Free Doom

We as Americans, live in a country that is rooted in freedom. As we progress through time we lose appreciation for the qualities that make our nation great. We begin to believe the freedom’s we have in America are mandatory and universal, but to many around the world the United States is the promise land. My blog this week will attempt to display the conscience effort put forth by our forefathers and the lawmakers that came after them, to make America “the land of the free.”

A person can not truly be free unless allowed to take part in the political process. The United States government is put in place to act on the behalf of the citizen. If a large percentage of the citizens are not allowed to vote, the political representative is not getting a valid opinion of the citizens. The left out percentage of the population still falls under the jurisdiction of the law, but has no say in the passing of the law. This is a form of slavery that does not need whips and chains; it is control by exclusion, and legislated oppression.

America took notice of this injustice and amended the laws of the constitution. Freedom to vote for African Americans came in 1965. Many of our parents were born in a time when African American people were not allowed to vote. Our current president was born in a time when people of his ethnicity could not vote. Ironically, African Americans still have low voter turnout. You would think, with all the time and effort people put into gaining civil rights, a person would at least take advantage of it.

The most surprising aspect of freedom is that people take it for granted. Not only do they not take advantage of it, they complain about how the country is ran after the fact. I feel that people that do not vote make the decision, through indifference, to accept what ever they are given. It is much easier to point fingers at the problem, than to get your hands dirty searching for a solution.

Imagine living in a country like Saudi Arabia where women can not vote, drive, or even walk the streets alone. When compared to the United States, Saudi Arabia is not another world, it is another universe. At the same time a woman walks into Starbucks, wearing tight jeans, to order an over priced latte, a woman, in Saudi Arabia, is baking in the dessert sun, in a thick black robe with nothing exposed but her eyes and hands. 

We, as American’s, need to develop a sense of pride in our country. The United States may not be perfect, but it is still the world leader in freedom. We need to be conscience of what is going on in the world around us. Everywhere is being Americanized. This is a show of admiration. When we compare America’s problems with the problems of a country like Saudi Arabia our complaints seem petty and ignorant. It’s funny that everyone sees how great a nation we live in except us.

Read Me

The projection of nonverbal cues is a multifaceted topic. It varies with the observer's background, culture, gender, and age. The image a person portrays can often be far from who that person truly is. My nonverbal cues are just morsels of me, but are still worth examination.

 I usually sit in the very front and center of a classroom. This is not an attempt to get in good with the professor or to make myself seem more driven than other students. Gaining knowledge amuses me. My seating selection is a nonverbal cue of interest in what is been taught. When a person goes to a boxing match they would always prefer to sit ringside, this is the same principal I apply to school. Also it allows me to block everyone out except the professor. 

The way a person walks sends nonverbal cues that can be interrupted many ways. I walk with my head up looking around taking in my environment. The nonverbal cues in the way I walk are awareness yet comfort in my surroundings. My way of walking does not change weather I'm walking down Crenshaw Boulevard in, Baldwin Hills or Rodeo Drive, in Beverly Hills. I express confidence when I walk.

The most interesting nonverbal cues are facial expression. A person is often unaware of their facial expression, so it gives you a more honest cue. I usually have a squinted-eye look of inspection. I want to have ample knowledge of everything I come in contact with. My facial expression signals my curiosity and a need for understanding.

In addition I am consumed with introspection. I think about how I am affecting everything I come in contact with. How does a person perceive me? What am I doing to help people? Am I setting a good example for my family and young black men without father figures? These and many other questions cross my mind, as I sit wide-eyed staring off into space.

Style of dress is the most fickle nonverbal cue. It is the cliché of judging a book by its cover. My style of dress hints at many things from day to day. Thursday's I usually wear sweats or basketball shorts. It is my last day of class for the week. I just throw on some clothes I do not have to iron and go. On a Saturday if I'm going to hang out with friends I may wear creased jeans and a button down shirt. This style is still comfortable, but also dressed to look nice.

Nonverbal cue are useful, but can be very subjective. If you are interested in whom a person is you should go up to them and start a conversation. When we allow nonverbal cues to dominate our perception of a person we create a mental description that may not be true. How a person walks, talks, and looks should not be speculated on to the extent of dislike or fear. Heavy dependence on nonverbal cues is the seed of prejudice.

Politically Correctness

Barack Obama president of the United States of America approaches the podium of a news conference. The reporter from the Los Angeles Times asks, “Mr. President, why are the tax cuts for middle class Americans taking so long to be passed through congress?" The president answers, "Well the rich bastards, that call themselves the republican party, agreed to the tax cuts, but they also want to add tax cuts for millionaires, that do not need them." the president's actual  response was far more tactful, but  can you imagine the controversy if he would have addressed the republicans as" rich bastards"? Political correctness is a vital part of communicating with known adversaries.

