Writing Log 4A Ellis Battista

The first hot spot that caught my attention was the very first sentence after the introductory paragraph and it said “Rape is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear” (108). The reason why this caught my attention is because it is a very bold statement to come out with in the first paragraph of the story. I do not like this part at all because it is basically saying that all men in the world put all women in the world in constant fear of being raped because that is all men do. I do not know about most men, but I never look at girls and try to make them fear me because I want to rape them. That is a sick statement and completely unnecessary to say something like that about a whole gender. I do not like that she added that quote to her story because it is such a ridiculous statement that everyone knows is not true. It is not even offensive to me being a male because it is such a ludicrous statement that I know most people will look right past it.

My other hot spot says “This fact explains why in my experiences as a rape crisis counselor, every Native survivor I ever counseled said to me at one point, ‘I wish I was no longer Indian’” (109). The reason why I chose this to be my hot spot is because it seems dubious. I am not saying that the author of that statement is lying, but I have a hard time believing that every single person the author of that statement counseled said that. I would think that people would be proud of their heritage and would not wish against their ethnicity. I do not know what is like to have to go to a rape counselor so I cannot really say how I would react or feel, but I do not think I would blame my ethnicity for why it happened.

My first hot spot that caught my attention says “Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere in this nation” (71). The reason why I chose this as a hot spot was because I thought it was a perfect response to what the clergymen said to him. I feel like he made a stronger point than the clergymen did because of the way he responded.

My second hot spot in “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is “you warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping order and preventing violence. I don’t believe you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its angry violent dogs literally biting six unharmed, nonviolent Negroes…” (84). He goes on in this quote to talk about how the police abused all ages and genders of Negroes. I liked this a lot because it made a very strong point in a calm and peaceful way. I do not think he could have responded any better to that. I would imagine that the clergymen felt stupid after the response from Mr. King because the way he handles these types of situations.

One time in my life that I was discriminated because of my race is when I was visiting my brother at Ohio State and we went to play basketball at one of the courts. There were all African Americans playing and they said that white boys could not play with them but after we waited for a few games it was our turn to play. When I got into the game I wanted to show them that I could be a threat so I did what most white people do, hit three’s all game. It was really funny after we started playing because after I made a few shots they actually started to pass me the ball and respect me as a basketball player. It was a really fun time but I was extremely mad at first when I thought they were really not going to let us play since we were white.