefuna's death will be viewed as not manly and the women in his household and in general will stop listening to him. I think that this is the main, or at least one of the main struggles of the book; discovering and dealing with Okonkwo's changing definition of what it means to be a man. 

First Six chapters Things Fall Apart

In the first six chapters of Things fall apart, we meet several characters. The main character is  a wealthy man named Okonkwo. He is part of the Nugerian tribe, and is well respected after beating the Amalinze Cat when he was younger. He hates his father, Unoka, who Okonkwo considers weak because he is debt and unsuccessful. Ikemefuna was this 15 year old who moves in with Okonkwo. I would say the Okonkwo is the protagonist and that his goal is to be respected and a better father which I think Ikemefuna will help him with. I think that Okonkwo's mindset that only successful people are worth his time will cause him problems with his community.

MFAH Response

The art piece that I picked was a Greek vase that depicted what looked like four people fighting. I picked this piece because it had the biggest effect on me. Whenever I see Greek vases like that, I am immediately reminded of the Disney movie Hercules. Seeing this case made me very nostalgic about the time I lived in Philadelphia and was obsessed with that movie. My sister and I spent hours memorizing all of the songs. It was kind of nice to remember all of the times I had with my sister involving Hercules.

The Hollow Man

I think that he used the line from Heart of Darkness. I don't really think that these poems are like heart of darkness. It's written from an american view, which makes it more like Africa. It's actually kind of the opposite of Heart of Darkness because it's written from the colonized point of view. The only similar thing to Heart of Darkness is that it completely ignore's black people. As for Black Man's burden, I think that it was kind of unnecessary to make this poem. In the little explanation before the poem it talks about how it wasn't a good piece of poetry but I think it's unnecessary to respond to it like that. Obviously there are some people who think it's a good poem. It's just a matter of opinion.  

Response to Poems

I don't really think that these poems are like heart of darkness. It's written from an american view, which makes it more like Africa. It's actually kind of the opposite of Heart of Darkness because it's written from the colonized point of view. The only similar thing to Heart of Darkness is that it completely ignore's black people. As for Black Man's burden, I think that it was kind of unnecessary to make this poem. In the little explanation before the poem it talks about how it wasn't a good piece of poetry but I think it's unnecessary to respond to it like that. Obviously there are some people who think it's a good poem. It's just a matter of opinion.  

Heart of Darkness Pages 78-90

Conrad uses the Congo river and the areas around it to enhance the idea of dark versus light. On page 80, he says " I looked around, and I don't know why, but I assure you that never, never before, did this land, this jungle, the very arch of this blazing sky, appear to me so hopeless and so dark..." The Russian man who came aboard the ship uses the setting to contrast to this enlightenment when listening to Mr. Kurtz. Another example of using setting to symbolize the aspects of colonialism is on page 82 when the Russian man is describing what the forest like while waiting for Mr. Kurtz to come back from his ivory hunts and he says "the woods were unmoved, like a mask-- heavy, like the closed doors of a prison..." Again, everything that describes Africa sounds very dark and savage, which is what Europeans thought of Africa during the colonizing period. Another example is on page 83 when he describes the ruined house with the shrunken heads used as ornaments. I think that this really reinforces the general European population's idea at the time that Africa was a savage place, which goes along with the dark and ominous mood.

Reflections on Dr. Jarra and HoD Part 2

I thought that going to Dr. Jarra was really interesting. It was cool how he doesn't actually go to Africa to get the art. It's like this chain. There are people who go into Africa to get the art, then there are people who buy it from them, and people like Dr. Jarra buy it from them and then sell it to people here. I found out that he has been collecting and selling art for 35 years, which is a long time. It was really cool that he got started by being asked to drive a guy around who was selling this art and making a lot of money. Also, I thought it was really cool that he knows the story behind each piece of art. There are so many pieces with so many stories, and he knows which story goes for which piece, which I think is really impressive.
In heart of darkness, Conrad uses a light and dark a lot in the book. Almost everything about Africa is considered dark and everything european is considered light. There's this one part on page 45 that is talking about the land and the Congo river, and it is described as treacherous, death, evil, and "the profound darkness of it's heart." I think he uses light and dark to symbolize the general thoughts of places in the world at the time. Africa was where the savages were, so people described it as dark and hopeless. Europe was where everyone wanted to be, so it was described as light and profound.

