My progress with the research essay

My paper is turning out to be less painful than I originally imagined. I think the hard work I put into the annotated bibliography is paying off now. I cranked out about four pages of the paper in only a couple hours. However, I'm not sure my organization is totally correct. My basic outline goes: introduction, history of the myth, analysis of current interpretation of the myth, analysis on whether this myth is truly a myth at all and then conclusion. I'm also think I may need to tweak my thesis (that is, the actual sentence at the end of my introduction) to better show what I'm going to discuss in the paper. I know what my angle is for the paper, but I'm having a hard time communicating that on the paper. I haven't written an essay that wasn't based on a specific class reading in a couple years, so this kind of essay is fuzzy for me and I need some reminders on how to write a paper that doesn't revolve around a certain work.

Otherwise, I feel I am doing okay with the paper. I found a lot of sources that back up my thesis and making my point easy to prove.

Freak shows: slavery or forced servitude?

The video on Sarah Baartman and the reading about freak shows brought up a lot of points I never would of thought of before. For instance, I never once thought about how racist, sexist and overall ignorant freak shows truly were. Since this phenomenon is something of generations past, it's no wonder the true happenings and motivations associated with freak shows was distorted or lost. My experiences with freak shows (from Goosebumps or We're Back!: A Dinosaur Story, mostly) all presented them as something a self-described "freak" could do in order to get away from their everyday life, which was easily achieved. And not only did the freaks have the choice of staying or leaving their careers, but they often didn't because they _liked_ their situation.

But from what I've seen in the video and the reading, I know now that I was greatly mistaken.

Now I see that freak shows, REAL freak shows of the 19th and early 20th century really were: a more subtle form of slavery.

It's terrible. As soon as slavery is abolished in most of the west, they invent something else to keep minorities and other people who are "different" down. In the case of Sarah Baartman, it was slavery that the law couldn't save Sarah from. Since she was technically abducted by the Danish in a foreign country, she had no protection from the British when she was forced to become a servant for her captures. Legal loopholes led to the downfall of the "Venus Hottentot."

As for the other "freaks," such as dwarfs or conjoined twins, they may have not been taken from their homes in foreign countries where they had no legal protection, but they were nevertheless forced into a life of ridicule and bondage. Conformity was so ingrained into the minds of westerners that there was no room for anyone remotely different from themselves. This was essentially the only choice for these people. Prejudice and hatred prevented them from getting them any sort of "normal" job, forcing them to be a part of freak shows in order to survive.

I learned a lot from this class this week, and will never again regard freak shows in the same way again.

Project Proposal

For my research paper, I would like to look at the cultural myth of the dumb blonde. I chose this topic because it's one that hits close to home, not only to me, but I think everyone in the class as well. As a blonde, I always endured the jokes and the assumptions. The only place people really believed my intelligence was at school, where I could prove my intellect with grades. I think this topic would not only interest my blonde peers (because it relates to them), but nonblonde others too, since they may have been blonde in the past, and have the option of becoming blonde if they so choose. Also, this topic has seem to make a comeback in recent media, with the growing popularity of celebrities like Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie, and most notably, Jessica Simpson. This myth is one of our generation, that I think would interest my peers.

Specifically, I thinking about looking into the origins of the myth and why the myth is still believed today, even though most blondes are unnatural and we have many counter examples to the myth. (Hiliary Clinton, for example.) Also, I might include some connections to the dumb blonde myth to the dumb Polack myth, since a good portion of the country is (naturally) blonde and the myth used to be widely believed. However, I haven't found too many sources concerning that area, so I might not be able to include it. However, I did find this blonde map of Europe I thought was really interesting.

For sources, I've actually found a bunch scholary articles concerning the dumb blonde myth (mostly from Women's Studies experts), and more than one New York Times article. Most are fairly recent, and talk about the rebirth of the myth in correlation of the popularity of the celebrities I previously mentioned.

My course schedule this quarter is really spread out, so I will mostly be working on this in mainly hour and a half chunks during the day. However, my job is a very convienant place for me to get school work done (I'm working right now!), especially on the weekends, so I will have 3 or 4 hour chunks to get some work done. However, my boyfriend is visiting from the 15th - 22nd, so that will probably alter my schedule dramatically.

