Pardon sought for champion Jack Johnson Essay Example for Free

Pardon sought for champion Jack Johnson Essay According to newspaper reports this week, Sen. John McCain, the former Republican candidate for president, has introduced a resolution to Congress urging President Barack Obama to pardon Jack Johnson for his conviction of an alleged violation of the Mann Act ninety six years ago. (UPI) The resolution, originally presented to the Congress of George W. Bush in September, 2008 states in part, that Johnson was wronged by a racially motivated conviction prompted by his success in the boxing ring and his relationships with white women. (API) In 1904 Jack Johnson became the first African American heavy weight champion. At a time when black men were being lynched, beaten and burned for daring to look a white man in the eye, Jack Johnson was beating them viciously in the boxing ring while taunting the on-looking crowd of whites that screamed for his defeat. Jack London, a popular American author of the time, (who had an ex-slave as a major maternal influence in his life) railed against the black pugilist, writing essays pleading for ‘some white man, any white man, to knock Johnson’s block off’. (Starnes) When white America could not come up with a â€Å"Great White Hope† to defeat Johnson they chose to defeat Jack in the only way they could – through a federal law created to protect against transporting white females across state lines for the purpose of prostitution. (Mann) Prosecutors used this law despite the fact its original purpose was the prevention of non-consensual sexual abuse (e. g. , prostitution) of white females. Jack Johnson married the woman he allegedly transported across state lines for ‘immoral purposes’. When she would not testify against him, a former lover chose to cooperate with federal prosecutors. Jack Johnson fled the United States to avoid incarceration but returned in 1920 and served one year and one day in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. While there were anti-miscegenation laws in America beginning in the late 17th century, which persisted until 1967, all such laws were local and not federal so prosecutors used the Mann Act to accuse, try, and convict Jack Johnson. Irony is one of the greatest factors of life for African Americans: no law ever protected black women from being transported across state lines for ‘immoral purposes’. While marriage between black and white was illegal in most states until 1967, no laws prohibited the rape of black women by white males. Once the importation of slaves was illegal, slavery was sustained, in part, by the sexual relationships between both white men and women and black slaves. The children that resulted were most often slaves. These offspring usually added to the labor force on southern plantations. Much of America’s history has involved denying the most basic right – to love another human being to its African American citizens. Irony is at its peak when the federal conviction of a black man, for having sex with a white woman, should wind up on the desk of another black man who is the offspring of a black man and white woman! Bibliography Pardon sought for champion Jack Johnson United Press, â€Å"Pardon sought for champion Jack Johnson†, Sports http://www. upi. com, (22/4/2009), Associated Press â€Å"Congress Seeks Pardon For Boxing Champ†, http://www. cbsnews. com (9/26/2008)

The Role Of Saudi Women In Leadership

The Role Of Saudi Women In Leadership Saudi Arabia is a desert country that runs over 8,000 square miles. There are big cities, like Riyadh, Makah, Medina, Dhahran and Jeddah; residents in these areas enjoy the amenities of well-planned modern metropolitan cities. Saudi Arabia is a monarchy, headed by the Al Saud royal family, with a council of ministers. Saudi Arabias strong root in religious and tribal history has made it what it has become today. By the 1970s Saudi Arabia had become dominant in the realm of international finance and a significant political power in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia occupies the larger part of the Arabian Peninsula and is the worlds leading oil producer and exporter. The kingdom is the center of the major places of importance for Muslims from all over the world. Plight of Saudi women There are very few (if any) well known women leaders in Saudi Arabia; this is as a result of the vast gender discrimination against the girl child. There are laws that are restrictive to women and hinder them from getting leadership roles. This study aims to explore the discriminative judicial and government systems in the country towards women. It will also describe the leadership roles of women in the Saudi society. The various aspects of leadership and gender discrimination against Saudi women will be discussed. Women are more than the men in the population of Saudi Arabia; its therefore very ironical that they had not been allowed to work. It is in the last ten years that women have been accepted as part of the working community. This demonstrates the lack of working sectors open to Saudi women. In fact transport sector discriminates women, in that a woman would not travel unaccompanied by a male companion. The society still looks down upon employed women. Â   Jobs available for Saudi women are very limited and are mostly in education, health, and administration. Women can work and attain jobs in any setting as long as there is no exposure to men. Because of this cultural and religious rule, women need to have their own independent social and educational organizations. Society allows women to fill top administrative positions in womens colleges in order to manage the college effectively. Despite these achievements education for Saudi women is still regarded secondary to taking care of the household and family. For a long time, womens education was subject to negotiation with religious and social traditions. Women in Saudi Arabia were officially allowed to get formal education about forty years ago while the men started way before the women. Consequently, there are very few jobs available for well-qualified women in Saudi Arabia. The women in Saudi Arabia are now more than ever in pursuit in order to empower themselves through education in readiness of leadership positions that may come their way . Position of women in the society There are many different aspects that one encounters while trying to understand and explore the Saudi Arabian culture. The role and status of the women is key in understanding the position of a woman in this culture. In Saudi Arabia, women do not have much to do outside their homes. Girls, from an early age, obtain a domestic role that befits them. For a young girl in Saudi Arabia, becoming a mother is the norm and is the biggest goal in life. She is raised to believe that she should aim to be a good mother and that it is her responsibility to devote her time to her husband and children. However, this is gradually changing; the government now supports education of the girl child. Womens rights groups in Saudi Arabia are not functional for instance, women are still not allowed to drive or ride on motor vehicles with strangers, and one should either be accompanied by a close relative, an employee or the employer (Helen, 2007). This law denies women a vital right; freedom of independent movement (Colin, 2005). A Saudi woman cannot be admitted into any hospital without the consent of a male family member. Despite all these, women are finding other means of maneuvering through these restrictive rules in order to pursue business this is through the intensive use of the internet (Anders, 1998). Legal, social and religious controls combine to limit a womans freedom of movement in the country. From the government perspective, this is aimed at protecting the women, but most women perceive the law as a way of accelerating and empowering the men and their dominance in the society, (Helen, 2007). Women of the Middle East have long been viewed as an oppressed group. From the desert sands of Saudi Arabia to the mountainous lands of Afghanistan, Arab women have faced many hardships in their society. While the role of a woman is meant to be nurturing and domestic, many women have moved on to a more modern view, and have taken on the role as educators and laborers. Arab women threaten the traditional family structure by doing so; however, for many it is a sacrifice they are willing to make, as they have seen that the world has more to offer than just household chores and childbearing. Rights of women in the past, today and the future The Saudi system is set up in a form known as the Sunni-Islam state version, which is a conservative form of government; this version is characterized by incorporating the interpretation of the Muslim faith and using it to formulate law. The Islamic law is interpreted in such a way that it enhances gender inequality; the women are subjected to strict and tight legal regulations on their personal behavior while the men are exempted from the rules (Colin, 2005). There is no equality for women despite Article 8 of the Saudi law which states that, Government in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia is based on the premise of justice, consultation, and equality in accordance with the shariah law (Sameena, 2005). However, the individual interpretations favor men rather than women resulting in a hierarchy system that also privileges notables and good connections over ordinary citizens and outsiders. This system in itself creates a biased and self-centered form of society associated with misinterpreta tion of religious scripture. Foreigners are treated differently depending on the country of origin and the race, too (Kathleen, 1991). Women cannot act as lawyers, and for women to access justice she hires a male lawyer wand she is forced to offer up most of her confidential information regarding financial and family matters to the lawyer and the judges. A single mans testimony in the court is the same as for two women (Sameena, 2005). In most cases, the women rely on their husbands and this denies the women personal justice and the ability to access power and leadership positions since one cannot experience power without justice. There are vast cases of gender discrimination in the employment sector in Saudi Arabia, this is attributed to the fact that most of the people are religious and have interpreted Islamic teachings in a particular way (Anders, 1998). For women, access to employment activities is very limited, with minimal enjoyment of the full benefits of citizenship or adulthood. Gender discrimination against women has exacerbated reformers to proactively advocate for democracy and empowerment of women in the country. The international community is also working in close collaboration with the reformers to help in the administration of justice and the equality of gender in Saudi Arabia (Sameena, 2005). Consequently, Saudi Arabia has made some progress in womens education and employment. Saudi women and the education sector Education is a central aspect of family and community life. There is a close link between home and school and they further correlate with the way the structure and community is shaped. The education of Arab women started long ago, dating back almost 1500 years, when the wife of Prophet Muhammad, Khadija, owned her own caravan and was her own employer; a successful one at that. However, after the Prophets death, the status of women slowly began to decline, and by the early 1900s, Arab womens status had been dwindled down to that of oppression and non-education. Because of this, several feminist women movements arose in the 1930s and 1940s, the most famous one led by Huda Sharawi in Egypt (Ahmed, 1992). Even though these feminist movements helped encourage Arab women to get back on the rise in society, only a handful