Hadiyah's Blog

In class, we talked about the current state of Jes Grew. Something that stood out to me was how Jes Grew would probably be a part of popular culture and could be mistaken for just entertainment. I started to think about how some movies, shows, music, etc could be a form of Jes Grew. To me, current day Jes Grew would probably be any form of protest art. Art is a form of entertainment, and if it’s protesting anything, it’s usually for something “natural”, and Jes Grew is pro-natural stuff.  One of my favorite musicians is Grandson. I’d classify most of his songs as protest art. His song “Blood // Water” is about political corruption, “Thoughts and Prayers” is a critique of American gun laws, “6:00” is about police brutality, and “Overdose” is about drug abuse. The list goes on and on. I really like listening to his music because it not only has a nice sound, it also addresses these social issues. Grandson is able to make fun music while getting important messages across. He also...

When we were discussing the difference between history & fiction and what a postmodernist history might look like, one of the things that came to mind was a book I had read,  The Man in the High Castle  by Philip K. Dick (it’s also a TV show now). It’s basically an alternative history. It follows different people living in a reality where Germany and Japan won World War II. That’s already an interesting idea but to make it even wackier, there is a book in the novel that different characters come across,  The Grasshopper Lies Heavy . That book is about an alternate reality where Germany and Japan lost the war. So, I’m reading a book set in an alternate reality in which people are reading a book set in an alternate reality which is my reality? Can it get any weirder? Spoiler alert – yes. Apparently, the author of  The Grasshopper Lies Heavy  consulted the I Ching to write his book. The I Ching is a source of divine fate and inner truth, so its predictions alw...

In  Ragtime , Houdini has an encounter with Harry K. Thaw in the Tombs. Houdini is trying to escape his cell as part of a performance, and his cell is across from Thaw’s, who is there for killing Stanford White. Houdini’s encounter with Thaw is pretty wacky but you can glean a lot from it.  Houdini’s cell is a normal one. He starts off naked then after escaping puts his clothes back on. Thaw, on the other hand, starts off clothed and decides to undress. His cell isn’t really a cell because of all the stuff he has. Thaw’s living a great life while in jail.    There are a lot of differences between Thaw and Houdini. A major one is who is free and who isn’t. Houdini may have escaped from his cell, but he isn’t really free. Thaw doesn’t need to escape because he’s living the life in his cell. Thaw also knows that, because he is so rich, he’s not going to lose the trial. In reality, thanks to his wealth, Thaw is the free one, even though he’s the one in jail...

all posts from now on will be for history as fiction

In  The White Boy Shuffle , Gunner initially lived in Santa Monica and went to an “all-white multicultural school”. They were always taught not to judge anyone based on the color of their skin, or just to be colorblind. The 3 rd  grade teacher, Ms. Cegeny, wore that shirt that went along with this colorblind ideology, but she seemed to pay special attention to all the non-white kids in the class, which doesn’t seem super colorblind. Just in general, the multicultural education they get seems to have good intentions but it’s sorta off and doesn’t really work. Gunner ended up being more whitewashed than multicultural which is super obvious from when he moves to Hillside. He really didn’t know anything about his own culture or I’m guessing any other cultures, even though he had a multicultural education. Up until 4 th  grade, I went to Southview Elementary in Jackson, Ohio which was a majority white town. I was the only muslim & brown kid there (other than my sister...

Sethe’s split-second decision to collect her children and go to the woodshed with the intent of killing them was looked down upon by the community as well as Paul D. At first, when reading the shocking scene, I thought “how could someone kill their own children?”, but the scene ended up giving me a lot of sympathy for Sethe. Because we’ve already gotten to know Sethe & what she’s been through, her actions make a lot of sense. It makes sense that she didn’t want her kids to be taken away from her and become slaves at Sweet Home. That’s exactly why she escaped. She didn’t escape because she hated it there, but because she couldn’t bear the thought of her kids suffering. The thought of “while the boys is small” is what pushed her to want to escape. Even then, her escape wasn’t easy, being pregnant with Denver & by herself, but what kept her going was bring milk to her child. Sethe is driven by motherly love. She didn’t kill her kids just because, but because she loved them and be...

In Richard Wright’s critique of Zora Neale Hurston’s  Their Eyes Were Watching God , he says that her book has no meaning. I think he’s just saying that without having carefully read the book. I think the main message is that a woman is allowed to follow her dreams and do whatever she wants. I think the book’s main message’s purpose is to empower women, shown by Phoebe’s reaction to Janie’s story at the end.  Janie’s first two marriages were terrible. In her first marriage with Logan, she married him for security. It didn’t matter if she found him attractive (which she didn’t) or if she loved or even liked him (she really didn’t). Here she wasn’t allowed to pursue her dream of love. She was forced to work and there was no romance in their marriage, and these made her really upset. Her second marriage was with Jody, who she did find attractive and at first, liked. She later hated him because of how controlling he was of her. He told her how to act, what to wear, what to do...