After having completed the blog assignments for this semester, I can firmly say that these were helpful in keeping my writing and analysis skills refined for the entire semester. It was also a good experience to have my fellow classmates feedback, as well as being able to provide comments or critique to others. I think the blogs were a great way to make sure I kept up on my reading, and also to make sure I was actually understanding/ retaining the readings. The topics were sometimes difficult to write about, so it was a good challenge for me, and not just something I could write without actually thinking. The blogs were also useful down the road when it came time to work on our projects, as I had insightful analysis and reflection in my blogs that were relevant to the projects. Being able to read my classmates blogs were helpful and eye opening. Being expose to an array of opinions gave me different perspectives on the topics covered this semester. I really think the blogs made me more productive and helped me retain the information covered in Oluo’s book, and were also useful as reference points for the three projects.

Writing in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences have key differences that set them apart. All three use very different writing techniques to get their points across to their audiences. When it comes to the humanities, the arguments are usually thesis drive, using evidence to support a claim. It is more often that a five paragraph structure will be used, utilizing descriptive and rhetorical language. Humanities also tends to use the active voice, which provides the clearest, most transparent meaning.

With social sciences, we are trying to understand why we do what we do (economic, political, personal). Writing format in the social sciences usually follows IMRAD, which stands for introduction, methods, results, and discussion, considered the conventional form for scientific inquiry. Social sciences will often include a visual representation as well, whether that be a graph or chart. Both the active and passive voices are used in this convention, depending on whether the researcher wants to maintain more a of a sense of objectivity or not.

Writing in the natural science often follows the idea of the scientific method, which translates to the scientific writing process. In the natural sciences, interdisciplinary research is very common, which includes observing something, posing a question about it, then construct an experiment and collect data to test your hypothesis. Objectivity is valued in the natural sciences as it is essential to the research that scientists do, because bias can undermine the reliability of research.

After having completed project 2, I think I have sharpened my researching skills as well as my ability to analyze a source. I also learned quite a bit about my topic, discrimination  by banks in the area of home loans and mortgages. This includes the history of redlining in the United States, and how this applies to the difficulty of getting jobs and home loans for people of color. I learned this through my research, which included web articles, scholarly journals, and videos. Through my research and learning about my topic, I was also able to learn effective ways of analysis of different artifacts, and the approaches that worked best for me.

This new knowledge of bank discrimination will be beneficial to me moving forward as this is an area of work that I am considering in the future. Having this awareness will be helpful moving forward when it comes to discussion, or even helping to make a difference in the future. In addition, the research and analysis skills that I have gained through this project will be beneficial for me for the next project, and hopefully for projects in the future here at Fairfield. Next, I would like to learn more about utilizing the library database to find scholarly articles around certain topics. I felt like this would have been helpful for project 2 and will be moving forward, so I would like to learn to navigate the database effectively in the future.

With project 2, I have had a tougher time crafting my paper than I did with the previous project, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I think it’s good that this assignment of an annotated bibliography is likely something most have us have never seen. It has been challenging for me, but I think it will be helpful down the road with my research papers in the future.

I thought I did a good job in terms of researching for sources, and making sure my sources weren’t too broad and that they synthesized with the others. Finding great sources for my annotated bibliography was frustrating and tedious, mainly due to the fact that many of the articles I came across spoke about similar things. When this didn’t work and I had to make my research more narrow, I struggled to find enough sources that coincided with my argument. Another thing I am finding difficult is synthesizing the articles, as this requires hard analysis of the two pieces of work.

So far I have learned much about my topic, and how racism can be involved in all facets of life. I have also learned how to implement the Chicago style of citation, used in most business research. This will prepare me for the next few years in the business school here at Fairfield, when my work gets more rigorous. I have also acquired a new perspective on the state of the economy and business workplace because of this paper. I have also learned that diversity in the workplace is essential to a functioning corporation or business.