were able to achieve that, as many countries such as Saudi Arabia were still not into empowering women. Womens education in Saudi Arabia started informally with the Kuttab schools that taught the fundamentals of Islam and the basics of writing, reading, and arithmetic. By 1945, King Abdul Aziz, the countrys founder, had initiated an extensive program to establish schools in the Kingdom. Six years later, in 1951, the country had 226 schools with 29,887 students (Collins, 2005). In 1954, the Ministry of Education was established headed by then Prince Fahd as the first Minister of Education. The first ever university in Saudi Arabia was opened in Riyadh in early 1957. In 1943, the first private girls school was established in Makkah by a group of people in the private sector who wanted to teach their daughters basic reading, writing and mathematics (Al Salloom, 1989). When public elementary education for girls began in 1960, there were only 15 school buildings, with a total of 127 classrooms and 518 female students. Public education at the intermediate and secondary levels for girls followed in 1963 with four school buildings for the intermediate level, and one for the secondary level (Al Salloom, 1989). As Saudi families started to realize that educating their daughters posed no threat to family life and in the traditional role of women in society, the attitude towards females education changed. Female students enrolled at all educational levels and more schools were opened. From 1970 to 1990 the number of female students enrolled in higher education expanded from 400 students to 48,000 (Kathleen, 1991). With the rapid expansion of educational facilities and enrollment, a high number of teachers and school principals were female. Today, Saudi Arabias nationwide educational system comprises many universities and colleges, including thousands of primary and secondary schools. Open to every citizen, the system provides students with free education, books and health services. To complement their studies in universities in the Kingdom, Saudi students have the opportunity to pursue graduate and post-graduate degrees in specialized fields abroad. Supported by the government scholarships, thousands of Saudi students are enrolled in universities outside the Kingdom, mainly in the United States. The beginning of womens higher education was similar in Saudi Arabia and the United States, in that both countries, at one point, denied women access to higher education and women were considered as comparative newcomers to equity of opportunity in education. This brings light to addressing another issue involving higher education and the Saudi woman: women dont have the right to make decisions and set policies concerning their higher education. To some extent, they may manage and organize their day-to-day departments, operations and resources but all major decisions affecting them-such as hiring, planning and evaluating are still made by men. What makes this problem more complicated is the lack of communication, face to face between men who are high in administered hierarchy and women who occupy lower administrative levels. For the graduate female students, there are minimal chances for them to advance in the job markets and this hinders the women from rising up into a leadership position in the education sector. There are a few women who have been lucky to get leadership positions in the education .These women play an important role, they champion for more women to be incorporated into leadership positions, however, their sentiments are always ignored (Helen, 2007).The nature of female leadership roles in Saudi Arabia cannot be compared to other countries, these women are segregated and marginalized and thus they are denied educational leadership roles (Anders, 1998). Cultural factors influencing Saudi women The shaping of societies in general is dependent on cultural and traditional factors, as well as economic and political systems. In Saudi Arabia, society culture and traditions play a major role. Culture predominantly influences womens roles in Muslim society, because of the emphasis placed on womens status and acceptable behavior as outlined in the Quran. Ahmed (1992) believes that no matter what form the political system takes, no matter what level of education women attain, no matter what traditional values govern employment, Saudi women would not play major leadership roles in modern day economics because cultural factors have impeded their development. There are a number of factors that have impacted the Saudi womens status and their position in society. The economy, the importance of the family unit, the educational opportunities available, the degree of encouragement women encounter in their pursuit of education and work, and the degree of urbanization attained are all importa nt factors that shape a society and mold many of its beliefs and values (Pinter, 1984). Saudi Arabias culture and traditions are different from the United States and are used as a basis of comparison for two reasons: first, Saudi Arabia and the United States are young wealthy countries that continue to progress (Al-Dawood, 1995); and second, to see if Saudi Arabian secondary school teachers levels of job satisfaction are different from that of secondary school teachers in the United States. Limited information on Saudi female teachers job satisfaction and principal leadership behavior in Saudi Arabia is available, thus it is necessary to also look at research conducted about male teachers. Beck Keddie (1978) indicated that men have reported a higher degree of job satisfaction than women, but more recently differences have diminished, due in part to more equal opportunities for the employment and advancement of women. A Study carried out in Qatar (a country that borders Saudi Arabia) reveals that there is no significant difference in the levels of job satisfaction between men and women (Moshaikeh, 1981). Al-Salom (1996) reports that a similar study was carried out in the United States and also found no significant difference in the level of job satisfaction between male and female teachers. The Quran advocates for stable family life, at no point does it state that women are not equal to men and that they should not mix freely in their places of work (Al-Sallom, 1989).This is not usually the case and people still misinterpret religion and use the Quran as a basis for isolating women. The differences between women in the Middle East and the ones in the western countries like United States may are due to cultural factors. Despite growing acceptance of womens education in Saudi Arabia, education for women still faces conservative attitudes from many Saudi citizens. Such conservative thinking focuses on women building the traditional roles of wives and mothers and may cause fear that education may weaken these roles. These conservative attitudes towards womens education are not related to the influences of Islam, but may be part of the traditions of the Saudi Society (Christopher, 1993). In addition, women receive fewer formal courses in school administration and in-service training than men (Abdel, 1997). Women administrators receive inadequate training; as a result, female school principals are less qualified in leadership behaviors and supervision than their male counterparts are. Teachers should have a chance to use what they have learned in education courses. They also should be involved in the planning and decision-making process regarding curriculum, time use, classroom instructions, method of instructions, resource allocation, and procedures for students evaluation. Including them as active participants would be an excellent first step in enhancing their job satisfaction. Power of women in the past, today and the future Economic empowerment of women One of the major factors that have shaped the Saudi Society is the economic situation. However, Kathleen, (1991) disagrees with the notion that a modern capitalist economy and its extension to almost all areas have resulted in many positive changes for women in Saudi Arabia. She argues that pre-capitalist urban occupations were already open to Saudi women of all classes, from midwifery and entertainment to holders of important real estate. Economic changes of the modern period did not improve or raise the levels of womens participation in public life. In the Saudi culture, serious life begins with marriage, which can be for many, an escape from family pressures and economic difficulty. Because males are seen as the protectors and supporters of women and are, therefore, considered indispensable, families pull all their resources together (material and emotional) to ensure that their young daughters marry appropriately. Women of Saudi nationality are not allowed to access benefits from the government. In the case where a Saudi woman marries a non-Saudi, she then cannot pass the nationality to her children. Consequently, in 2002, women had no right to obtain the national identity card without the order from the mahram, but they appeared as nationals from the state records that included her as a member of a particular family only (Kathleen, 1991). When this was the norm, widowed and single women had a hard time gaining leadership of their families and also in obtaining other benefits of their own and from the state subsidies (Cordesman, 2003). Saudi women do not have the right to the sign contracts or to control financial assets and in this instance, women are made to lick the boots of the males. As a result, women are denied the economic leadership and mainly depend on their husbands for economical support. The women cannot be integrated in the development processes and this greatly impacts them due to their reduced influence in policy making and changes in legislation (Colin, 2005). In a way, the Saudi law ensures gender equity to men and women related to each other. Consider for example, the case where the daughters retain half as much inheritance as the sons and when such women get married then they under the care of their husbands (Colin, 2005) .Women retain property after marriage and in this case, the husbands have the right to protect the woman and hence the women have no obligation to spend their acquired wealth on the mens behalf. The married men have the full responsibility for their family needs. And in case a woman conducts herself in an immoral manner, the man of closest relation is punished on her behalf (Helen, 2007). The role of women in Saudi Arabia is becoming more significant in both political and economic terms as more and more women hold positions of leadership and civic prominence. The educational levels of the women who have made significant contributions on leadership hold positions as founders of organizations and range in their education: from holding bachelors, masters, and doctorate degrees. Some of these women hold voluntary positions and others hold paid positions that entail career commitments. The Saudi Arabia government has given higher education, there are new educational policies put in place. The government established the Ministry of Higher Education in 1975 whose long term vision is to provide highly trained manpower necessary to run the countrys increasingly sophisticated economy. The primary objective of this ministry is to establish new institutions of higher learning throughout the country. The Kingdom has given priority to quantity and quality expansion of education in the last five to seven-years among other development plans. Despite the low percentage of Saudi women working in the labor force in the Kingdom compared to advanced countries, it is the unavailability of working sectors open for Saudi women usually limited to education and medicine which has caused some saturation in these sectors. The Saudi government is planning to undertake a study of the role of women in