Response to Katie: "Mark and Shawn"

I agree to disagree with Katie. Though she didn’t exactly give a great deal of opinion but from what she did say I agree that the experience for these two men was substantial and they are not necessarily wrong to be upset with fraternities. Anyways. I think that people can do whatever they please to their own bodies. If you want to cut into your flesh with a scalpel to feel erotic and emotional then that is your business. However, even though I think people should do as they please, I think this whole body modification is ridiculous. Your body does not want you to do these types of things. It is just too extreme for my taste. Now I am a little hypocritical because I am not opposed to tattoos or piercings. Though I think tattoos that have no meaning and peircings that are in other places besides your ears are a little crazy too. Ok, to some the shock of being branded feels good, well personally I think these people need to see a shrink. I’m sorry if this sounds distasteful and judgmental, well that would be because it is. Putting stars in your forehead because you liked Star Trek as a kid, or cutting yourself to feel pleasure is disgusting. Get a hobby and draw a picture to express yourself. Wear a shirt saying, “Hey I’m GAY” if you want people to know it and not get you confused with some Fraternity idiot. This whole thing I find very upsetting because I find the body to be a beautiful thing unto itself, not embellished with unnatural scars or stretched earlobes. Just be who you are because that is who you are. You shouldn’t need to destroy your body from it’s natural state to accomplish self expression. Get a life people.

Fattness in the media....

I think our in class discussion on Wednesday was really interesting about issues with weight and what messages the media and such are sending to kids as influences. I think that it would not be such a bad things to stop glorifying women who are deemed overweight in the media as “just being themselves.” Because I do think that it sends a negative image to kids saying that it is ok if you are overweight and it doesn’t matter. However on the flip side I do also think that there are people who cannot physically help that they may be overweight. Some people are built in larger proportions and some people have slower metabolisms and other such conditions that make it nearly impossible to be thin. I really can’t make up my mind about the situation but it seems that instead of telling kids, yes, be fat, it’s ok, we should be telling them to get exercise, stop sitting in front of the tv and such. Kids should be able to be themselves and they should be happy, along with teens, and adults, but I have not met anyone who is overweight that is happy about being big. Some people accept it, but that doesn’t mean they like it. So I just think that this Meme Roth character may have some rightness to her cause. Criticize me if you must, but consider do you want your children to be unhealthy and overweight? I certainly don’t. Roth takes some extremes but her overall cause is not totally crazy.

Response to Cameron: Light vs. Dark

After reading what Cameron thought about this I also took some time to reflect on the issue of light and dark in terms of skin color. I am not one for tanning, or using darkening lotions to make it appear that I am tan or whatever. It isn’t natural. I am a firm believer in that natural is better. I think for special occasion and such, dressing up, wearing makeup, or thing like that are ok. But to sit in artificial light to make your skin darker does not seem right. Cameron talked about how being tan may look more attractive in our culture and how she used to use creams to make her appear darker but for what point. Do you really want to people to like you for your unnatural self. I personally would rather someone accept me for me and not a cream. I also look at tanning in tanning salons as very dangerous. Your skin does not want you to do it and it looks disgusting to me. A girl on my floor has been doing a lot of tanning recently and she is beginning to look orange and fake. I don’t know, people can do what they chose, as is the glory of America, but consider getting what you could have done instead when you are lying in a hospital bed with cancer because you wanted to be tan instead of natural.

So I just read the two articles for tomorrows class and I found them interesting yet quite boring. I do not consider myself a racist person in the slightest. I think people to think that other races are inferior or “bad” in some way are disgusting and should live in their own colony on a deserted island because to be honest with everyone, we were all muts at one point or another along the genealogy. Anyways…again, I’m not saying this trying to be mean or racist of whatever, and I don’t know what it is like to be black, obviously but it seems like all we’ve read in this class about black people is them complaining about themselves or white people. From what we’ve read it just seems like the authors think that all white people want black people to write about their hair. I could care less! I have a black friend who changes her hair a lot and it was interesting and she would talk about it some and I’d compliment her on it. Nobody that I know of asked her to talk about her hair in detail and all that crap that Pearl Cleage was talking about. I have nothing against black people and their hair and if they complain, however it does get annoying as a white person when I’m accused for everything wrong in black people’s lives. I didn’t think that I did anything and I apologize if I did.