Thoughts Behind...

If you're like me and have lived in Troy for all (or almost all) your life, you're pretty familiar with our surrounding cities. There's Rochester, Birmingham, Bloomfield, and... what's it called? The scary, run-down one just a few miles south? Of course, Detroit. No one could forget it! But have you ever introduced yourself to a non-Michigander and realized the pure shock on his face as you tell him that you're from the Detroit area? But how can such an educated and financially well off person come from Detroit? he would ask. And even after you explain that you're not actually from  Detroit, but a suburb of the city, he would still be stunned. But if you think about it, we should too. The commute to the second most dangerous city in the United States is only 30 minutes! And you know the movies Detroit and 8 Mile ! But something just as obvious yet unnoticed is the extent of segregation that exists in our area. All our lives, we have been surrounded by Cauc...

Knowing that the Great Gatsby is set in the 1920s, I had been looking forward to reading the book for so long. This decade has always fascinated me because of its creation of a new society, which--for the first time in history--is relatable to ours. In my perspective, before the 1920s, history was bleak, the human lifestyle seemed near archaic, and nothing was the slightest bit comparable to the twenty-first century. But at the turn of a new decade, Roaring Twenties brought along the "New Woman" and the birth of mass culture, including a surge of trends and technology. A curtain for my car window? Of course, I'll buy it! However, in the Great Gatsby , I seemed to have forgotten that the book I was reading was about my favorite decade! Where's the excitement and innovation? Why aren't advertisements for the Model-T being shoved in my face? Needless to say, I was underwhelmed! But I don't think I was alone in thinking this. In fact, Fitzgerald's mess...

As we discussed the "valley of ashes" on page 23 in class on Wednesday, the passage vividly reminded me of something we've already gone over in the past month: the Holocaust. "Chimneys [with]... rising smoke." Gas chambers. "Gray cars... along... [a] track." Railroad trips to concentration camps. "Ash-gray men" "who move dimly.... already crumbling through the powdery air." Emaciated, imprisoned men forced into labor. You get the point. Everything gray illustrates a sort of misery. In the case of this connection here, misery comes from torture and endless labor. Despite their greatest efforts to produce, hide, or run, nothing but luck could ensure prisoners' safety and survival. Their lives were cycles of constant fear and dread, unable to ever escape. But of course, you have to remember that The Great Gatsby  was only written in 1925-- decades before the Holocaust. So most definitely, Fitzgerald did not intend to emulate su...

I always knew we were different. He lived in a big house on Not Doctor Street, and I lived in the Southside. He had a family, and I was abandoned. But it didn't bother me. We could just as well get along and go where we wanted. But as we grew up, our experiences diverged. We became men and no longer children, and with that came the economic labels slapped onto us. No one said it to him, but he would always be the rich one who could pass around the white. He didn't see how often I was stopped by the police. In fact, he didn't realize why it was so humiliating until it happened to him. He didn't see these black deaths as his people or possibilities for himself-- just a random tragedy. And when it mattered most, I realized: he wasn't my man.  I wasn't his people, and he wasn't mine. And like the saying goes, if you're not with me, then you're against me. He would not support my plans, let alone understand them. He nearly took sides with the white ...