the countrys economy (Al-Mohamed, (2007). There are policies set by the government in order to support women who want to work. The main aim of these policies is to lower t unemployment rate among women in Saudi Arabian women. In line with this objective, the government and private organizations provide counseling services to women in stressful environments of employment. The Saudi government plan is beyond employment and aims to empower women with entrepreneurial and investing. Saudi Arabia might h ave to revise some policies that a restrict women from participating in the economy of the country. Women and political leadership The participation of women in the public domain, including the political arena, is very limited in Saudi Arabia. Unlike other women in the western world, Saudi women have no social or political rights. They still have to obtain consent of male counterparts in order to fulfill basic things, like obtaining a passport and travel. The hierarchical system of the Saudi government does not allow for democratic voting. Saudi Arabian political leaders are, therefore, hiding behind false religious pretexts by withholding many rights from women. It is a violation of their religious beliefs and practices. Other Islamic countries, such as Egypt, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain, allow women to vote and still maintain their traditional and religious practices. The country does not contain any political parties, thus the absence of elections. Women are becoming more active in reform but their efforts are marginalized. The extent of reform is determined by the ruling family (Cordesman, 2003). Al-Mohamed (2007) attributes the lack of a political role for Saudi women to educational decisions; he goes on and gives an example where women do not major in Political Science in their higher learning. For example, Princess Dr. al-Jawaharlal bint Fahd al-Saud was undersecretary of education for womens colleges for 10 years before becoming president of Riyadh University for Women in April 2007, yet she had no power to make decisions even though she had the power (Al-Mohamed, 2007). The country lacks the basic freedoms for even the civil society to take part in the leadership. It is very hard to start new organizations and even more so the women groups, due to their co-option by the government. I would recommend the existence of political parties in the country with free elections since this would foster democratic growth in the country (Anders, 1998). The media should be free to express their ideas and women rights agencies should be supported to help in the equality of gender, promote the growth of the economy and the active participation of women in the exercising of political power (Kathleen, 1991). Role of religion in empowering women To better understand a Saudi womans position, one must learn a great deal about the culture and religion. One should also understand Islam, its history and culture. In a Muslim community, the people are to follow Gods commands and live a moral life. Saudi women who are working and serve society should be careful to follow an Islamic way of life. In the modern society, wearing a hijab, which may cover a womans head or her whole body, remains part of Muslim culture in Saudi Arabia and also worldwide. Most Muslim women dress modestly and in Muslim countries even the most successful business women will cover themselves with the hijab. Many of the women welcome this practice as they feel it prevents them from being bothered by co-workers or strangers. Some modern Muslims in non-Muslims cultures, however, choose not to cover to attract less attention rather than deal with discouragement about it. Whichever the case, the wearing of a hijab should be intended to please God and should not be done in a mandatory or pressurized manner (Cordesman, 2003). Before Islam, women in the Arab world had no rights to own any property, inherit, divorce, or even choose their marriage partner; the father was usually the one to decide or a male relative. With the advent of Islam, women were given the aforementioned rights and their status changed to that of a dignified human being, deserving of respect and honor. The Islamic view about women is that men and women are equal in their origin and their rights. According to the history of Islam, women have political rights, can participate in public affairs, run a business, choose their husbands and even inherit properly. In regard of womens education, a woman in Islam is not required to contribute financially to the family, which may explain why some Saudis consider education to be worthwhile and necessary for males and less for women. The Quran, which is the source of Islamic jurisprudence, contains no verse that deprives woman the right to be educated In fact, the word Quran is derived from the wor d reading and the first verse of the Quran calls on the devoted to read and write. There are no barriers to women acquiring knowledge in the Islamic faith as long as there is no mixing between the two genders. Most people that profess the Muslim faith do not believe that that men and women are equal in matters of religion (Kathleen, 1991). The role of women in the family and upbringing of children play a major part consequently, the women are allowed to worship at home as the men and the boys worship at the mosque. Despite the active role of women in religion, Saudi women are denied access to any management roles and leadership positions in the countrys religious institutions (Kathleen, 1991). There are still some conservative people who do not want to embrace The New World Order, where women work and are independent, religion is still the excuse of this people. There is as an ideological conflict between culture and religion, Islam allows women the right to education and work. As a result Arab women continue to seek education and work, societys expectations hover over them, giving them more strength to those who oppose empowering women. Conclusion The purpose of this study was to examine the family and societal factors that affect Saudi women in their pursuit of leadership positions in a Muslim society, such as that found in Saudi Arabia. Another area of interest was the impact of Islam on the Saudi women and their pursuit of leadership roles in public life. It is true that the law and the male dominated society and does not provide a good environment for leadership positions of women. The women now more than ever are willing to take the risk and empower themselves, sooner than later women from these part of the world will catch up with other countries that have overcome gender discrimination. Studies show that Saudi women are getting more attention due to the current interest in multiculturalism and global awareness. There are many women in Saudi Arabia who have attained leadership roles on a smaller scale, such as in remote villages and rural areas. The number of Saudi women who have leadership positions may not be large in comparison to the number of women with leadership positions in Western nations or even in neighboring countries but it is a great step considering the position of Arab women and their role and treatment under Islamic culture. Women who have leadership roles in Arab societies are an important resource for information that can help bridge the gap between preconceived notions about the Arab world and the reality of the conditions encountered by women in that part of the world. For instance , in America there are great women who have revolutionized leadership like Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice while in Germany Angela Merkel is the Chancellor. In the M iddle East the most common figure was Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan who was a potential political leader but was assassinated. These women in leadership ar role models to other women all over the world and soon the Arab world is going to embrace women leadership. However, the level of leadership and the participation of women in various positions in Saudi are faced with mainly two interrelated issues. First, the effects of the constitutional rights on women and secondly, is the status of women and their position in reference to Islamic laws. Reform is urgently needed in both educational and employment sectors to provide greater equality for women. Previous trends of females in educational development indicate an ever expanding access of education by women to where they may outnumber men. However, gender segregation and inferiorities in curriculum differentiation is still experienced. There should be more awareness campaigns for women to be informed on the importance of pursuing education to a higher level and diversification of courses to be studied. The diversification of the countrys economy and the expansion of the services in the various sectors may result in the liberalization of the scope of occupation and enroll women in leadership roles. This change would be due to the shortage of labor and the increased participation of women in the education facilities and curriculums. This would help move women up in public visibility and allow them to participate in the decision making of the country.

Censorship and Political Misinformation Essay -- Censorship

Introduction In 1944, after the Red Army invaded Poland and imposed the communist system upon it, large groups of Polish society resisted the attempts at social conversion inspired by Marxist ideologies and Soviet example. Many social echelons were effected by the new social engineering which included, "expropriations, ideological and organizational unification, and party and state control over social, political, and economic life." (Karpinski. 1997). Writers, artists and educators had success bypassing such strict censorship and were able to deliver their messages to the public, teaching values different than the ones officially approved by their government. After 1956, Polish historians, sociologists, and philosophers were able to publish valuable works that were free of Marxist ideological obligations. Some authors chose to bypass censorship completely by publishing abroad. The development of unofficial, uncensored, and underground publishing in the 1970's broadened the channels of public c ommunication. Radio Free Europe and other Western radio stations broadcast works published abroad and in the underground, giving them stronger resonance throughout the world. Typically, controlling ideological unification, regulating flow of information, and neutralizing critical opinion are the focal points of government controlled censorship. For centuries, the Chinese people have been isolated from the rest of the world due to the People’s Republic of China, or PRC, government’s strict censorship laws. Though the rise of the Internet has increased the flow of information within China, all information is heavily scrutinized by the current censorship machine known as the Golden Shield Project, colloquially referred to as the Great Fi... ... Road Blocks. Washington: GPO, 2006. Web. Pierson, David. "China: Online Call for Protests in China Prompts Crackdown - Latimes.com." Los Angeles Times - California, National and World News - Latimes.com. 26 Feb. 2011. Web. Schrage, Elliot. "Testimony: The Internet in China." Official Google Blog. 15 Feb. 2006. Web. Solomon, Richard. Mao’s Revolution and the Chinese Political Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971 United States. Federal Communications Commission. Fiscal Year 2008 Performance and Accountability Report. Washington: GPO, 2008. Web. Watts, Jonathan. "China's Secret Internet Police Target Critics with Web of Propaganda | Technology | The Guardian." The Guardian. 14 June 2005. Web. 21 Feb. 2011. Karpinski, Jakub, and Tibor Dessewffy. "Dissidents--Then and Now". Transition. Feb. 21 1997: 14-23. SIRS Researcher. Web. 02 Feb. 2011.