The Bechdel Test is a test to see if their is a female presence within movies. In order for a movie to pass the Bechdel test, there must be two or more female characters, the characters must talk to each other, and they must talk to each other about something other than men. Rioux’s article and Davis’s speech are part of the same conversation because all three artifacts relate back to gender opportunity. With Viola’s speech, the topic of gender opportunity within the film industry is addressed, a similar conversation that the Bechdel test addresses. They are both calling out the fact that women aren’t given the same opportunities that men are given when it comes to starring in films, or the fact that black women aren’t given the same opportunities as white women in the industry. The industry is catered towards men, and when women are given opportunities, it will often be white women.

When it comes to Rioux’s article, gender stereotypes are addressed, and the fact that boys do not read to book Little Women is addressed. This is an issue with assumptions on what sort of things boys and girls should like or be introduced to. As Rioux says the female experience should not be kept private, and limiting this book to young girls doesn’t allow for larger debate on gender. This conversation relates to the Bechdel test because sometimes it is men who are not given the same opportunities as women in certain facets.

The writing genre of an annotated bibliography seems to place somewhere in the research category of writing. This is because the paper is a compilation of several scholarly sources, along with context and a summary of each source, will all should have similar argument or thesis.

McIntosh, P. (1988). White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Backpack. White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work In Women’s Studies. Retrieved from http://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/mcintosh.pdf

This research article discusses white privilege, specifically male privilege, and how males are taught not to recognize their own privilege in the workforce, in human interaction, and in everyday life. It lists scenarios of daily experience in which white privilege might be used unknowingly. The author, Peggy McIntosh, is an associate director of the Wellesley Collage Center for Research on Women, and her target audience is white males and women who may have experienced situations in which males have exercised their privilege. The purpose is for white males to realize how often they exercise their privilege in everyday life. The context for the paper is privileges that the author has observed over the decades. This paper has similarities to Oluo’s writing, and Oluo and McIntosh have shared viewpoints and experiences when it comes to witnessing male privilege in their lives.

Olsson, G. (2011, September 9). The Black Power Mixtape 1967 1975 [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bryh0IFMhg&feature=youtu.be

The Black Power Mixtape examines the Black Power movement from 1967 to 1975. The director is Goran Olsson, and the audience is those interested in learning more about the history of the Black Power Movement. The purpose of the video is to display the movement and the effect it had on the black community in terms of speaking out against racial inequality, and the context is a time when protest movements speaking out against racial inequality, including Martin Luther King’s movement, were gaining attention. This video relates to the Black Lives Matter movement which was discussed in Oluo’s writing, as both artifacts discuss systemic racism in a society ran by white people.

I can apply today’s work to my project 2 work as this was good exercise for the types of annotations I will be making for my project. It was difficult to synthesize the readings/viewings, as the articles and videos we’ve gone over contain similarities but don’t always directly correlate. This taught me about the structure and procedure that will be used for project two.

For project two, I plan on researching racial inequality in the workforce, specifically in the business field. I am interested in researching questions surrounding the difficulty of people of color to attain jobs in the business industry. I plan on getting started tomorrow, first by finding an array of scholarly articles/ videos that I may be able to use in my annotated bibliography, and then narrowing these resources down to those that pertain most closely to my overall question or argument.

After completing project 1, I think I made several realizations, and was able to look at things with a different lens. For my project I watched the movie Straight Outta Compton, a movie I had previously seen, but this time I watched the movie with a different mindset. I looked for familiar issues regarding race, and because of this I was able to gain a better understanding of what black communities were facing when it came to police brutality and discrimination, and continue to deal with today.

