Week 6 Blog- Paper 1 in-class Intro Edit

     Rap and Hip-Hop music was founded originally in Bronx, New York, in the early 80's and was essentially the voice of inner-city youth that would soon start a world-wide phenomenon. It was a style that reflected a wide array of beliefs and emotion, while its energy allowed for its rapid growth. However, as this new genre of music spread, so did the chance profit. Many corporations were able to profit from the new industry and provide a false image of hip hop that would sell. Mainstream hip hop today, through lyrics and music videos, promotes the use of drugs, violence, and the degradation of women. These messages allow the development of racial stereotypes in American culture because the artists presenting these images are generally black males. On the other hand, underground hip hop music provides a very different and authentic message. In the lyrics of underground hip hop songs, we see how artists provide powerful and uplifting messages, many of which successfully shed light on various political and social issues. Through their lyrics, underground hip hop artists aim to represent the underprivileged and poor minority of American society. By analyzing music from artists such as KRS-One, Zion I and Immortal Technique, we see how hip hop music can be much more profound and uplifting for its listeners, as opposed to songs from mainstream hip hop artists.

Week 9- re-write of a "favorite piece"

SB 1070 has been a racial issue in its practice because of what the law entails. The law allows officers to ask for papers from suspected illegal aliens in any given situation, but defining suspicion is what makes race and color a determining factor. The only possible method of finding someone to seem “suspicious” of being an illegal immigrant is by looking at their appearance, and “reasonable suspicion” is in itself racial code for skin color, making this law inherently racist in its context. This relates to Jennifer Eberhardt’s analysis of how we perceive blacks. As this Arizona law allows legal racial profiling, Eberhardt argues that racial profiling thrives in American society when we find that African Americans are often associated with criminality over whites.

SB 1070 has been a racial issue in its practice because of what the law entails. The law allows officers to ask for papers from suspected illegal aliens in any given situation, but defining suspicion is what makes race and color a determining factor. The only possible method of finding someone to seem “suspicious” of being an illegal immigrant is by looking at their appearance, and “reasonable suspicion” is in itself racial code for skin color, making this law inherently racist in its context. This relates to Jennifer Eberhadt’s analysis of how we perceive blacks. As this Arizona law allows legal racial profiling, Eberhardt argues that racial profiling thrives in American society when we find that African Americans are often associated with criminality over whites.
The legal system in America seems just. It is designed to prevent crime and to protect the innocent. This ideology, however, seems to be proven deceitful and have been disputed in the past few decades.

Week 8 Blog- Podcast Intro/Audience/Conclusion

Hey everyone, this is Mike Matta from KCSB and today, we'll be talking about a pretty important but unfortunately not very well known issue. For several decades, there have been serious religious conflicts between Coptic Christians and Muslims. Coptic Christians make up about 8% of the Egyptian population and are unfortunately treated as 2nd class citizens in Egypt. This issue really hits home for me just because I am a Coptic Christian myself, and seeing my people suffer the way they do honestly just brings me to tears. Coptic Christians, who many refer to as "Copts", have been dealing with persecution and torture from both Islamic extremist groups as well as offical Armed forces. While this has been going on for years, I want to discuss one specific event with you all. On October 9th, 2011, violence erupted as Christian protesters clashed with Egyptian armed forces, where 22 Christians were killed and 3 army officers were also supposedly killed by the Copts, but the whereabouts and evidence of the dead officers is yet to be discovered.
My audience includes people who attempt to keep up with current issues but are not informed about the religious turmoil in Egypt.
With this new bit of information that I hope I was able to share with many of you today, I want each of you to realize the opportunities and privileges you have here in America. But realize that this is not the case for so many others, specifically the Copts in Egypt who are condemned from practicing their religion. So please, spread the word, join and support the small group of Coptic-American protesters here in the U.S. that have tried so hard to ask our own government to do something, anything, about these tragedies. The U.S. gives Egypt billions of dollars in aid each year. We fund a government that constantly violates basic human rights, and to continue this aid means that the U.S. supports these violations as well.

Week 7 Blog- "Dear Chris" Letter

Dear Chris,

In my portfolio, I included my final draft of Paper 1 which was titled “Hip Hop Music: Surpassing the Mainstream”. When I first started writing the paper, I wanted to focus on academic articles that discussed the differences between mainstream underground hip hop. Initially, I especially wanted to discuss the negative factors of mainstream hip hop and how corporations profited from the genre. However, after the first draft, I realized that changing the focus to the depth and positivity of underground hip hop would be more beneficial for my main argument. I used more lyrics as sources and placed a more weighted emphasis on underground lyrics. Because of my passion for hip hop music in general, I found it easy to write about this topic and I was instantly able to choose different lyrics that I would use for my argument.

In all honestly, I chose this paper to choose for my portfolio rather than Paper 2 because I felt that the first paper was entirely my work, and I wanted my portfolio to represent my work alone. I did contribute a large amount of writing and work to the 2^nd Paper (and not to undermine the work of the members of my group), but I felt that if there was a portion of work submitted in the portfolio that was not done on my own, I would not feel as though I fully accomplished the portfolio on my own.