Political correctness is a style of language, created by American culture, which we use when presenting ideas to an audience of diverse social, economical, and ethnic backgrounds. On the surface it may seem like it is used to spare the feeling of particular groups. In actuality it is much more about the speaker developing his ethos with the audience. In the response by the president in the earlier paragraph, Barack calling the republicans "rich bastards" was counter productive to getting his goal of tax cuts accomplished. The republicans that were on the fence about tax cut have been swayed negatively by the president’s response. Now it will be even more difficult to get the tax cuts passed. It would have been more helpful to his cause to refuse to answer the reporter.

Political correctness is used in much more intimate situations than the political world. A person very rarely shows you there true self upon the first few encounters. We all wear a mask of civility to shape the perception of the people we are communicating with.  There is a certain amount of “feeling out" you go through before you get a clear picture of who a person is. We use political correct language to give people a presentable appearance of who we are, and to not offend them. Eventually we develop a comfort level with a person and open up to them about are view that may not be part of popular opinion.

Political correctness is a tool of persuasion. When a speaker is not sure of the audience’s background, he uses a certain amount of tact to keep them receptive to his cause. Political correctness also creates a respect with the audience despite agreement or disagreement with the speaker’s ideas.

 A person that feels disrespected is less receptive to persuasion. The speaker may have an idea that can change your life for the better, but their approach can destroy there discussion at the introduction.

Political correctness is a necessary part of communication. It would be nice if you could talk to everyone frankly and they would get exactly what is being communicated to them, but it is not possible. There is a strong belief that what a person implies, is more important than what they communicate. Political correctness is a safe guard to get you ideas transmitted as clearly as possible.

The Globalization of English

The English language is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. The globalization of English was started with the colonialization of many countries by English speakers. It was vital for the natives of these places to learn English to communicate with the foreigners. We now see English as a language of wealth, knowledge and supremacy. The power of England and the United States for the last couple of centuries has perpetuates these ideas.
The economy is one of the many factors driving the push towards English as a universal language. America is a nation of consumers. Companies that may be based in other countries have to cater to the language of their customer base. Important factor such as advertising and marketing must be created to appeal to the English-speaking customer. The pursuit of profit has made English the language of business.
Education plays a big part in the globalization of English. A large percentage of the world’s knowledge is written in English. The most prestigious Schools in the world are English speaking. If a person wants to take advantage of the knowledge available to them in higher education, they will most likely have to learn English.
The political realm is controlled by English speaking powers, such as England and The United States. These countries play such an important role in world affairs that it is important for other countries to learn English. Intricate details may be lost in translation. It is better for people to decide for themselves what is going on. Also with the learning of any language, a person also learns about the culture of the native speakers.
20 years from now English will still be evolving towards a global language. Technology, such as smart phones and ipads, which access the internet, will make English more visible in everyday life. The youth of other countries, will all speak and be taught English in school. I do not believe it will be universal yet, because the elderly people will still hold tight to there native tongues. In addition, accents will be less noticeable.
By the year 2060, English will be universal, except for very isolated places. The advances toward a global economy will have sped up the globalization of English. Most of the people that spoke other languages will adopt English as a tool for economic purposes. Many languages will die as innocent bystander to prosperity, and the elders not being around to perpetuate the other languages. A lot of the cultural elements of other language will also be lost during the globalization of English.
100 years from now, English will be a lot different from the way it is spoken presently. Many words from other languages will be incorporated into English. It will be a collage of languages, pieced together allowing people to articulate themselves in amazingly beautiful ways. We will all communicate with each other without language barriers. The amount of intelligent people will also increase drastically. Knowledge will be more readily available even in isolated areas.
　

Anne Lamott's "Getting Started" provided me with the most useful information on improving my writing. I always have a problem with starting written assignments. The essay shows me that people who write professionally also have this issue. The essay also shows the reader that there is no magic formula to jump-start the creative process. The writer just has to clear their mind and wait for the words to come.

 The beginning of any type of communication is the most important. This is when you grab the attention of the audience. Everyone knows the impact of first impressions. Well, the first paragraph is where the reader gets their first impressions of the author. The author’s choice of words is how the reader gets to know his personality and knowledge of the subject. For example, author A says, “All of the statements I make are backed up by facts,” and author B says, “This is what I believe.” These statements send two different messages. Both writers may have the exact same references, but the reader with tend to believe author A just because his wording.   

I am always preoccupied with the reader misunderstanding me. I want my writing to make the reader look at an event though my perspective, but sometimes I do not know exactly how to word my own thoughts. Lamott compares this problem to, "a fine painter attempting to capture an inner vision". Internal conflict always makes writing more difficult. Lamott list, "anxiety, judgment, doom, and guilt", as some of her personal issues, that interrupt the creative process. Everybody has there own list that they could insert in those parenthesis. These distractions create "writers block." The worst time to have these issues come up is close to a dead line. A person has two choices in this situation. He can sit at his desk and force himself to finish or receive an undesirable grade. Lamott describes it is as writing with an "imaginary gun to your head."