After completing this project I learned that issues surrounding police brutality are not to be taken lightly, and it became clearer to me that many of the same issues that the group in the movie dealt with are still around today. I learned this through the violence portrayed in the movie, and how I’ve seen instances of this type of violence in the news these past few years. The knowledge that I acquired is likely important as we will continue to discuss the topic of police brutality later in the year. It is also important knowledge to know and be able to discuss in politics and news, given that it is an issue that is so relevant in today’s culture. Next, I would like to learn more about the black lives matter movement, and how this ties in with the issue of police brutality. I think will be good information to acquire for the class moving forward.

In the reverse racism video, the idea that white males are afraid of colored people having positions of power is discussed, and this can be linked to the idea that white males are uncomfortable in situations that scare them or give them discomfort. In the video, Wanda Sykes talks about how white males have this idea that if people of color take over positions of power, then reverse racism will ensue. This ties in with the ideas in Oluo’s chapter about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, and the policing behavior that tries to deflect those who are passionate about racial oppression. This can also tie in with the first reading about the model minority myth, and the fact that there is a lack of political power and professional success among the “model minorities”, or Asian Americans, when the stereotype is that Asian Americans are the smartest and most successful minority group. I think Oluo summarizes this passage well with the line, “There is no set of racial or ethnic stereotypes that will set us free, no matter how appealing they seem on the surface” (Oluo 200). Racial oppression will not come to an end until we learn to see and value everyone for their history, culture, and challenges. In order to fight racism, there needs to be attention on all groups, not just one, and one of these tasks is fighting the model minority myth.

I found the video with Ta-Nehisi Coates to be very enlightening, and I found the examples he used to be very insightful. First off, Coates clarifies that words have no meaning without context. He uses the example of someone other than his wife calling him honey, and how it would be rude for someone other than his wife to call him honey. What Coates is trying to say is that the relationships between certain people exhibit different levels of understanding, especially when it comes to the way that people talk to each other. There are basic laws or guidelines when it comes to how humans interact with each other, and it should go without saying that it isn’t acceptable for white people to use the N-word, or someone that is not involved in the LGBT community to use the word faggot. His general argument is that all words do not belong to everyone, even if you think you “invented” the word.

I think one point that Coates made that really stuck out is that white people are conditioned to believe that everything belongs to them, which is sad to say but also true. Growing up in a society that is, for the most part, ran by white people, might lead white people to believe that they have a right to everything. For white people to argue about not being able to use the N-word is quite ignorant and stubborn, once you realize that colored folk have to go their entire lives not being able to say or do certain things, because of the society that we live in.

The discussion between Coates and Oluo is applicable to the learning in this class because of the education and information they provide given personal experiences as colored people. In terms of writing, the use of language is all about context, and this also applies to the points made by Oluo and Coates.

One of the strategies Oluo implements in her book is the careful use of language in order to spark thought and curiosity in the reader. One example of this is Oluo’s decision to make the title of each chapter a question. This is a simple, yet effective way to harness the readers attention, and get him/her thinking before they have even begun the chapter.     These rhetorical questions are put at the beginning of the chapter to get the reader thinking, or to emphasize a point. When presented with a question, most readers will formulate their own opinion on the topic, or create an idea of what the chapter might be about. I think that was Oluo’s goal with the chapter titles, as she wants the reader to think of their own idea or opinion of her topic, in hopes of maybe changing their mind.

Another language strategy that Oluo uses are the implementation of rhetorical questions within the chapter, usually correlating with the main idea of the chapter, as well as arguments or ideas that are in accordance with her main question of the chapter. These consist of ways that we can improve or work on racial issues in society. It is basically Oluo giving personal advice or opinions on how white people can move in the right direction in hopes of reducing racial tension and issues. I think this strategy works well, and provides emotional and logical appeal for the reader. Not only are her arguments logical and sensible in terms of building a more accepting society, but the emotional impact it has on the reader, given Oluo’s depiction of her own experience with racism, is extremely effective in convincing the reader. Oluo is able to back her arguments up with important statistics and powerful first hand experiences in order the harness the readers attention and maybe cause him/her to have second thoughts about their idea of race and racism in society.