I included three blog entries in my portfolio. The first was titled “Week 2- Last Days of Brother Ray”. I chose to include my first entry because by the end of the quarter, I want to compare my first and last pieces of writing to hopefully see improvements (in the latter, of course). Because of my paper topic, I also included “Week 3 Blog- Raps Got Roots” to provide some background information on hip hop music in general. Following this, I decided to include “Week 4- Accounting for Taste” simply because my interest in the article.

As a result of the multiple writing assignments in this class, I feel that I have become a more successful writer in terms of flow and clarity. In the past, I have always seen remarks from TA's and professors regarding the unnecessary complexity I sometimes display in my writing. In brief, because of the help I have received so far, I would like to think that my writing has improved.

Week 5- "Music of the Hemispheres"

In the article titled "Music of the Hemispheres", author Rachel Ehrenberg discusses the interesting correlation between children who play musical instruments and their intellectual capabilities. She first argues that especially when started at a young age, "musical training appears to improve a suite of verbal and nonverbal skills... making music makes you hear better, fine-tuning the ability to extract a signal from noise" (Reader, pg. 116). Ehrenberg uses studies found by various scientists and professors in her article to make her arguments more valid. She explains that for a long period of time, playing music was said to involve only the right side of the brain, but later studies disproved this by showing how playing music actually used all parts of the brain because of its complexity. Also, children who play musical instruments actually listen to music in a different manner than those who do not play musical instruments. Instead of simply enjoying the melody or rhythm of a song, children who better understand the complexity of music perceive the music they hear in a more technical and complex way. The most interesting argument that Ehrenberg makes involves the correlation between dyslexia and music. She argues that "listening skills such as the ability to discriminate pitch... are related to some language impairments, including dyslexia... kids with the weakest reading skills had a harder time distinguishing the sounds ba, da and ga" (Reader, 119). Therefore, learning to play instruments can have positive effects on children who suffer from language impairments such as dyslexia.

Week 4- "Accounting for Taste"

In the article in our reader titled "Accounting for Taste", author Eriq Gardner uses different examples of actual people and describes their personality, and ultimately how their characteristics tend to shape their interests. He attempts to analyze every type of artistic taste based on personality including those who are thrill-seekers, self-medicators, people who use art as decoration, and others. Gardner explains that those who are thrill seekers are often extroverts- "lively, active, social people who crave sensory excitement in the art they seek out" (Reader, pg.76). I paid particular attention to this section because I consider myself to be at times both extroverted and introverted, so I wanted to test the accuracy of his analysis. He went on to explain that those who were extroverted were less likely to watch news programs but more likely to be interested in action-movies and music vidoes. Because I like both action-filled movies and news programs, his analysis seemed accurate in describing what only extroverted people prefer. Almost the entire article seemed compelling and the author was able to provide sensible arguments until the very end of the paper. In the last section titled "Deciphering the taste code", Gardner seemed to back some rash judgements when in the chart provided, he said that "if you love country music, you're athletic, reliable and focused... you're voting McCain" and "if you love rap, funk, or electronic/dance, you're an energetic and social Obama supporter". This baffled me because I know several conservative people who enjoy rap and electronic music, and who would never consider voting for Obama. It is possible that the chart did not seem entirely accurate to me simply because it did not provide evidence for its claims, unlike the previous arguments of the article.

Week 3 Blog- "Rap's Got Roots"

"Rap's Got Roots" in our class reader discusses what the author believes to be the nature of rap/hip-hop and that its existence is not simply the "latest offshoot of rock and roll... [but] has its own roots and legs" (Reader, pg. 50). While rap music is most often performed by a single individual, the author argues that hip-hop is more communal than individual and reveals black angst by touching a cultural "impulse", and with its aggression, it draws the attention of people from all races to hear its messages. He compares these messages to the hymns and praises that African slaves would sing on American plantations, many of which had coded messages of protest, anger, and means of escape. Also, he illustrates the progression of black music, from the ever-popular jazz, the catchy bebop style (which the author explains was protest music against white swing music), blues, pop and rock in the 1950s, and especially Motown. In the article, we see that Motown was the first almost entirely black-owned music industry that would experience long term success (Reader, 56). This genre of music presented America with artists/groups such as the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, the Jackson 5, and Stevie Wonder, all of whom have gone down in history as some of the most influential and successful artists. While not all of these artists/groups became rich, Ray Charles, who was possibly the first black artists to keep ownership rights of his music, "paved the way for P. Diddy, Master P, Dr. Dre, and Jay-Z as one of the first black music moguls who was also an artist" (Reader, 57). Towards the end of the article, the author introduces the "birth of rap" as the new black sound coming from New York City and briefly talks about its creativity and lasting impact. I appreciated the discussion and progression of black music that the author presented, but I feel that he placed too much emphasis on the history of black music compared to his discussion of rap/hip-hop today. While the historical explanations were interesting and necessary, he should have taken more time to discuss the different types of rap music itself and possibly people's perceptions on the genre.