A writer experiences a great feeling when those creative juices finally begin to flow. Every part of your brain is working together and all the distractions have gone to sleep for the night. You know they will be up in the morning though, so you have to work fast. When you finally get to the end and you read your essay all together, it makes no sense. Lamott says that sometimes, she prays that she does not die before she can rewrite and destroy her first draft.

“Getting started” helped me with my writing in a psychological way. It did not show me how to write in perfect MLA format, or re-teach me rules of grammar that I haven used since 10 the grade. However, it gives a look into the process that a seasoned writer uses to get started. Come to find out, there starting method does not differ from anyone else’s. A reader would believe, after reading a great novel, the writer is a story-telling savant. However, you never know how many rough drafts the book had to go through to get to this level.

Guilty Silence

Silence is a form of acceptance. A person did not feel the issues were important enough to stand up and say that the oppressor was wrong. Elie Wielsel says, that when a person is indifferent to another’s pain, he dehumanizes the person and “reduces them to and abstract.” In the southern part of America during the 1950’s and 1960’s, the “good” people stood on the sideline and watched people be treated cruelly, people be killed and women be raped, they are not “good” people at all they are accessories to the crimes. These people did not turn there head when they saw someone stealing a candy bar. People were being beaten to death in the street. In this case silence is not golden it is the color of blood on a killers hand.




Elie Weisel says, “Indifference always benefits the aggressor.” Not confronting an issue perpetuates and magnifies the problem. If racists are beating black people to death in the streets of Alabama and it goes unpunished, then racists all over the south feel they can get away with the same crime. That is why Dr. King believed “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” He felt it was his duty to fight prejudice and not allow it to be overlooked.



People have forgotten how to be responsible members of the human race. My Psychology professor once told me you have a better chance of being helped, with a stalled car, on the freeway late at night when there are hardly any cars on the road, than in rush hour traffic. His explanation for this is that when there are many people on the freeway everyone expects the next person to help, when it is only one person they feel a sense of necessity to help you. This is how people react to injustice on a smaller scale. Indifferent people expect the governor or the president to do something about injustice and neglecting there own power. They feel that if the people in charge are not doing anything about injustice what can they do. The people in power believe that if there were an important problem, then the people in the community would show some form of disapproval. The outcome is nothing is done; everybody is waiting for someone else to get the bandwagon started so they can hop aboard.



Humans are self-consumed creature; they usually will not intervene in an issue that does not involve them. Even the great humanitarian Dr. King’s only explanation for helping people was because we are “tied together in a single garment of destiny”, which simple means that you are helping yourself when you help another person. Do you believe the only reason that we help people is because in some way it benefits us emotionally or physically? Have you ever notice when a person does something nice they bring up there own virtues, “I did it out of the kindness of my heart” who are they trying to convince me or themselves?

Language is Freedom

If you were born on an uninhabited island, your only form of knowledge would come from your parents. Your parents tell you, “It you leave this island you will see beings that don’t look like you, don’t speak like you, and are out to hurt you.” That is your wealth of knowledge about the outside world. You are confined to the island by the fear that the outside world is a dangerous land of alien beings that want to do you bodily harm. Now imagine that you were captured and brought to America, even if you managed to escape your captors, you would still not be free. You are no longer physically on and island, but you are mentally secluded to your own knowledge with no way to access more knowledge. Without language to express knowledge we are trapped on an island of ignorance. If you feel this story is far-fetched take into account Malcolm X’s essay “Homemade Education” where he talks about how frustrating it was to not be able to use the English language to express his feelings. Slang was his language of choice, but it catered to a small audience of illiterate hustlers and drug dealers. He wanted to correspond with the mayor of Boston, the governor of Massachusetts, and Harry Truman, these people didn’t understand slang, nor were they going to put forth an effort to translate the broken English of a convict. His right to freedom of speech was suspended not by an outside force, but by his lack of understanding of the English language.


Language is how you free yourself from others insinuations about you. Before you know a person you may have preconceive idea about them because of there physical attributes or what you may have heard about there culture. When you allow them to express themselves, you get a much better view of what they are about, and also free yourself from prejudice. Susanne K. Langer says that we use language as symbols to free thoughts into physical forms such as spoken words, writing, and art. Imagine if Dr. Martin Luther King would have never materialized his thoughts of equality for all races, would we just be having the civil rights movement in 2010? Obviously his thought weren’t original; to the contrary they were confined in the minds of all minorities that felt the wrath of segregation. Martin Luther King was just a captivating mouth-piece that was articulate and courageous enough to express the idea. He used language as a weapon of mass destruction aimed directly at the legislation that segregated minorities. If Dr. King was an uneducated man he would have not had the impact that he has had on the world because of his language barrier. Like Malcolm X before he received his “homemade education”, the community around King may have known him as a great thinker, but he lacks the ability to communicate those thoughts in proper English.

Language is freedom because knowledge is freedom, and language is the primary way to transfer knowledge.