Overall, my goals of the project is to discuss the cultural myth of the dumb blonde, and see what effects artifical hair coloring (or the media, or Polish ancestry) have on the myth.

A rant about diversity

An interesting thing happened to me over the weekend. I was approached by two students, one with a camera, and another with questions. They asked me if I could talk about diversity with them for a couple minutes. I did. Towards the end of the Q & A session, I was asked, "What makes you diverse?" I was stumbled by the question, and it took me almost a minute before I could sputter out a tidbit for an answer. The truth is, I have no idea what makes me diverse. Let's face it: I'm white, blonde, light-eyed and female, which is the technical majority, especially on college campuses. What is so diverse about me? If judging by looks: absolutely nothing.

For a while, I didn't believe in diversity, mostly because of this article from The Greatest Page in the Universe (Warning: NOT politically correct!). After the interview, I was reminded of this article and revisited it. I can see Maddox's point. By calling people "diverse," it's pointing out that the person is different. I agree with him in the sense that calling people diverse simply because of their skin color or sex is wrong, but that doesn't mean we should ignore people's differences completely. If we judge diversity on looks, I'm considered the majority and should feel no conflict with society ever. But that's not true, there are aspects about me that I have troubling relating to others.

For instance, my name is Melisa. Not Melissa, or even Mellisa. People assume my name has either two s's or two l's, so they don't bother listening when I tell them that's not the case. Even the people who created my credit card. Whoops. Also, I'm left-handed. Ten percent of the population is left handed. Though that equates to about 30 million people in the United States, sometimes I think society assumes only 30 people are this way. You couldn't imagine how many times in elementary school I was yelled at by teachers because I couldn't use right-handed scissors and they thought I was only being snobby and trying to get the "nicer" scissors.

It's not just in aspects I can't control either. I'm diverse by choice, so to say. I'm a blonde, hard-working, relatively social dean's list student that has never once picked up a drug who happens to love heavy metal music. Though the scene is growing, especially with women, this has yet to effect my friends and most people around me. I have missed out on dozens of concerts because I had no one to go with. It's frustrating sometimes, but it can have it's perks in unexpected ways. Desparately trying to avoid having to listen to my iPod, my friends often offer to drive when we go places, even if it's never to a metal concert.

The truthiness of "Baghdad Burning"

Unfortunately, I am stuck working in Baker Center all weekend, so I don't have a chance to see any of the films of the festival. Instead, I only have our reading assignments for my entertainment. Lucky for me, I found "Baghdad Burning" immensely interesting. As I was reading it, I thought a lot about truthfulness (or "truthiness," as Stephen Colbert would say) of the Internet.

I first wondered, why is Riverbend anonymous? In her "About Riverbend" post on August 24th, 2003, Riverbend says she "must" remain anonymous, otherwise, she wouldn't "feel free" to write. Why doesn't she "feel free" to write without hiding behind her anonymity? All her blog says is the apparent "average" opinion of Iraqi citizens, then what makes what she says dangerous or controversial? I thought it was interesting that she didn't go into detail why she couldn't tell readers her name. Especially after the blog became popular and published, why wouldn't she want to have a chance to make money off her blog if she could?

That also brings me to the issue of the publication of her blog in print. "Baghdad Burning" seems like another critical violation of standards and ethics in the media surrounding the Iraq War. No one has any proof of Riverbends identity, yet her blogs are published and assumed true. In fact, the introduction is written by an "investigative journalist" named James Ridgeway, whom didn't even think to research if Riverbend was truly who she said she was.

All I'm saying is, if Riverbend is truly a 20-something former computer programmer from Iraq, then her insight is valuable and enlightening. Until I have proof, however, I will continue to be skeptical of her blog.

Oh, and why is it so hard to find out who Riverbend is? I would think this information would've been leaked out by now.

