Media Literacy Exercise

Looking at the photo “Game of Lynching” by Vivian Cherry (1947) for the first time I did not quite get it. Pictured is a young boy standing in front of an old wall that has been vandalized. You cannot quite make out what any of the graffiti on the wall says but that does not seem to be important. The boy, who is wearing a pea coat with the collar turned up, stands in front of some graffiti containing a long line. This long line paired with his up turned collar gives the appearance that he has been hung. The little boy plays along letting his body go limp playing the victim in a lynching game. This shows that either lynching is something that he has not seen for himself therefore making the severity of the matter or that because of the times he may believe that it is only a matter of time before he is next. I mean next in a way that he may not see lynching as a game but pokes fun here at how maybe Whites might or must do it for almost a sort of sport when you think of cases like Emmitt Till. At that time lynching images were made into postcards and then were promoted at the hanging site. Black activist used the photos to gain help for their cause, whereas white supremacists thought of them as confirmation that whites had the power.In the photo, “Graduation Dress” by Roy DeCarava (1949) there is a girl walking from most likely her graduation in a beautiful graduation dress, but looks out of place on this rundown street. You can tell the girl is uncomfortable because she lifts her dress off the ground to keep it from getting dirty. Walking with what appears to be some hesitation out of a sunlit section of the street toward a shadowed area, the picture doesn’t show you what is ahead of her. In a way it is could be a metaphor for the girls future. Now that the girl is about to graduate what is in store for her, she is walking from the light into the darkness. In the background there is a large billboard advertising Chevrolet, it seems as it is there to mock the neighborhood. By the street being all run down you know that the neighborhood is poor and that a new car is something that they could only dream of. This picture could be symbolic of what Blacks could expect during this time period, that even with schooling they still had to return home to nothing.

Icebreaker Assignment

My favorite artist would have to be Tupac. I guess an obvious and incorrect assumption would be that I like him because he's a rapper or was a cute guy, but I think that he has a lot of positive message in his lyrics. I feel like with him being a Black man with the image that he has he gets misjudged by a lot of people or people draw their own conclusions without digging deeper where they would most likely find out something that they would like in him. In that way I feel like we are a lot alike, people tend to judge me before they get to know me and miss out on all the good that I have to offer. My Favorite activity is paint pottery and other ceramics. When I was younger my mother had all of these different molds and during the winter she would pour them and after they hardened when we were bored we would sit around and just paint. It's a great way to bond and relax/unwind. Last but not least my favorite show is ABC's Desperate Housewives. The show is always drama and action packed, you never know what the characters are going to get into. I think the show is like a newer my hip version of the old soap operas in the way that the show places the cliffhangers.

Student Assignment #1

My Favorite tv show is Historias de Ultra Tumba [on the] Discovery Channel. I like this show because it's really scary and because it's about things from an other world or to say non real. My favorite singer is Jenny Rivera. I like all [of] her songs and like her because she's really strong just like me we don't give up even though things are bad. SHe's a proud Mexican just like how I am. My favorite activity is playing soccer. I love soccer, when I play soccer I forget about problems and just play and have fun.

Service Learning Visit #2

My second visit to Loyola was really interesting, the assignment was to get to know the school and neighborhood by finding out what was important to the students. My group was really fun and I was surprised to find out how much they actually knew about the history of their school. One site that I found especially interesting was pointed out to me by one of the girls named Ashley during the outside tour, she said that one of her and her friend favorite spot to hang out was under this huge tree to the left of the school. When I asked her why they hung out there she didn't really know but her reasoning for liking it was because it felt safe to her it reminded her of pictures that she had seen of "family trees" and that even though she missed the big school atmosphere the tree reminded her of how close and caring everyone is at Loyola like her extended family. Also having grown up in Milwaukee some of the neighborhood spots were familiar to me like "El' Rays" I have very vidid memories from going there as a child but I guess it was cool to see why they loved going there. Mr. Gonzalez was very helpful when it came to filling in the gaps for history of the school and why things are the way they are regarding rules and school functioning.

Service Learning Visit #1

Ok so last week Thursday(10/01/09) my group had our first visit with the students at Loyola Academy H.S. and it was pretty interesting. I was like super nervous and probably coped by talking a lot, but the students weren't as bad as I thought they would be. For my group of students I had Angel and George and they were pretty cool kind of shy but that was expected. During some of the activities I started to gut the boys to open up when it came to noticing race in certain situations and by asking questions like "Is all stereotyping bad?". Idk but I guess that this first visit gave me a better understanding of what's going to be going on in our class. In closing I'm anticipating our visit next Thursday, i guess we're going around taking pictures of neighborhood sites.