This has the potential to be quite lengthy.
I woke up today feeling quite renewed and content. But I suppose that's what happens when Little Red Riding Hood trots off to torment someone else. Either way, I feel very calm and levelheaded.
I've been thinking about the bus incident quite a bit, and I think I've settled on attending graduate or law school either here or at Wayne State, then setting up shop in Detroit as a community organizer/lawyer. I'd also like to create a broad-base organization targeting our youth. I'll discuss that in more details at a later time.
I am choosing to forgo a "prestigious" Ivy graduate or law degree. I am choosing to forgo the glamorous lifestyle as a young associate at some "pristine" law firm. While I have not put to rest my aspirations of morphing the world, I think I've now come to believe that my career should be rooted in my roots. Before I offer my talent to the world, I must first replenish the soil that nourished me.
I am going to be not rich for quite some time. But that's ok.
This decision also stems from an argument I had with two drunk anarchists in the Union at 2am, just hours before the polls opened. They were trying to convince me that this election was not important. I heavily disagreed. Because of my strong type A personality, and their inebriation, we argued for quite some time. I was mostly right, of course. But they did make a good point.
Barack Obama is such an inspirational man, many people, myself included, spent hours volunteering for his campaign. We spent hours watching the debates, and hours convincing our neighbors and our friends that he was the man for the job. But just imagine how much of an impact we could have if we put equal effort and passion into our community.
While change in policy and practice can and will have great impacts on our lives as citizens of this nation, much change must originate from the bottom. Much like the fallacies of Reagan economics, change at the top only reaches so far.
So, I've decided to start at the bottom, and work my way up.
In other news, it disturbs me how ethnocentric Americans are. In my Anthropology discussion today, we talked about accents, and how some people with non-standard American accents (which apparently is rooted in Grand Rapids, go figure) are taking classes to dilute their accents. And I was totally against the idea. Nothing busts my balls and boils my blood more than assimilation. An accent isn't just a deviation in pronunciation; it's an audible representation of your culture, your heritage, your ethnicity and nationality.
Fuck the "standard American accent." I'm tired of everyone being forced to be "standard Americans." Fuck that.
So of course some people complained that they have Korean, Chinese or Indian professors or GSIs who are hard to understand, making it difficult to learn. One girl went so far as to say that "those people" needed a "better grasp of English, or they needed to find another job."
First of all, it is ignorant and condescending to assert that because someone has a foreign accent, they do not proficiently know English. You're a dumbass for not only thinking that, but actually saying it. The people they let in college these days.
Secondly, communication is a two-way street. When someone has an accent that is foreign to you, you listen harder. It is much easier, and I'm sure less detrimental to who you are as a cultural being, to listen a little more attentively than it is for them to go about erasing their accent. If you didn't catch it the first time, I'm sure it's much easier for you to simply go to office hours to ask for clarification, than it is for them to go about erasing their accent. I am still sure that it is much easier for you to adapt as a listener, in this two-way street of communication, than it is for them to further adapt as a speaker.
Snotty bitch.
I woke up today feeling quite renewed and content. But I suppose that's what happens when Little Red Riding Hood trots off to torment someone else. Either way, I feel very calm and levelheaded.
I've been thinking about the bus incident quite a bit, and I think I've settled on attending graduate or law school either here or at Wayne State, then setting up shop in Detroit as a community organizer/lawyer. I'd also like to create a broad-base organization targeting our youth. I'll discuss that in more details at a later time.
I am choosing to forgo a "prestigious" Ivy graduate or law degree. I am choosing to forgo the glamorous lifestyle as a young associate at some "pristine" law firm. While I have not put to rest my aspirations of morphing the world, I think I've now come to believe that my career should be rooted in my roots. Before I offer my talent to the world, I must first replenish the soil that nourished me.
I am going to be not rich for quite some time. But that's ok.
This decision also stems from an argument I had with two drunk anarchists in the Union at 2am, just hours before the polls opened. They were trying to convince me that this election was not important. I heavily disagreed. Because of my strong type A personality, and their inebriation, we argued for quite some time. I was mostly right, of course. But they did make a good point.
Barack Obama is such an inspirational man, many people, myself included, spent hours volunteering for his campaign. We spent hours watching the debates, and hours convincing our neighbors and our friends that he was the man for the job. But just imagine how much of an impact we could have if we put equal effort and passion into our community.
While change in policy and practice can and will have great impacts on our lives as citizens of this nation, much change must originate from the bottom. Much like the fallacies of Reagan economics, change at the top only reaches so far.
So, I've decided to start at the bottom, and work my way up.
In other news, it disturbs me how ethnocentric Americans are. In my Anthropology discussion today, we talked about accents, and how some people with non-standard American accents (which apparently is rooted in Grand Rapids, go figure) are taking classes to dilute their accents. And I was totally against the idea. Nothing busts my balls and boils my blood more than assimilation. An accent isn't just a deviation in pronunciation; it's an audible representation of your culture, your heritage, your ethnicity and nationality.
Fuck the "standard American accent." I'm tired of everyone being forced to be "standard Americans." Fuck that.
So of course some people complained that they have Korean, Chinese or Indian professors or GSIs who are hard to understand, making it difficult to learn. One girl went so far as to say that "those people" needed a "better grasp of English, or they needed to find another job."
First of all, it is ignorant and condescending to assert that because someone has a foreign accent, they do not proficiently know English. You're a dumbass for not only thinking that, but actually saying it. The people they let in college these days.
Secondly, communication is a two-way street. When someone has an accent that is foreign to you, you listen harder. It is much easier, and I'm sure less detrimental to who you are as a cultural being, to listen a little more attentively than it is for them to go about erasing their accent. If you didn't catch it the first time, I'm sure it's much easier for you to simply go to office hours to ask for clarification, than it is for them to go about erasing their accent. I am still sure that it is much easier for you to adapt as a listener, in this two-way street of communication, than it is for them to further adapt as a speaker.
Snotty bitch.
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