Comparing Metaphors in Norman Macleans, A River Runs Through It and He

Comparing Metaphors in Norman Maclean's, A River Runs Through It and Henry David Thoreau's, Walden In Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It, the author recounts the story of his early life growing up in Montana. The narrative revolves around his family and the art of fly fishing. Through the novel, Maclean begins to understand the wisdom of his father, the fierce independence and downfall of his brother, and the divinity and beauty of nature. A similar theme regarding divinity in nature is found in Henry David Thoreau's Walden. Building his own cabin and supplying his own food, Thoreau spends two years living alone beside Walden Pond. Thoreau recognizes nature as the "highest reality"(265) and the intrinsic work of "the Builder of the universe"(348). Thoreau also provides insights into human life and expresses these in indirect metaphors with his natural surroundings. The narratives differ most in their changes in mood and plot progression. In Walden, Thoreau displays a change from beginning to end, expressing pessimism and depression at first and then happiness and fulfillment in the end. A River Runs Through It is largely opposite of this change. Thus, both authors relate similar themes and experiences while significant differences exist in the mood and progression. One theme common to both narratives relates to how people are similar to bodies of water. Maclean illustrates this as he describes his brother Paul as being "tough"(8) and "very angry"(7) from his youth. Consequently, Paul's favorite river is the Big Blackfoot, which "is the most powerful and . . . runs straight and hard"(13). Maclean describes the river's "glacial origins"(14) and how it was formed overnight in "the biggest flood in the world"(14). Paul... ... glories in the beauty of nature and expressed how infinite man's possibilities are. In contrast, Maclean provides a valuable and realistic lesson, as his brother's premature death and his family's sorrow are the final details of his story. Despite, the depressing ending, Maclean expresses his belief in the permanence of one's legacy as he hears the words of his family echoed in the river. Thoreau states, "Yes, we have done great deeds, and song divine songs, which shall never die"(349). Thus, both works display compelling themes of nature and men's lives while differing substantially in their plot progression and mood. Works Cited Maclean, Norman. A River Runs Through It and Other Stories. Chicago: The U of Chicago P, 1976. Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. 1862. Walden and Other Writings by Henry David Thoreau. Ed. Joseph Wood Krutch. New York: Bantam, 2001. Comparing Metaphors in Norman Maclean's, A River Runs Through It and He Comparing Metaphors in Norman Maclean's, A River Runs Through It and Henry David Thoreau's, Walden In Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It, the author recounts the story of his early life growing up in Montana. The narrative revolves around his family and the art of fly fishing. Through the novel, Maclean begins to understand the wisdom of his father, the fierce independence and downfall of his brother, and the divinity and beauty of nature. A similar theme regarding divinity in nature is found in Henry David Thoreau's Walden. Building his own cabin and supplying his own food, Thoreau spends two years living alone beside Walden Pond. Thoreau recognizes nature as the "highest reality"(265) and the intrinsic work of "the Builder of the universe"(348). Thoreau also provides insights into human life and expresses these in indirect metaphors with his natural surroundings. The narratives differ most in their changes in mood and plot progression. In Walden, Thoreau displays a change from beginning to end, expressing pessimism and depression at first and then happiness and fulfillment in the end. A River Runs Through It is largely opposite of this change. Thus, both authors relate similar themes and experiences while significant differences exist in the mood and progression. One theme common to both narratives relates to how people are similar to bodies of water. Maclean illustrates this as he describes his brother Paul as being "tough"(8) and "very angry"(7) from his youth. Consequently, Paul's favorite river is the Big Blackfoot, which "is the most powerful and . . . runs straight and hard"(13). Maclean describes the river's "glacial origins"(14) and how it was formed overnight in "the biggest flood in the world"(14). Paul... ... glories in the beauty of nature and expressed how infinite man's possibilities are. In contrast, Maclean provides a valuable and realistic lesson, as his brother's premature death and his family's sorrow are the final details of his story. Despite, the depressing ending, Maclean expresses his belief in the permanence of one's legacy as he hears the words of his family echoed in the river. Thoreau states, "Yes, we have done great deeds, and song divine songs, which shall never die"(349). Thus, both works display compelling themes of nature and men's lives while differing substantially in their plot progression and mood. Works Cited Maclean, Norman. A River Runs Through It and Other Stories. Chicago: The U of Chicago P, 1976. Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. 1862. Walden and Other Writings by Henry David Thoreau. Ed. Joseph Wood Krutch. New York: Bantam, 2001.

The Gap :: Clothing Retail Sales Papers

The Gap Formating problems GAP.à  It’s on every third glass window that covers the front of the store.à  The windows display large posters and body forms, not mannequins because they don’t have heads, hands, or feet.à  They wear the latest items to arrive in the store, and look impeccable most of the time, because most of the time I dress them.à  The tiled floor between the glass doors gives way to a scratched and scuffed hard wood floor in desperate need of a wax and buff.à  The dust bunnies that seem to breed and quickly distribute themselves until they are under every fixture and on top of every shelf must first be exterminated.à  The lighting is a combination of muted fluorescent in the middle with focused spotlights on the items toward the outside of the store.à  I can catch a whiff of wool, or leather every so often, but usually my nose is polluted with Dream, Heaven, and Blue, constantly sprayed by customers testing it.à  Just smell the bottle, ok?à  Music is always pump ing out of the speakers from a tape that is sent to us from the corporate office.à  Sometimes the songs are danceable, sometimes not, but the volume is always loud enough so that you can listen to it if you get bored, but still hold a conversation over it.à  Conversations that often times occur between employees themselves.à  I’m not big on the conversing side of it.à  I listen to the music, thinking about what I really want to be doing right now.à  Do I want to fold this sweatshirt?à  Do I want to look for another size?à  No I want to put my tongue piercing back in and dance around the store busting a move for all the world to see.à  I can’t do that.à  I have to obey the corporate law because I’m on â€Å"Gap Time.†Ãƒ Ãƒ Ãƒ  Women’s items are on the left side, men’s on the right.à  Each is divided further into four sections: sections one two and three, and the denim section.à  They all have themes.à  Section one is usually seasonally casual; currently it’s filled with sweaters and wool pants, scarves, hats and mittens.à  Section two has all the khakis; it’s sometimes the Gap at Work section, or the Smart and Snappy section.à  Right now Women’s Two is filled with velvet pants, silk shirts, tuxedo skirts and pants, button up shirts, and turtleneck sweaters in merino wool.

