Thursday, September 29, 2016

Exploration Four from Dathan

Part One:
One of the key things that I saw through the discussion and film was how determined these people were. They saw an that something was unnatural and started a movement to change it. The first freedom ride at first seen as a failure, they were beaten and the nation saw this. But others saw that if the rides would stop, then not only would they gain no ground but they could have very well lost some. 

"You know, if the Freedom Ride had been stopped as a result of violence, I strongly felt that the future of the movement was going to be just cut short because the impression would have been given that whenever a movement starts, that all that has to be done is that you attack it with massive violence and the blacks would stop."
                                                                                                            - Diane Nash

Knowing that the same thing would most likely happen to them, they boarded buses, were beaten, did not resist and continued this process. It took a guts to board a bus knowing that they could be beaten, hospitalized or even die. It took something else entirely to do all of that without fighting back. Not many things will change without the determination to help push them along.

"You can't separate peace from freedom because no one
can be at peace unless he has freedom"      - Malcolm X

Whenever I hear the name Malcolm X, I think, "what does the 'X' stand for." The X is a place holder for his lost tribal family name. Malcolm would become a minister and the national spokesperson for the Nation of Islam, NOI. He used radio, television and newspapers to communicate the NOI's message to the United State. He was seen as charismatic and was credited for the bringing the NOI's number of members from only 500 to 30,000 in a little over 10 years. Malcolm spoke of action. “Concerning nonviolence, it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks." In most cases I would agree with him on that, defending yourself is instinctual. Through nonviolence, the aggressors appeared to be the monsters, which brought support to the equal rights movement. I think if we followed Malcolm's thought of "by any means necessary" things would have been much bloodier and their might still be more of a divide between whites and blacks.

Part Two:
One of the things that I noticed through the chapter "Enemies" is how the fear of the unknown, usually, trumps the fear of what we do know. Once Strunk came back, Jensen became paranoid. He, Jensen, had broken Strunk's nose, he was expecting that something would be coming his way. They were in hostile territory, but after a while Jensen worried more about what Strunk was planning than enemy traps. He lost sleep, became isolated, and wouldn't turn his back to Strunk. I guess that paranoia Jensen had was Strunk's payback, in a way.

I like how nearing the end of the chapter "How to Tell a True War Story" the points O'Brien was making about generalizing about war seemed contradictory.

"War is hell, but that's not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; was is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead."

Something that stood out was how he said, often if it is believable it is a lie and if it is unbelievable it is closer to the truth. Sometimes when telling a story people would downplay it to make it more believable, but life can often be crazy and unbelievable.

8 comments:

  1. I'm sure most people are familiar with the idea of Science vs Nature, but the thing most people don't know is that there's a third aspect: The Unknown, the unexplained by either science or nature. If anything, simply the act of not being able to know or predict causes it to often become the strongest of the three elements. Do you have plans later today? Are you not worried something may go wrong-but you won't know until something does go wrong? I saw this theme also prevalent in another chapter as well, the "Stockings" chapter, although I did not realize this theme was prevalent in a chapter earlier than the one dedicated to it until I read your blog post.

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  2. I'm sure most people are familiar with the idea of Science vs Nature, but the thing most people don't know is that there's a third aspect: The Unknown, the unexplained by either science or nature. If anything, simply the act of not being able to know or predict causes it to often become the strongest of the three elements. Do you have plans later today? Are you not worried something may go wrong-but you won't know until something does go wrong? I saw this theme also prevalent in another chapter as well, the "Stockings" chapter, although I did not realize this theme was prevalent in a chapter earlier than the one dedicated to it until I read your blog post.

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  3. Malcolm X is a very interesting guy. I respect that he got so involved with the nation of Islam. But what I respect the most is that he was able to get himself out of the group once he realized that what they were doing was wrong. I know how hard it is too to that.

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  4. I have always heard about Malcolm X but no one ever talks about him when discussing the civil rights movement

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  5. Looking at a world of more inequality is not a pleasant thought. I wonder what today would be like had the "secondary race" backed down from their cause.

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  6. I think its crazy how his views switched after he was involved with the nation of Islam. It very much caused his death.

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  8. I think this concept says a lot about the lack of understanding that those who have not experienced war for themselves have about it. This is a theme the author brings up in other parts of the book.

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