Its a great big beautiful tomorrow... if I can figure out what I'm supposed to put in my junior theme!

AHHHHHHHHHHH
I am trying to write out my body paragraphs for junior theme and I have hit a wall. Most of the time I write papers, I can't figure out what to write about, but luckily I don't have that problem this paper. Unfortunately, I have WAY TOO MUCH TO WRITE ABOUT! At the beginning of the year we kept talking about how people who write textbooks have to make decisions about what to put in and leave out of heir books. I never thought it was that hard of a decision to be honest, just put in the most interesting stuff and leave the rest out. But what if everything is interesting????? To me, all of the stuff I'm learning about is more exciting than the last, I can't figure out what shouldn't be in the paper!

And the shot heard round the world was the start of the revolution

On Saturday, I officially joined the B'hai faith after almost a year of research. On Sunday, I went to my first devotion at someone's house. While I was there I met so many different people, including a Black woman who had lived in my town for 35 years. We began talking about prejudice and I brought up our discussions in AIS about the use of the N word in Huck Finn, when she told me that they took it off the shelves at New Trier while her children were in school there. I then said that the book could only be taught in AIS classes because of a letter sent by concerned parents a while ago. The woman hosting the devotion and the woman I was talking to look at me and said "We fought the school board because of that book, we wrote that letter".

They went on to explain to me why they sent it. Their children, who were both black students who attended New Trier, had been apart of classes who read Huck Finn. After students in those classes had read the book, they began using the N word when addressing the black students. Their kids came home hurt and degraded day after day. They felt that they had to remove this book to protect their children from harmful words and future black students from hearing the same words.

When we had first read the letter, I assumed that these parents were bored, white Glencoe parents who wanted to take a stand against something, I couldn't believe that anyone at New Trier would really feel like they were verbally abused by racist language because I just assume that New Trier students are intelligent and kind at heart. I guess I was just very naive.

Both these women are highly educated, kind women who were just concerned for their family. When I told them we still read the letter and examine their points they were so thrilled because they felt like their voices were still being heard.

It's a small world after all...

Junior Theme: All the birds sing words and the flowers bloom

I've been a big fan of watching documentaries as resources for Junior Theme, and this last one I saw was fantastic. It was called The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story, and it chronicled the lives of the brothers who wrote the music for Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book, Winnie the Pooh, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, as well as the soundtracks for famous Disney rides such as "It's a Small World", "The Enchanted Tiki Room", and the "Carousel of Progress".

Before watching this documentary, I had really no idea of their personal relationship. I figured that since these guys worked together and were brothers, that they just got along great. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, they kept their families completely separate. For example, when Robert and Dick Sherman's parents died, they held 2 separate wakes at each of their houses and once guests entered their chosen house, they could not leave and attend the other party.

I find it interesting that they were portrayed as loving brothers in the media while they were dealing with this frustration with one another. I'm definitely going to address how they kept up appearances until Disney no longer found them useful then they moved to separate countries and hadn't spoken until the broadway opening of Mary Poppins.

The title of this post is from "The Enchanted Tiki Room" theme song. It's awesome, take that record for a spin ;)

Junior Theme Post! WAKA FLOCKA (Yeah chloe directorrrrrrr)

Also this is a combo post, please look at "Give up the funk" for my blog review

I am researching the Disney corporation as apart of my junior theme. On Suday when I was sick, I watched a great documentary about Disney's animation practices in the mid 80's in early 90's, called Waking Sleeping Beauty. I found it super interesting that so many of these films I love so much we're kind of cast aside and thought of as lame when they were first being produced. For example, one of my favorite movies (and subsequently favorite disney channel tv shows) is The Little Mermaid, and during the first pitch of this movie, it wasn't even supposed to be a musical! CRAY CRAY. Its interesting to see how much things can change through a long process, like junior theme!