Real vs Reality TV

Television has become a â€Å"member† of almost every single family on our planet. And not just an ordinary member, but a very important one, because the time spent next to it exceeds the amount of time spent together with any other family member. You do not have to apply any efforts to talk or listen to complaints while â€Å"communicating† with it. You do not have to play with your little son after a hard working day. You are SO tired! Can anybody respect that? You can simply turn the TV on and everything is done. The kids are quiet, your significant other is not complaining. It is so simple that it has become an integral part of the culture of every family. It is the only time, when a person can forget about all the family troubles and the failures of the day. The sofa opposite the TV set has become the place of â€Å"reconciliation and spiritual unity† of the family. And what is it that we’re watching? Is it an educational or discovery channel? Although some might, the majority of the shows we consume are reality shows. But â€Å"what is reality television? † one might ask. Reality TV is defined by MSN Encarta as â€Å"television programs that present people in live, though often deliberately manufactured, situations and monitor their emotions and behavior. † Within this genre of television are subgenres such as Game or Elimination, Talent, Talk, Makeover, Documentary, and Spoofs. It was first introduced by Allen Flunt’s 1948 program Candid Camera. The show involved concealing cameras filming ordinary people being confronted with unusual situations, sometimes involving trick props, such as a desk with drawers that pop open when one is closed or a car with a hidden extra gas tank. When the joke was revealed, victims would be told the show's catch phrase, â€Å"Smile, you're on Candid Camera. † The show became a top rated TV show in both network runs and syndication. Reality television enjoyed a renewed popularity in the 2000s with shows like American Idol that featured an interactive aspect, asking viewers to call in to vote for favorites. Today you cannot turn the television on without coming across reality television. The final ratings for the 2009-2010 television seasons show that reality TV lead the pack and bring up the rear end. It is everywhere and although it has spread in popularity there is often more negative remarks made against it than positive. Critics of reality TV often argue that the shows promote sex, drinking, violence and racism. Although reality TV may be fun to watch, it is very dangerous for teenagers who don’t have set morals and self-identities. Reality TV is questionable because of the messages some of the shows depict. While these messages can have an effect on everyone who views them, the audience that may be the most susceptible is teenagers. The most contested issues are whether reality TV is, in fact, â€Å"reality† and whether teenagers may develop perceptions from the reality shows that may lead to poor choices and negative consequences. In a 2004 issue of â€Å"Pediatrics,† Rebecca L. Collins, senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corp. , and her colleagues presented the results of a survey that measured the amount of sexual explicit television that teenagers watched and how much sexual experience the teenagers had had at a one-year follow up survey. They found that teenage exposure to sexual content on television shows increased the likelihood of initiating sexual acts and the effect of shows that depicted sexual behaviors and those that just discussed sex had the same effect on teenage audiences. Similarly, in a 2008 edition of â€Å"Pediatrics,† Anita Chandra, a behavioral scientist at the RAND Corp. , and her colleagues released the results of a survey conducted over a three-year period that measured teenagers' exposure to sexual content on television and any resulting first-hand experience with pregnancy. They found that teenagers who regularly watch television programs containing a significant amount of sexual behavior are two times more likely to become pregnant or impregnate someone than those teenagers who do not watch programs with sexual content. Reality TV is also dangerous because of the way it depicts the characters as heavy drinkers. Many programs include segments that show the main characters drinking, partying and engaging in rambunctious behavior, but they often fail to show to the consequences that the characters must face for these actions. When teenagers see these types of behaviors, they might be led to believe that they too should consume large amounts of alcohol and act in a similar manner. Television violence in reality TV is another major concern. Studies show that the amount of violence that is watched on television affects the amount of aggression and violence displayed in the individual (Fernandez, Roberto, Juan and Amy 137). Reality shows such as The Bad Girls Club and The Real World have more than its share of the violence. The target viewers for MTV are ages twelve to thirty three, this demographic makes up approximately thirty three percent of the U. S. population (Smith 89). Thirteen year olds are already susceptible to influence, and are more at risk to be adversely affected by violent television than are those of later years (Comstock 1205). If life is really like it is depicted to be on an episode of The Bad Girls Club, the average person should wake up to a side of pointless fight, brunch to a cussing war, and eat supper around the time someone breaks a nose. Studies of US television airings discovered that there was a consistent rate of five to six violent acts per hour (Fernandez, Roberto, Juan and Amy 137). In watching an episode of the Ultimate Fighter, one can expect to see at least twenty to thirty violent acts within the thirty minute airing with three minute commercial interruptions. Arriving at twenty to thirty violent acts in an episode is when you only count each individual match as one act. The numbers climb out of the ring as fast as in. If this is what young adolescents are taking is as â€Å"reality† than it is no wonder there are problems with violence and aggression in schools and on the streets. In a behavioral science study, it was stated that â€Å"Aggression [†¦ is the product of social categorization† and that it is not a natural phenomenon (Comstock 1206). According to a study conducted at Syracuse University in New York, â€Å"There is a statistically significant, positive relationship between exposure to television or film violence and aggressive and antisocial behavior† (Comstock 1186). The study concluded this theory by stating that by viewing violent television in everyday life, antisocial and aggressive behaviors and tendencies would be facilitated (Comstock 1191). With this outlook, it seems much more likely that the significant amount of aggression present in society today can very well be influenced if not caused by the vast ocean of aggression harbored in television culture. Racism is very prevalent in crime reality television. There is a vast overrepresentation of violent crime (e. g. Kooistra, Mahoney, & Westervelt 1998; Oliver, 1994; Potter et al, 1997), crimes cleared (e. g. , Kooistra et al, 1998; Oliver, 1994) and non-whites as offenders and whites as law nforcement officers. In a direct test of the cultivation hypothesis, a social theory which examined the long-term effects of television on American audiences of all ages, Oliver & Armstrong (1998) reported that whites who watched more reality TV were more likely to report higher crime prevalence estimates. The construction of these programs is considered from a cultural, qualitative perspective focusing on the ideal perspectives conveyed about law and order, social threats, and audience empowerment (Cavender, 11998; J.  Fishman, 1999). For example, Cavender and Bond-Maupin (1993) argue that these programs make use of story-telling conventions to encourage empathy with an unsuspecting victim who falls prey to evil, which, in turn, primes the notion that no place is safe. They also indicated that reality-based crime shows such as America’s Most Wanted and Unsolved Mysteries depict crime in ways similar to those used in fictionalized crime shows which reinforces existing cultural stereotypes about criminals and victims. The First 48 is one of the most watched non-fiction investigation series which aires on A&E. Set in several cities across the U. S. , the series offers an insider’s look at the real-life world of homicide investigators. Each episode picks one or more homicides in different cities, covering each alternately, showing how detectives use forensic evidence, witness interviews and other advanced detective skills to identify suspects. The cops on this show are mainly White, with the exception of a couple of Black investigators that are shown on few episodes. This show is very biased in the fact that it depicts only the black communities across the nation and that which is full of criminals, gang violence & drug saturation. One would almost think that there are no White people who commit the same types of crime(s) in those cities. Or is it that the Police Departments in the white communities of those (& other) cities don't permit the exploitation which is presented by this programming’s directors? The genre has also created a slew of reality stars, as a result of the fame game. It seems that many are random people with no apparent talent. Keeping up with the Kardashians has made famous a whole family who appear to be famous without reason except that they have a reality show. Another reality TV favorite is The Real Housewives of Atlanta. The series has been going strong for three seasons. Everything about the show is a mess. This season has been about even more drama than ever before. Will Cynthia marry Peter? Is Phaedra married to a convict? Will â€Å"NeNe† and Greg get divorced? Will Brice get it together? The craziness and complexity of it all is never ending. Why do we care? These people are just ordinary people with no real celebrity other than what we the viewers give them. The uses and gratifications perspective, the assumption that a media channel cannot influence an individual unless that person has some use for the medium or its particular message (e. g. Katz, 1959; Rubin & Rubin, 1985), may be a clear explanation of the genre’s appeal. The uses and gratifications framework includes five primary beliefs. The first is that an individual’s behavior is goal directed