Ok so I still can't get near-time to work for some reason but I guess I will work on that tomorrow.
Anyway the readings this week brought up a lot of different emotions for me. The first reading, in which a woman discovered that she had black relatives actually got me a little angry. I understand that it is very interesting and life altering to discover that your great-grandparents were actually African American, that would be a shock to me as well and yes, I would probably try to connect to the culture a little bit, I will not lie. HOWEVER, the kicker quote, about her telling her child he is black is somewhat strange to me.
The woman herself, is at most a fourth meaning her son is less than that. Unless his father is black which does not seem to be the case. More importantly, she discovered that she had black relatives late in her life and suddenly she is black? Without being raised within the culture I do not think she can truly "re-connect" to that part of her life.
However, I still see why it is important to her. I would be pissed too if I was lied to that long but at the same time if I woke up one day and my grandmother told me that my great-grandpartents were actually Mexican of course I would want to find out more. Does this mean I that when I had children I would attempt to instill the fact that he/she is Mexican when I myself don't know what it means to be Mexican? No, I don't think so.
Maybe I just didn't get the whole concept of the chapter, oh well, it happens.
Now I loved the chapter dealing with Manny's in the 'There are No Children Here." I have been to Manny's many times and love it dearly and even though I knew it was a landmark I never realized how much history happened there.
You see, I love eating out, finding little places no one has heard of and taking my friends and loved ones there, like it is a secret hide out of some kind. So I felt a certain type of kinship with the author when he talked about local eateries.
More importantly I liked what the chapter represented; how Chicago is a place for people to start over. Like the workers at MacArthur's who had drug habits or were just out of jail. There was something almost beautiful about that idea, that just because someone had hit a hard time did not mean you should give up on them.
I also like how that was shown against the idea of Chicago's ghettos and how they are slowly (back then now, a little more quickly) being destroyed and how people are being displaced. I think it is a message to a lot of people here in the city that not only people need to be rehabilitated but our concept of the neighborhood as well.
Hmmm,
So I am not new to this blogging thing but this system is very, erm, interesting to put it best.
I am more of a livejournal person, just for how simple it is but I guess I can get used to this. Anything is better than Near-Time (if this is your first semester with near-time I think you might know what ia m talking about in a few weeks.)
Anyway, I guess we are supposed to be posting something interesting or conversational here at this moment and I really have nothing to report about right now.
But trust me I will be posting a lot, it is a habit really, nothing more, nothing less.