Connections between "The Pacific Era has Arrived" and "Dear Miye"

"The Pacific Era has Arrived" by Eiichiro Azuma brought forth an argument on the Japanese government's intentions for Nisei from 1932-1941 I never expected. I don't know why I didn't expect it -- a country's true intentions, especially in a time of war, are always suspicious -- but I guess I never thought about while reading Dear Miye. However, while reading this essay, I noticed many claims that could relate to Mary's life and letters. Some include:

- Japan's Ministry of Education's 1932 directive that ordered Nisei to "be 'treated as Japanese citizens.'" probably had something to do with Mary's proclamations in one of her letters that said Japan welcomes foreigners. Seems here that Japan's propaganda is working on Mary...

- The essay stated that Waseda International Institute, one of the school's Mary attended while in Japan, was composed mostly of the "elite" Nisei. It is interesting to think of Mary, our beloved narrator (at least beloved by me) as an elitist. This forces me to see a different side of Mary, a side that points to the passages where she writes about how she's never been a victim of racial discrimination in America and her parents were farm owners. This puts me in a similar position as I felt while reading Bookseller when I begin to doubt the overall accuracy of these lifestyles because the stories I read about them contain people exempt from the majority.

- When I read that "a vast majority of students did not partake in the decision-making process" concerning their study in Japan, I immediately thought back to the wire Mary's parents sent her a wire telling her to stay in Japan. Mary was concerned about it for a few days, thinking something terrible had happened, when all along they just wanted her to stay to study more. I thought this was a rash and controlling move on Mary, since she states clearly in her previous letters, she wanted to go home.

Did you guys find any other connections?

Why Seierstad's bias doesn't matter

The objectivity of a journalist is hotly debated. Some argue a journalist should eliminate any bias someone may have in one of his or her stories, while others claim true objectively in humans is impossible. Asne Seierstad seems to take the latter side of the argument. Her book, The Bookseller of Kabul, fits into a unique genre: literary journalism. Though technically nonfiction, Bookseller tells the story of a family through third person omniscient point of view. Seierstad uses this genre to present a theme within her writing about an actual family. The genre is further contested because the book is told through her Western eyes about the life of an Eastern family. Because she takes this point of view, some see her position as ignorant to other cultures. However, because Seierstad writes using literary journalism, she tells her audience she knows she is biased and cannot escape it, and therefore doesn't try to.

In her forward, Seierstad claims the reason she wrote her book was because a family she met in Afghanistan "inspired [her]" (xv). Right away she tells her readers this is a novel, not a news article. Because she chooses to write the story in literary form, she shows readers this is her side of the story. In literature, there is no objectivity -- bias is assumed. Seierstad wants to comment on this family, which is why she chooses to write her story in that form. However, because what she writes about is technically a true story (or rather, a compilation of stories claimed to be true that no one can prove otherwise), calling Bookseller fiction is incorrect. Because of this, Seierstad is forced to call her work nonfiction. Though she tries to steer readers away from believing her work is a piece of journalism in her forward, her story is nevertheless judged as an inaccurate and biased news article.

The topic of Bookseller also brings Seierstad’s objectivity into the spotlight. Because she is a Caucasian woman writing about an Afghan family, her inaccuracies about the actual happenings of the family are highlighted and labeled as racist. In an article in The Los Angeles Times, Shah Muhammad Rais said Seierstad came to Afghanistan “with a picture already in her mind” (King). However, this is how writers operate. They have their own thoughts and ideas about life around them and they put on paper. Rais and other critics assume Seierstad’s bias as something she should have tried to avoid, though it is the journalistic aspect she doesn’t want in the story.

The journalist’s duty of objectivity is difficult to maintain. Asne Seierstad realizes it is something she does not want included in The Bookseller of Kabul. Instead, she twists ordinary journalism and makes it literature, where she knows she can write her opinion freely. However, because she wrote her story based on “true” events, the book must bear the burden of nonfiction, forever committing readers to misinterpret the author’s purpose for writing the story the way she did.

Works Cited

King, Laura. "The Bookseller of Kabul responds." Los Angeles Times 25 Feb 2009 1. Web.12 Apr 2009. .

Seierstad, Asne. The Bookseller of Kabul. New York: Back Bay Books, 2002. Print.