and motivated. Second, people select and use media to satisfy biological, psychological and social needs. Third, individuals are influenced by various social and psychological factors when selecting among communication alternatives. Fourth, those media consumers are aware of their needs and whether these needs are being satisfied by a particular medium. Fifth, that different media compete with one another for attention, selection, and use. In sum, uses and gratifications theory states that individuals are aware of their needs, evaluate various channels and content, assess functional alternatives and select the media or interpersonal channel that they believe will provide the gratifications they seek. Reality TV also offers some positive aspects as well. American Idol, which is the leader of reality TV, had over 24,000,000 viewers. The show starts off with thousands of people auditioning in hopes of becoming America’s next superstar. Some can sing, but many just make utter fools of themselves on national television. Just a week ago an American Idol hopeful auditioned in front of the judges with her opera rendition of Justin Beiber’s song â€Å"Baby†. As she belts the notes Randy immediately puts his head down and motions for her to stop. Steven Tyler and â€Å"JLo† look as if they don’t know what is going on and as she hits the high note Steven marks the end with the sound of an explosion. They break out with laughter, just as we do sitting at home watching. â€Å"What the hell was that? † may be what comes to mind. Beside it being purely entertaining because we like to see others humiliate themselves, the show offers stories of success. For the people who volunteer themselves for the likes of American Idol and America's Next Top Model, winning the show is potentially a life-changing experience and a springboard to a career in the entertainment industry. The reward is there for the taking, but it's often not just the winners who can make a name for themselves. Jennifer Hudson, a finalist on season 3 of American idol and Tocarra Jones, a participant on season 3 of America's Next Top Model, may not have won the shows, but they both went on to have major success. Jennifer Hudson made her film debut in the 2006 film Dreamgirls, which won her many awards such as an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and a Golden Globe Award. She also won a Grammy award for her debut album. Tocarra is a working plus-size model today and she is signed to the largest modeling agency in the world. Reality TV can also provide learning on dating, family relations, friendships and dealing with sensitive issues. Pedro Zamora's 1994 appearance on MTV reality show The Real World was a landmark media event: the first openly HIV-positive gay man on a nationwide TV series. Zamora, who died at 22 just as Real World: San Francisco ended, was a teen when he learned he was HIV-positive, a diagnosis that led the diminutive Miami resident to become an AIDS activist and educator. His MTV fame ultimately drew the attention of President Clinton. Zamora's role on Real World: San Francisco was memorable not only for lecturing housemates and viewers about HIV and preventative measures but also for his combative relationship with the abrasive Puck Rainey, one of the most polarizing roommates in the show's 21-year history. Things got so testy between Zamora and the politically incorrect Rainey that the roommates ultimately banned Rainey from their collective home. Even those reality shows that aren't competitions can still make a name for the stars. Lauren Conrad started her career on MTV's â€Å"Laguna Beach: The Real OC,† and with subsequent exposure on â€Å"The Hills† has become a best-selling author, spokesperson and fashion designer–not bad for a normal California girl. Watching these successes has also inspired a generation of youngsters to aspire to make something of themselves. They want to better their lives and find inspiration from the success stories after the cameras have stopped rolling. Reality TV also offers a source of distraction and diversion to everyday life. It gives you a break away from your stress and frustration. Of course this does not solve the root case, but it helps take away from the root source of the stress. Although taking a walk or reading a book may be better alternatives for distractions, reality TV still allows you to momentarily forget your problems because you’re consumed in others on television. Although reality TV offers some positive aspects such as success stories, positive learning experiences, distractions and others, the negatives outweigh them all when it comes to the teenagers which the shows are aimed at. They presume that reality TV is actually â€Å"reality†, which it is not by any means. Teenagers do not have the understanding so they could and probably will fall subject to all the negative side it can entail. Some solutions to the problem may be for the parents to parent more and as they should. Parents should have the knowledge about what reality TV is and explain it to their children. Parents or society should not rely on reality TV or any genre of television to teach our children or ourselves for that matter. It will indefinitely lead us in the wrong direction. It is not to teach, but to entertain. If we have the knowledge about what reality TV actually is, in turn, we will be able to keep it in the context of entertainment and not reality. For those who don’t take it seriously it can provide entertainment for 30 minutes or so. But if taken as â€Å"reality†, it then has a danger of harming its audience with unrealistic expectations.

Theme of Sexuality in Andre Brink ‘s Other Lives

Brink’s Other Lives: A Rewriting of history through eroticism The dissident writer's preeminent role, as Brink sees it, is to â€Å"explore and expose the roots of the human condition as it is lived in South Africa: (.. ) With the fundamentals of human experience and relationships†(Mapmakers 152).That is to say, he aims, through narrating and referring to kinships, mainly sensual ones, at unveiling the racial practices of the past apartheid system which is, according to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary and thesaurus, defined as â€Å"a former policy of segregation and political and economic discrimination against non-European groups in the Republic of So. Africa† in doing so, he makes use of erotic scenes between black and white people of both sexes. This essay tackles Brink’s choice to make use of erotic fiction as an inventive way of writing history.Also, it deals with sexuality, in this particular novel, which stands as an epitome for racial, colonia l and political relationships between black and white people, as well as the numerous interpretations of the coitus either through symbolism or feminism or psychoanalysis. According to Brink â€Å"the author’s reinvention of history would involve a choice between two kinds of concepts, two ends on a sliding scale: namely, history as fact and history as fiction. He opts for fiction in this novel to rewrite the history of South Africa: â€Å"In forthcoming novels I shall be trying to get more and more of an imaginative grasp on reality, to invent history†, so that he lays naked the remainders of the post-apartheid system in an innovative style, skillfully inserting here and there several incidents, including sexual relations, that may be real or even personal, encompassing and resuming the aftermaths of the colonial experience. Brink’s answer to the inevitable question:† Why re-sort to fiction?Why reduce history to storytelling? † is summarized in Rus sell Hoban’s famous dictum:† We make fiction because we ARE fiction. â€Å"Brink elaborated on this idea explaining that â€Å"Whether one composes a c. v. for a job application, or reviews a day or week or year or a life traversed, or relates a crucial experience to someone else, or writes a letter, or describes an event-however one sets about it, it is inevitably turned into narrative. † The will to power, to dominate the other race and prove oneself to be superior has its links with sensuality and chauvinism.At first reading, some sexual acts in the novel seem to be scenes of pure passion, but then, they turn out to be mere longing for annihilation. For instance, In the second part Mirror, when Steve, a black man, is provoked by the utterances of the seductive young white woman named Silke telling him â€Å"your skin, I like very much how it feel, how it look† he becomes infuriated since he considers her words as a racial Remarque that echoes past memo ries of racial insults that he heard earlier in the novel such as â€Å"jou ma se swart poes† (=your mother’s black cunt) and â€Å"these kaffirs think they own the bloody place†.Consequently his reaction may be depicted as an attempt to free the rein of his wrath and avenge himself on the white race embodied in Silke, by conducting violent sexual intercourse saying that â€Å"for the first time I become aware of what is happening inside me. Not passion, not lust, not ecstasy, but rage . A terrible and destructive rage. † Moreover, racism is deeply rooted in social institutions such as marriage. As A. J. Hassall argues:† In Brink's South Africa blacks and whites are seen as natural equals separated only by the uncompromising racism of the whites.In all his books Brink explores sexual relationships between blacks and whites and he portrays them as natural sexual partners who might be natural political and social partners if only the Afrikaner establi shment would allow it. † This is perfectly illustrated in the example of the love relationship between a white man and a black woman in the first part The Blue Door, David Le Roux and Embeth, which is, even after the apartheid regime, still considered as a taboo kinship, completely rejected by David’s family; â€Å"why should we allow our lives to be dictated by the unreasonable reasonableness of my family?If we love each other.. † as David puts it. Added to its consideration as a racist attitude, Steve’s degradation of the white woman Silke may be read, as an act of political defiance, nevertheless, it fits only too well into the traditional master narrative of colonialism (â€Å"Natives have a rape-utation,† says Modisane, 1986), as well as the master narrative of sexism: the male who, in order to justify his aggression against and his â€Å"possession† of the female, blames her for provoking the attack, and for â€Å"deserving what she ge ts† ecause of her innate libidinal