Give Up The Funk

Today was my first day I could take sometime to watch TV this week so I turned on VH1and watch the 100 Greatest Artists of All-Time countdown. Most of these countdowns have the same artists: Stones, Beatles, Zeppelin, and Michael Jackson, but no one exciting or new to a list and this one seemed the same way. Then came number 38. Sly & The Family Stone was a funk band from the late 60's who challenged every aspect of mainstream culture at the time. Not only were their lyrics a call for social action during the civil rights movement, they really pushed the envelope and showed what the future could bring for music. They had black and white musicians playing this intense funk fusion music calling for a change of the American social structure.

Their first number-one hit was "Everyday People"

They changed their sound from funky funk to a more commercial pop funk to appeal to the masses. This song coined the phrase "different strokes for different folks", which became a phrase of empowerment in 1969. This band really tried to change to world they were living in one song at a time.

We've been talking so much about the civil rights movement and how it was a grass-roots movement and this song attests to the fact that "Everyday People" can change things.

Sly and The Family Stone paved the way for so many integrated bands like Alice in Chains, Rage Against the Machine, Prince and the Revolution, and the new generation of music listeners need to be introduced to this band.

(And for reference, Give Up the Funk is a Parliament Funkadelic song which owns)

I Can't Give No Satisfaction

On the Grammy's last sunday, Sir Mick Jagger sang a tribute to the late Solomon Burke. When I was watching this, the only thing that struck me was the fact it was the first time Mick Jagger had ever performed on the Grammy stage, but DocOc brought up another side to this that intrigued me. He found it interesting that the man paying tribute to this great African-American artist was a British white man. But to me, this wasn't strange. Although the Rolling Stones are a british based band, everything from their sound to even their name are deeply rooted in American soul and rock. Their band name came from a Muddy Waters song, and they've been so heavily influenced by American blues and rock, I feel that Mick Jagger was a great person to pay tribute to Solomon Burke.

I do see how a white man paying tribute to a black man can seem to be making the world more vanilla but I think that the Grammy Academy made a good decision to enlist the help of Mick Jagger. Many people who watched the Grammy's this year had no idea what Lady Gaga was wearing let alone who Solomon Burke was, and by having one of the biggest rock stars from one of the greatest bands of all time introduce his music to a new generation of fans (who sorely need it may I add), then it is their responsibility to share this mans talent. If it has to be through a brit, then so be it. Any vehicle to help a man continue to give his greatest gift seems worth it to me, black or white.

What makes you different...

We've been talking a lot about race these past few weeks, and I've wanted to make an insightful blog post about my interactions in interesting race situations in that time. I wracked my brain, looked through pictures to jog my memory and... nothing. I could not remember a time in my young life in which I was in a place where someone's race mattered. My dads best friend and my pseudo-uncle Leon is black, my best friend in the universe is Peruvian, I grew up in a heavily jewish town, and I am a member of the B'hai Temple in Wilmette. I guess its a little weird that I've never been in a situation I can remember where race mattered, and it is not even that my whole life has been sheltered. My dad worked as a Dominick's security guard all around Chicago when I was growing up so I was exposed to different races of people from a young age. When Barack Obama was running for president, I was honestly annoyed by how much people brought up his race and how he would be the first black president. To me, that didn't matter. He was an intelligent man and a very engaging speaker and I didn't know why that was being over shadowed by his race or that it was some how a "surprise" that he could be as polished or "clean" according to Joe Biden. I had known black men who were very smart and incredibly articulate and I didn't know how that could be surprising...

This may simply be me babbling about my lack of racial tension in my life and how I've had a vanilla life, but I feel like I haven't. I feel like no matter what my exposure has been or will ever be, I'm not going to see race as a class marker or anything other that genetic code. I mean, if there was something about me that I couldn't control that people judged me on, I'd just want it to stop and feel like an equal, with equal opportunities to prosper and fail as the next person, but my only genetic oddity is that I am a 6 foot tall girl from Glencoe so maybe I can't really know what I would do in that situation but I would hope that is what I would do...

maybe this doesn't make sense, but I just wanted to explain my frustration with not being able to connect class discussions to my life in interesting blog fashion.