Writing Log 4A

After reading “Letter From Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King, Jr, there were two areas that attracted my attention the most. The first place was on page 74 when Martin Luther King, Jr was responding to the letter that was wrote to him. In the letter he said, “I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say wait. But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your brothers and sisters at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize and even kill your black brothers and sisters. . . then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.” The whole page was filled with examples about being black and the torture you have to deal with. This was one of my hotspots because it was really hard to read. I understand why he put this in his letter and I would have too. It really made you think about where he's coming from and wonder how anyone could question him for his acts to get rid of segregation. None of us had never been through any of that before and probably never will. He's a strong man for wanting to make a difference after what he's been through. If I was him I probably wouldn't have the strength to do anything except sit around and wait until something like that happened to me because it seems like it's bound to happen like it has to everyone surrounding him. It's kind of sad to read a real letter that was written by a man who was killed for the good he was trying to do. Who can blame him for wanting the same rights as everyone else and wanting to raise his children in a healthy, equal society. That's what we all want.
My second hotspot in the letter was on page 75. Martin Luther King, Jr recited Saint Augustine who said that “An unjust law is no law at all.” I liked this because it's true. I also liked it because I thought it was one of the best things that he could have said to get his point across. It was simply put and straight to the point. To me, an unjust law is a law that someone made up and it caught on. It isn't written down and it isn't fair. It just got enough support behind it to become known. It's weird that there are such things and we've raised are kids on such laws that obviously weren't made for all people. Who are we to just create an idea and hold it to such accountability to the point where it ruins lives? I just think it was a great quote to re quote in his letter. It shows that there are other people out there that think the same way Martin Luther King, Jr does and there are people behind him.

In “Sexual Violence As A Tool Of Genocide” written by Andrea Smith, there were two spots that caught my attention. First, on page 111 it said, “because Indian bodies are “dirty,” they are considered sexually violable and “rapable,” and the rape of bodies that are considered inherently impure or dirty simply does not count.” This statement caught my attention because one, I didn't even know that Indian bodies were considered “dirty”. A little further down the page it compares Indian women to prostitutes. This caught me off guard because I wouldn't think that you can compare a whole ethnicity to a job that some women choose to do. I guess I can see a little bit what the author is getting at where she says that when prostitutes get raped they aren't always believed and I guess Indian women get raped but it's not a big deal, so I see the comparison. I guess I had no idea that these things happen to Indian women so it caught me off guard.
My second hotspot was on page 114. On this page it says, “in a recent case among the Aboriginal peoples of Australia, a judged ruled that a 50-year-old Aboriginal's man rape of a 15-year-old girl was not a serious crime, but an example of traditional culture. He ruled that the girl “knew what was expected of her” and “didn't need protection” when raped by a man who had been previously convicted of murdering his former wife.” This was a hotspot of mine because whether I knew that Indian women were exploited or not, this is wrong. I can't believe that a judge really ruled that. It really makes me sick. A 15-year-old should “know what's expected of her”? That's ridiculous. I can't imagine how her family felt after hearing that. I also can't imagine the type of self esteem she's going to have as she grows older. I feel bad for her. I feel bad for all the girls who are going to be treated the same she is. I also don't know why the man wasn't already wasn't in jail for the murder of his ex wife. I wonder how he got away with that one too. I've never heard of a man winning a case like that. I'm glad I don't live there. I wouldn't be able to leave a place like this and go to a place like that and get treated that way. Never ever.