provocation. This is best illustrated in Steve’s words to Silke â€Å"if this is what you’re after, this is what you’re going to get. Fucking little white bitch. † Speaking of colonialism, Mellor suggests that men are attempting to penetrate mysterious foreign regions where they do not rightfully belong.Nina’s hair color turning into black, and the repetitive use of the words â€Å"dark† and â€Å"black† in the final paragraph depicting Derek â€Å"press[ing] [his] face into the fragrant and fatal darkness between her legs† calls to mind the notion of the exotic land reduced to the symbol of the female pubic hair which testifies for the mysterious south African jungles which should be discovered by white colonizer Derek. Feminists object to the depiction of women, in any respect, as a degraded sex, Objectified and reduced to serve the basic function of shoring up a man's ego.This machism o attitude is evident in Derek’s utterances:†Come what may, Nina Rousseau, you’re going to end up in my bed. † Symbolically speaking, it is widely known that white women represent power, so the more that you have of them the more you absorb that power into yourself. They also, of course, represent repression, so the more that you defile them the more you are fighting the battle and winning as Nicol puts it.This idea brings to mind Steve’s state of mind when copulating Silke, putting it into words: â€Å"now it is turning into pain, she becomes terrified †¦ while I feel myself growing in strength and rage. † This is further illustrated in Modisane’s words:† Through sex, I proved myself to myself. I am a man†¦ When the trance of sex had passed and the pleasure exhausted itself out of my system there remained only the anger and the violence to repeat and indulge myself into a more lasting satisfaction†¦ Furthermore, th e stereotypes of the â€Å"chaste white woman† and the â€Å"potent black man† who acts violently, with or without a reason, are challenged by Brink. The recurrent image of the black male is that of a virile man including the assertion of one of the crudest myths of sexist racism, the size of the black penis and his manhood to which it is alluded in Steve’s discourse: †bloody black stud (=virile)†. This racial cliche is set off in contrast with that of the white woman’s spiritual superiority and â€Å"absolute pureness† as Steve puts it.The terms in which the white woman is broadly described are based on an archetypal image borrowed from Camoens: â€Å"the symbol of purity and light, saintly flesh, raped, violated by the brutal force of a dark continent†. In order to criticize this cliche, Andre draws an image of the impure Silke who surrenders herself to Steve pleading him to â€Å"fuck [her]†. Psychologically speaking, L acan perceives the other as the creative force in shaping the consciousness of the â€Å"I†.When joined at the hip with Sarah, David ponders â€Å"you are my wife, but who are you? Who am I? † He feels compelled to know her in order to know himself and apprehend his existence, in other words, as feminists assert, sexuality is the keystone of identity. To elaborate on this idea, â€Å"Man's desire,† according to Lacan (1977), â€Å"finds its meaning in the desire of the other, not so much because the other holds the key to the object desired, as because the first object of desire is to be recognized by the other. Steve is inventing himself through the Other, Silke, who is, herself, a projection of his consciousness: his own identity, the raison d’etre of his actions and of his life, depends on the girl's approval and affirmation. Accordingly, he desires her so he can be recognized by her, and since â€Å"she is looking at [him]. She is seeing [him]. As [ he is] now. As [he is]. But there is no shock or disapproval in her face†, meaning that she does acknowledge him, he realizes his true identity.Contrary to Silke’s sexual attraction to Steve, he notices his cat’s repulsion. The widely known meaning of the hissing or scratching cat in dreams, is that this person â€Å"feels rejected by women or that his current relationships with women are strained or that he feels the women in his life are unappeasable, not to be trusted, overbearing, or just downright mean in which case the dream may mean it is time to reassess his relationships. †Ã‚  This is exactly the case with Steve and the female cat Sebastian which â€Å"draws her slender back into an arc and hisses at [him]. This may be explained by the fact that, when metamorphosed into a black man, Steve falls a prey to self-depreciation and speculates his wife Carla’s rejection of his new â€Å"black† self. So, when he realizes the impossibility o f achieving any human or even nonhuman connectedness, he chooses to seek release through the powerful emotion created by the suffering of Silke, an emotion which simultaneously produces his sexual arousal. This can be proved psychoanalytically in Bersani’s work analyzing Freud’s â€Å"Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality† in which he dentifies a counter argument running through Freud’s essays that â€Å"sexuality [is] not†¦originally an exchange of intensities between individuals, but rather a condition of broken negotiations with the world, a condition in which others merely set off the self shattering mechanisms of sadomasochistic jouissance† Regarding Derek’s unsatisfied and unstoppable longing for the sadistic Nina, The last erotic scene of the novel, when he gets stuck between her thighs, seems to be quite predictable, inasmuch, death will be the consummation of his passion.Bersani explicates Freud’s theory of the death d rive by arguing that â€Å"if sexuality is constituted as masochism, the immobilization of fantasmic structures can only have a violent denouement†¦ masochism is both relieved and fulfilled by death†.Isidore Diala refers to Andre Brink’s viewpoint about the writer’s role in the post-apartheid South Africa, saying that:† The dissident writer must awaken the Afrikaner to a sense of his potential for greatness and struggle aiming at liberating the blacks from oppression by whites, but also a struggle for the liberation of the Afrikaner from the ideology in which he has come to negate his better self. † Main References: -â€Å"Reinventing a Continent (Revisiting History in the Literature of the New South Africa: A Personal Testimony)† By Andre Brink 2-â€Å"Constructing Connectedness: Gender, Sexuality and Race in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein† by Jessica Hale 3-â€Å"CONCEPTUALIZING SEXUALITY: FROM KINSEY TO QUEER AND BEYONDâ₠¬  4-â€Å"An Ornithology of Sexual Politics: Lewis Nkosi's Mating Birds† by Andre Brink 5-â€Å"Andre Brink and Malraux† by Isidore Diala -â€Å"PORNOGRAPHY ( VS) EROTIC FICTION (aka Why I Continue To Do What I Do)† By Jess C Scott, 9 Mar 2011 ——————————————– [ 1 ]. In her article â€Å"PORNOGRAPHY VS. EROTIC FICTION†, Jess C Scott gives a definition of erotic literature saying that: † it comprises fictional and factual stories and accounts of human sexual relationships which have the power to or are intended to arouse the reader sexually. The emphasis of each is quite different.Porn's main purpose is to make money via adult entertainment; erotic literature tells a story. Stories that are realistic. Stories that make one think. Stories that â€Å"dive into the depths of navigating gender, sexuality, and the lines of desire† (blurb from m y  first erotic anthology,  4:Play). She illustrates her viewpoint by referring to Nabokov in the same Article explaining that â€Å"Mr. Vladimir Nabokov said so succinctly in  an essay on  Lolita, â€Å". . . Lolita has no moral in tow.For me, a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall call aesthetic bliss. . . â€Å"He also writes that â€Å"in pornographic novels, action has to be limited to the copulation of cliches. Style, structure, imagery should never distract the reader from his tepid lust. The novel must consist of an alternation of sexual scenes. † Ultimately, She draws this conclusion: Lolita  is more than a pornographic novel. Erotic literature is more than pornographic writing. † Theme of Sexuality in Andre Brink ‘s Other Lives Brink’s Other Lives: A Rewriting of history through eroticism The dissident writer's preeminent role, as Brink sees it, is to â€Å"explore and expose the roots of the human condition as it is lived in South Africa: (.. ) With the fundamentals of human experience and relationships†(Mapmakers 152).That is to say, he aims, through narrating and referring to kinships, mainly sensual ones, at unveiling the racial practices of the past apartheid system which is, according to Merriam Webster’s Dictionary and thesaurus, defined as â€Å"a former policy of segregation and political and economic discrimination against non-European groups in the Republic of So. Africa† in doing so, he makes use of erotic scenes between black and white people of both sexes. This essay tackles Brink’s choice to make use of erotic fiction as an inventive way of writing history.Also, it deals with sexuality, in this particular novel, which stands as an epitome for racial, colonia l and political relationships between black and white people, as well as the numerous interpretations of the coitus either through symbolism or feminism or psychoanalysis. According to Brink â€Å"the author’s reinvention of history would involve a choice between two kinds of concepts, two ends on a sliding scale: namely, history as fact and history as fiction. He opts for fiction in this novel to rewrite the history of South Africa: â€Å"In forthcoming novels I shall be trying to get more and more of an imaginative grasp on reality, to invent history†, so that he lays naked the remainders of the post-apartheid system in an innovative style, skillfully inserting here and there several incidents, including sexual relations, that may be real or even personal, encompassing and resuming the aftermaths of the colonial experience. Brink’s answer to the inevitable question:† Why re-sort to fiction?Why reduce history to storytelling? † is summarized in Rus sell Hoban’s famous dictum:† We make fiction because we ARE fiction. â€Å"Brink elaborated on this idea explaining that â€Å"Whether one composes a c. v. for a job application, or reviews a day or week or year or a life traversed, or relates a crucial experience to someone else, or writes a letter, or describes an event-however one sets about it, it is inevitably turned into narrative. † The will to power, to dominate the other race and prove oneself to be superior