A few weeks back I was flipping through the channels and came across "The Daily 10" on E!. Now normally I do not watch anything on E! (except maybe "The Soup" or a good movie) but the story they were talking about caught my eye. Gabourey Sidibie, the star of Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire, recently was on the cover of the magazine Elle. In her photo (Shown above), her skin was obviously lightened (full story is HERE). We talked at length this week about racism and discrimination, and I found the lightening on her skin to be completely wrong. It is sad to think that even today, in 2010, people still think that its ok to "fix" a person's skin color.
I feel like by changing Gabourey's skin color, this magazine sent another message too. When I looked at this, I felt like they were trying to change things about Gabourey because they just didn't like her. That every magazine and person is only looking for perfection and if they want to fix things, they don't care about how they make other people feel. I began to think that if I were in her position, I would feel so self-concious that someone tried to change something about me that is so apart of who I am. She is a beautiful woman and it is not fair for the media to send the message that people who are different aren't beautiful and that changing them is ok.
A few months back, Shirley Sherrod was forced to resign by the Obama Administration from her post as Rural Agriculture Director of the state of Georgia for her allegedly racist comments in a speech she gave (Full story HERE) that were taken out of context by a right-wing blogger. As we've been talking about in class, words are chosen very carefully in all parts of media be it textbooks, speeches, or even this blog. Everything flows together to make a bigger, even sometimes subliminal, message. Ms. Sherrod's point about previously being racist towards white farmers was to show how much she had grown in her position and as a person, not that she was still the same person with the same bias she had 20 years ago (Full video can be seen HERE). The person who cut down the video wanted to make a point about racism not just being whites against blacks, but also blacks agains whites.
I feel that when words are taken out of context, almost anything can be said. For example I could say in one part of my blog that "I love the new Black Keys album", and in another say "It is awful when people steal things", and anyone with MLA citation knowledge could cut up my words up into "I love...when people steal things"(Chlo Scho's Blog). I think it is really hard to say things that can't be construed incorrectly when taken out of context, so does that put the burden of keeping the whole truth to a reporter or a blogger? Bias is bias and I believe no matter where you get your information, each reporter has control over what parts of the full story you get and they can omit the biggest truths.
I just updated my iTunes to iTunes 10. Usually, these updates aren't that big of a deal, a little formatting change here or fixing a few bugs there, but when iTunes relaunched I was completely thrown for a loop. There was a new icon, a new color scheme, and newest of all, a social networking site built into iTunes called Ping. This allows people to interact on the iTunes platform. All comments made when reviewing albums will now be tagged with your profile and name if you so choose. You can follow your favorite artists and find out what your friends are listening to. We've been talking in AS about what technology has done for us and how it can aid in our education and life (e.g. this blog), but a part of me wonders if it's all too much. What happened to asking for a mixed cd (or mixed tape for us analog fans) from a friend? Or asking someone "Hey, who are you really into right now?" or searching the liner notes of your favorite bands CD (or record, again for the analog fans among us) to see who their favorite bands are? Why do we have to use the internet?
I think it sort of handicaps us from making a real connection. Sure you can find people from all over the world who happen to like all the same bands you do in the exact same order and also love the same comic you do, but when push comes to shove how beneficial is that? You have just spent time talking to this person you will probably never meet and who could seriously be ANYBODY when you could have been listening to music with your friends or finding a new band from Pitchfork or even doing your homework. Maybe I'm among the minority who don't find an online life too enticing, but I feel like establishing a real connection with people is more important than finding someone who likes Fall Out Boy as much as you do, or listening to every band Pete Wentz likes. I think that maybe we are so dependent on an online social network that we forget about the one that is most important. But maybe we can find a balance, maybe there is something I'm missing.
Last week in AIS we were talking about Into The Wild and Chris's journey and what he hoped to accomplish through his travels. I couldn't help but think, would this truly make him happy? Would living alone among the wild have fed every need he had? Then I got to thinking about what really makes people happy. Does fulfilling every desire you have make you happy? What influences it? I was listening to NPR the other day and on Morning Edition they had a piece on the hunt for happiness in China and what makes the Chinese some of the most unhappy people in the world (according to the book China is Unhappy by Song Qiang) and what they are trying to do to become happier.
What was alarming to me from this article was the fact that the unhappiness in China stems from things I take for granted on a daily basis, like having adequate doctors and a government I can (somewhat) trust to look out for the best interest of the country. It's hard to believe that so much of what I just assume will be there for me like healthcare, can radically improve the happiness of a town in China.
So when we have all that we need, what can truly make us happy? Giving it up like Chris did, or something else?