Heart Of Darkness Part 1

I think that we have really only met one main character, and that would be Charlie Marlow. Charlie is a sailor who is described as having a sunken cheeks, a yellow complexion,  and an ascetic aspect. My guess is that he is in this 30s maybe 40s. He talks about going to Africa as a seaman, but he doesn't speak completely highly of European colonialism and Europeans in general. He is in Africa and told that they are savages and criminals, but he keeps having doubts about it from his observations. I would say that he is probably the protagonist. The story so far is about his journeys in Africa, so I think that Mr. Kurtz is probably going to be the antagonist because even though we haven't really me him. However, I think that it may be that there isn't really a antagonist that is a person. It's almost like the antagonist is Marlow's mind. His doubts about what Europeans are doing seems like it's going to be an internal struggle throughout the book, so I think that this book is man v. self rather than his being against someone. There's the major conflict of right and wrong when it comes to European expansion, which I think is going to be an overarching theme in the book.

Heart of Darkness Introduction

In class today we talked about European Colonialism. I actually find this time period pretty interesting, so I am excited about reading this book. I learned the difference between colonialism, which is where the mother country actually has people settling there, and imperialism, which is where  the country just kind of takes over but doesn't have people living there. I also learned about Marxism and Leninism as economic theories as to why colonialism happened. These economic theories say that colonialism and imperialism happened because European countries wanted to export their economic problems to other countries. Companies would make their products, but after a while the market would become saturated because everyone would have the product. So it was good to colonize other places because companies would have a new market to sell too. Another thing that I learned is how recently colonialism ended. I figured that it was a long time ago, but really it just ended in the 1950s-1960s.
I also read the introduction to Heart of Darkness. Before I had read the introduction, I was not that excited to read the book. I didn't really know anything about what it would be about. After reading about Joseph Conrad and how Heart of Darkness came to be, I am a lot more interested. I found out that he was interested in Africa all his life. As a child he frequently studies maps of Africa and was constantly reading and listening to stories of Africa. But that changed in 1890 while he was a seaman. I didn't know that he had another job before he was a writer that didn't really have anything to do with writing. I thought that maybe he was a journalist or something and that's why he went to Africa. I thought that it was really cool that he realized what was going on was bad. He signed a long-term contract with the Belgian government to "Bring 'light' to the 'dark' continent," but he recognized that he wasn't actually doing this philanthropic thing and decided he didn't want to do it anymore. I think that, sadly, a lot of people wouldn't question the moral behind what they were being paid to do. They would be in it for the money and not care about the morality of it.

Reflections on Oral History Project

I think that my favorite part of the Oral History Project was the actual interviewing part. It was really fun to go to the Chocolate Bar and interviewing Gilbert Johnson there because we could look around us and see exactly what he was talking about. We wouldn't of been able to do that if we had interviewed him at his home. I think that my least favorite part of the project was doing the research beforehand because I feel like I wasn't as interested in the project since I didn't know Gilbert Johnson.
Once we met him and did the interview it was a lot more interesting. I think that if I could change anything about the project it would be how we structured the splitting up the transcriptions because I feel like it was complicated waiting for everyone's transcriptions. I don't really have that much of an opinion on whether we do an oral history project again. It was fun, but it wouldn't be sad if we didn't do it again.

Reflections on Transcribing

Personally, I find the transcription process fairly interesting. I think part of it is that I just like writing things, even if it's not creative. But part of it at least is interesting because you get to hear the details of what my interviewee was saying. I'm a very detail-oriented person, so when it's my job to listen to the details and make sure everything is perfect, it's pretty awesome. I don't think I heard anything that I didn't notice hearing during the actual interview. I can usually listen pretty well to details. I think that I did enjoy subscribing, but at the same time, I wouldn't of cared if we hadn't done it. Since we did do it, I enjoyed the process and am kind of looking forward to editing, but if we had just done the interview and then not transcribed it, I wouldn't of been disappointed. I think that transcribing is easier for me than it is for other people. I can go through it pretty quickly compared to other people, and I don't usually have a lot of errors. So that probably contributes to why I enjoyed it.

Reflections on my Interview

Sloan, Mikayla and I interviewed Gilbert Johnson, who founded the Chocolate Bar. I knew he moved to Houston to become an artist and that after a year he opened the Chocolate bar, but I didn't really know much else. I was really interested in why he stopped being an artist, what inspired him to come up with ideas for things to sell, and how being an artist effects how he runs his business. Mr. Johnson was a really cool person. He grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, where he worked at a chocolate shop in high school and fell in love with it. He opened PeterBrooke Chocolatier in Jacksonville, Florida with his friend Phyllis after high school. He didn't like Florida though, so he moved to Austin to become a painter, but ended up liking Houston better so he settled down there. He didn't really want to be a starving artist, and he missed the chocolate business so he opened The Chocolate Bar. He said that being overwhelmed by the business aspect of it, like ordering and dealing with employees and stuff like that, helps open his creative side. I thought that was really cool that he needed non creative things to do creative things. As for coming up with things to sell, he has dreams. He talked about how in his dreams he goes into someone else's store and sees something that he thinks he could make better or change so it's his own. Then, when he wakes up, he tries to figure out how he could make whatever it was he saw in his dream. That's the way he comes up with ideas for art pieces; he dreams about going to an art gallery and seeing a piece of art with his name on it. Then, when he wakes up, he tries to make that art piece. I thought this was a really interesting way to think of ideas. I've never heard of anyone doing that, so that was pretty unique.

