B.T.Washington

For todays class we had to start Booker T. Washington's "Up From Slavery". The story narrates the life of the author from the time of his birth. He was born into slavery in West Virginia. What i found most interesting of his childhood is the overall attitudes that the slaves had for their masters. In his instance it was not out of hate and despise but respect. For example, during the Civil War, when one of his masters was injured from battle, the slave population would be honored to stand at his bedside and care for him. It was also stated that since there was no man in the house, a slave was given the position to defend the household and would sacrifice his life if necessary. These statements voided all previous conceptions i had of slavery. There was no mention of runaway slaves and bitter hatred of their masters.
The story than goes into detail of the coming to an end of slavery. The family moved to a salt producing town in West Virginia. Here Booker worked at first in a salt mine and later in a coal mine. He started his first schooling by taking night classes and started a collection of books. He overheard of a college for negros in Hampton Virginia. At that point he set that as his main goal in life to get an education there. I found it interesting that he never really experienced segregation and racism until he left the salt town to pursue his college education. The salt town was mixed white and black but i guess the whites of the town were so uneducated that they were not any racially superior to the blacks. When he traveled to Hampton, he was refused recommendations at a hotel because he was black.
When he finally arrived after a 500 mile journey, he went strait to the head teacher to gain admittance into class. She ignored him at first but eventually gave him the task of cleaning a recitation room. Basically he got into college because he was good at cleaning... his exam was to clean a room. After that he was given position of janitor to pay for his room and schooling.

The Diary of a Shirtwaist Striker

I have found this diary to be pretty monotonous. The author Theresa Serber Malakiel dedicates this text to the Shirtwaist workers and the strikers that have suffered discrimination and poor working and living conditions due to factory labor. The narrator of the storry is a young women arround the age of twenty. Actually for her time that age is pretty old for a women who works in a factory because they usually work from the age of thirteenish and are expected to marry off by their twenties. The narrator again is a Christian worker who admires the majority of jewish workers for there willingness to rebel. In the beginning of the novel she is afraid to work out on the streets. She has a close relationship with Jim who she plans to marry. However, as she gets more involved with the strike, her Jim fears her rebellious nature and ask her to stop or he will not marry her. She is taken back by his anger and ignorance towards their cause. She hates the fact that he has the old way of thinking of a submissive women. She finds him quite contradictory because he believes in the revolution of workers rights just not in the case for women. I think it is interesting how once someone is in a mindset it is near impossible to get them out of it and change their ways of thinking. I feel that as the narrator gets more into the striking business, she will sacrifice her family and her relationship with Jim. She admires in the beginning how the jewish women will go hungry for their rights and i feel that her sacrifice will be such.

Phobia of Technology

The reading due today for class made me reminiscent of a few movies that we saw in English class last year. We were shown the movie version of "1984" and "The Island". Both of these movies dealt with a controlled society. In "The Island", advancements in cloning technology lead to a company that clones people to harvest there body parts and vital organs for people that are terminally ill. The company found that having these clones in a conscious living state led to healthier body parts. When two of the clones escape, all hell brakes loose as the companies practices are exposed. 1984 is the story of totalitarian society and how all aspects of life are controlled and closely regulated.
The passage also has a writeup on "Blade Runner" which we had just seen the week before. It describes the role of opposite ideals that play a part in the plot of the story. For example the human - artificial copy relation ship shows the posing of nature as an opposite to a negative technological civilization. The passage also brings up some really interesting relationships and symbols that i did not recognize or understand in the movie. Most notably was the final fight scene between Roy and Harrison Ford where Roy morphs from this attacking animalistic figure into a compassionate human full of forgiveness. He saves Ford and then releasing a dove dies. The passage goes far enough to describe him as a Christ like figure.