has its links with sensuality and chauvinism.At first reading, some sexual acts in the novel seem to be scenes of pure passion, but then, they turn out to be mere longing for annihilation. For instance, In the second part Mirror, when Steve, a black man, is provoked by the utterances of the seductive young white woman named Silke telling him â€Å"your skin, I like very much how it feel, how it look† he becomes infuriated since he considers her words as a racial Remarque that echoes past memo ries of racial insults that he heard earlier in the novel such as â€Å"jou ma se swart poes† (=your mother’s black cunt) and â€Å"these kaffirs think they own the bloody place†.Consequently his reaction may be depicted as an attempt to free the rein of his wrath and avenge himself on the white race embodied in Silke, by conducting violent sexual intercourse saying that â€Å"for the first time I become aware of what is happening inside me. Not passion, not lust, not ecstasy, but rage . A terrible and destructive rage. † Moreover, racism is deeply rooted in social institutions such as marriage. As A. J. Hassall argues:† In Brink's South Africa blacks and whites are seen as natural equals separated only by the uncompromising racism of the whites.In all his books Brink explores sexual relationships between blacks and whites and he portrays them as natural sexual partners who might be natural political and social partners if only the Afrikaner establi shment would allow it. † This is perfectly illustrated in the example of the love relationship between a white man and a black woman in the first part The Blue Door, David Le Roux and Embeth, which is, even after the apartheid regime, still considered as a taboo kinship, completely rejected by David’s family; â€Å"why should we allow our lives to be dictated by the unreasonable reasonableness of my family?If we love each other.. † as David puts it. Added to its consideration as a racist attitude, Steve’s degradation of the white woman Silke may be read, as an act of political defiance, nevertheless, it fits only too well into the traditional master narrative of colonialism (â€Å"Natives have a rape-utation,† says Modisane, 1986), as well as the master narrative of sexism: the male who, in order to justify his aggression against and his â€Å"possession† of the female, blames her for provoking the attack, and for â€Å"deserving what she ge ts† ecause of her innate libidinal provocation. This is best illustrated in Steve’s words to Silke â€Å"if this is what you’re after, this is what you’re going to get. Fucking little white bitch. † Speaking of colonialism, Mellor suggests that men are attempting to penetrate mysterious foreign regions where they do not rightfully belong.Nina’s hair color turning into black, and the repetitive use of the words â€Å"dark† and â€Å"black† in the final paragraph depicting Derek â€Å"press[ing] [his] face into the fragrant and fatal darkness between her legs† calls to mind the notion of the exotic land reduced to the symbol of the female pubic hair which testifies for the mysterious south African jungles which should be discovered by white colonizer Derek. Feminists object to the depiction of women, in any respect, as a degraded sex, Objectified and reduced to serve the basic function of shoring up a man's ego.This machism o attitude is evident in Derek’s utterances:†Come what may, Nina Rousseau, you’re going to end up in my bed. † Symbolically speaking, it is widely known that white women represent power, so the more that you have of them the more you absorb that power into yourself. They also, of course, represent repression, so the more that you defile them the more you are fighting the battle and winning as Nicol puts it.This idea brings to mind Steve’s state of mind when copulating Silke, putting it into words: â€Å"now it is turning into pain, she becomes terrified †¦ while I feel myself growing in strength and rage. † This is further illustrated in Modisane’s words:† Through sex, I proved myself to myself. I am a man†¦ When the trance of sex had passed and the pleasure exhausted itself out of my system there remained only the anger and the violence to repeat and indulge myself into a more lasting satisfaction†¦ Furthermore, th e stereotypes of the â€Å"chaste white woman† and the â€Å"potent black man† who acts violently, with or without a reason, are challenged by Brink. The recurrent image of the black male is that of a virile man including the assertion of one of the crudest myths of sexist racism, the size of the black penis and his manhood to which it is alluded in Steve’s discourse: †bloody black stud (=virile)†. This racial cliche is set off in contrast with that of the white woman’s spiritual superiority and â€Å"absolute pureness† as Steve puts it.The terms in which the white woman is broadly described are based on an archetypal image borrowed from Camoens: â€Å"the symbol of purity and light, saintly flesh, raped, violated by the brutal force of a dark continent†. In order to criticize this cliche, Andre draws an image of the impure Silke who surrenders herself to Steve pleading him to â€Å"fuck [her]†. Psychologically speaking, L acan perceives the other as the creative force in shaping the consciousness of the â€Å"I†.When joined at the hip with Sarah, David ponders â€Å"you are my wife, but who are you? Who am I? † He feels compelled to know her in order to know himself and apprehend his existence, in other words, as feminists assert, sexuality is the keystone of identity. To elaborate on this idea, â€Å"Man's desire,† according to Lacan (1977), â€Å"finds its meaning in the desire of the other, not so much because the other holds the key to the object desired, as because the first object of desire is to be recognized by the other. Steve is inventing himself through the Other, Silke, who is, herself, a projection of his consciousness: his own identity, the raison d’etre of his actions and of his life, depends on the girl's approval and affirmation. Accordingly, he desires her so he can be recognized by her, and since â€Å"she is looking at [him]. She is seeing [him]. As [ he is] now. As [he is]. But there is no shock or disapproval in her face†, meaning that she does acknowledge him, he realizes his true identity.Contrary to Silke’s sexual attraction to Steve, he notices his cat’s repulsion. The widely known meaning of the hissing or scratching cat in dreams, is that this person â€Å"feels rejected by women or that his current relationships with women are strained or that he feels the women in his life are unappeasable, not to be trusted, overbearing, or just downright mean in which case the dream may mean it is time to reassess his relationships. †Ã‚  This is exactly the case with Steve and the female cat Sebastian which â€Å"draws her slender back into an arc and hisses at [him]. This may be explained by the fact that, when metamorphosed into a black man, Steve falls a prey to self-depreciation and speculates his wife Carla’s rejection of his new â€Å"black† self. So, when he realizes the impossibility o f achieving any human or even nonhuman connectedness, he chooses to seek release through the powerful emotion created by the suffering of Silke, an emotion which simultaneously produces his sexual arousal. This can be proved psychoanalytically in Bersani’s work analyzing Freud’s â€Å"Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality† in which he dentifies a counter argument running through Freud’s essays that â€Å"sexuality [is] not†¦originally an exchange of intensities between individuals, but rather a condition of broken negotiations with the world, a condition in which others merely set off the self shattering mechanisms of sadomasochistic jouissance† Regarding Derek’s unsatisfied and unstoppable longing for the sadistic Nina, The last erotic scene of the novel, when he gets stuck between her thighs, seems to be quite predictable, inasmuch, death will be the consummation of his passion.Bersani explicates Freud’s theory of the death d rive by arguing that â€Å"if sexuality is constituted as masochism, the immobilization of fantasmic structures can only have a violent denouement†¦ masochism is both relieved and fulfilled by death†.Isidore Diala refers to Andre Brink’s viewpoint about the writer’s role in the post-apartheid South Africa, saying that:† The dissident writer must awaken the Afrikaner to a sense of his potential for greatness and struggle aiming at liberating the blacks from oppression by whites, but also a struggle for the liberation of the Afrikaner from the ideology in which he has come to negate his better self. † Main References: -â€Å"Reinventing a Continent (Revisiting History in the Literature of the New South Africa: A Personal Testimony)† By Andre Brink 2-â€Å"Constructing Connectedness: Gender, Sexuality and Race in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein† by Jessica Hale 3-â€Å"CONCEPTUALIZING SEXUALITY: FROM KINSEY TO QUEER AND BEYONDâ₠¬  4-â€Å"An Ornithology of Sexual Politics: Lewis Nkosi's Mating Birds† by Andre Brink 5-â€Å"Andre Brink and Malraux† by Isidore Diala -â€Å"PORNOGRAPHY ( VS) EROTIC FICTION (aka Why I Continue To Do What I Do)† By Jess C Scott, 9 Mar 2011 ——————————————– [ 1 ]. In her article â€Å"PORNOGRAPHY VS. EROTIC FICTION†, Jess C Scott gives a definition of erotic literature saying that: † it comprises fictional and factual stories and accounts of human sexual relationships which have the power to or are intended to arouse the reader sexually. The emphasis of each is quite different.Porn's main purpose is to make money via adult entertainment; erotic literature tells a story. Stories that are realistic. Stories that make one think. Stories that â€Å"dive into the depths of navigating gender, sexuality, and the lines of desire† (blurb from m y  first erotic anthology,  4:Play). She illustrates her viewpoint by referring to Nabokov in the same Article explaining that â€Å"Mr. Vladimir Nabokov said so succinctly in  an essay on  Lolita, â€Å". . . Lolita has no moral in tow.For me, a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall call aesthetic bliss. . . â€Å"He also writes that â€Å"in pornographic novels, action has to be limited to the copulation of cliches. Style, structure, imagery should never distract the reader from his tepid lust. The novel must consist of an alternation of sexual scenes. † Ultimately, She draws this conclusion: Lolita  is more than a pornographic novel. Erotic literature is more than pornographic writing. †