Maybe Funny Story

I have had many funny experiences in my life, but it seems to me that most of them are kind of you had to be there things. For example, last weekend I went with my dad and my sister down to Galveston to visit my grandmother. We went to Pleasure Pier because in the fall there's practically no one there. There's this one ride called the Iron Shark that my sister and I wanted to ride, so we dragged my dad and grandmother with us. The moment the safety bar went down, my grandmother started saying "Oh dear god, why?" The whole time we were on the ride she was screaming things like "This was a mistake!" and "What idiot built this!" The rest of us thought it was the funniest thing ever and laughed for like ten minutes, but it doesn't seem nearly as funny as it does if you were there. They took a picture of us on the ride and I think it makes it even more funny. My sister and I are laughing hysterically and my dad is screaming and my grandmother has her mouth open and appears to be shouting things.

5 interview Questions Journal

1. What was it like to move to Houston?
2. How and why did become interested in opening a chocolate shop?
3. Do you think that being an artist has effected the way you run the Chocolate Bar?
4. What was it like growing up in ____?
5. How was the community effected your business?

I think that all of these questions are really important because they should let Mr. Johnson talk about his personal experiences growing up and then moving to Houston, and then why and how the things around him have affected his business. I think the growing up question is important because how we grew up effects how we are as adults and effects everything we do for the rest of our lives. The other questions ask Mr. Johnson about how who he his and his surrounding have effected his business, which I think is the main idea of the interview.

This American Life Journal

I chose to read and listen to the Valentine's Day 2013 This American Life. I noticed that the questions that the interviewer asked that worked the best were open-ended questions. And they were questions that the interviewee was interested in, which meant that the interviewer, Ira Glass, did a lot of research on his subjects before interviewing them. In the first interview, he starts out by having David Kestenbaum, the interviewee, do math to figure out the likelyhood of him finding a girlfriend in Boston where he lives. I think this was a really smart thing to do. It got him more comfortable with Mr. Glass because they were doing math, which as a physicist, he has to enjoy somewhat, and they were doing math to figure out what the likelihood of him finding a girlfriend in Boston was. He was obviously interested in finding out the answer because the whole series of interviews were about love and relationships and he wouldn't of done the interview if he hadn't wanted to. The questions he asked were really just to move the subject along or to get them on track. Most of them seemed eager to talk, so he really just had to prod them with a "what happened?" or ask them to clarify something every once in a while. In general, I think that love and relationships are a topic that mostly people can talk a lot about without ever really going into specifics. Mr. Glass asked just the right questions to get her interviewees to tell their personal stories.

Journal #2 10/15

I would say that my spine would be responsibility. I always feel like I am responsible for everything and everyone around. I think this comes from when I was very little and had to take care of my little sister. I potty trained by sister when I was 5 because my dad was working and my mom went back to school. When my parents got divorced, I would sometimes make dinner for my sister and then my mom would put her to sleep. With my new siblings, I definitely have a lot of responsibility when it comes to taking care of them. Even with my friends, I feel like I'm responsible for me. I think that it makes me see the risks in situations more than other people, especially people my age.

Journal Entry 10/10

I thought that Debbie Harwell was really interesting to listen to. As someone who's family has lived in Houston for several generations, a lot of the things she mentioned were things that my grandmother and my great-grandmother have told me about before. I thought it was really cool how proud she was of Houston history and how invested she was in learning more about it. She was so excited about the Astrodome it made me really excited about it too. I hadn't known that it was the first dome stadium in the country before listening to her speak. The main reason I found her so interesting was that she was so passionate about Houston history. She also explained the streetcars in Houston in a way that made more sense to me. I didn't really understand why the first streetcar didn't work until she showed us the map of Houston at the time and how far away McKinney was from the actual center of trade and business. The main thing I learned from Ms. Harwell was to be interested in what you are doing so you can enjoy it.

RAWRRR

I AM A DINOSAUR HERE ME RAWR