Writing Log 4A

The first essay that I read was Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr. This was very deep and passion filled letter with many good points and ideas, but I would say that the main point of the letter was to tell his readers why he had chosen to do his march at the time and that more people need to step up in Birmingham.

My first hotspot was “Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered and outsider anywhere in this country.”(71) This hotspot was of course talking about equal rights and how everyone is equal and is never an outsider in their own country. I think that this is a very good statement but today just like those years ago, people still today are treated like outsiders for many reasons. First off it that today people are denied a lot of things just because of your religion or heritage. People will be rude and cruel to another person because they dress a certain way because it is something that their religion says to do. And because of that people judge them and treat them ways that make them feel like outsiders. Even thought they could have been born and raised in this country. Not only that people who immigrate over here are even treated differently depending on where they are originally from. For example if someone is Mexican and has an accent people automatically assume that they are over hear illegally but the reality of it is that not all Mexicans in America are over here illegally. And not only that they are not all in American to do cheap labor. It is a sad truth that even if you live in the country doesn’t mean that you won’t be treated like an outsider.

My second hotspot was “T.S. Eliot has said that there is not greater treason than to do the right deed wrong.”(85) This was talking about the peaceful marchers were being treated in a wrong and abusive manner for not reason and that no one was really taking the side of the marchers saying that they were the ones who did something wrong. And this was the response that King had to that statement. To me this is almost like saying that two wrongs don’t make a right. And even doing something that is morally right has to be done in a moral way. I think that this is a very true and good statement for now and even more at that time. There are so many examples that come to mind when you think about this statement. Like for example kill tons of innocent people just to get to the source of something corrupt the right thing to do. And at that time beating and even at times killing innocent people who were marching for something that was so right and doing it peacefully is not even something to consider as a right deed. But I would guess that he was referring to the people who wanted to fight and create violence towards that people doing the attacking. That is my thoughts on this hotspot.

The second essay I read was Sexual Violence as a Tool of Genocide by Andrea Smith. This was a very interesting essay to say the least but I would guess that her main point is that sexual hate crimes of women are overlooked and have been for many years.

My first hotspot was “They had to convince ‘both men and women that a woman’s proper place was under the authority of her husband…”(117). This hotspot was referring to how the colonists thought that they were teaching the Native people “to learn the value of hierarchy…”(116). I must say that I think that this is terrible and the way that she used it seemed very wrong. First off this doesn’t seem relevant to the whole hierarchy idea at all. How does the miss treatment of women during the time of colonization really have to do with the way that Native women were miss treated by men. The whole section that the hotspot was in just didn’t seem to make any sense at all. It seemed like she was putting all the blame of everything that ever happened to Native women in history is only men’s fault. Which yes there is probably more blame to put on them if you go way back in history but she never says anything about women dong anything wrong. Like at the time women should have maybe taken more of a stand but then again at the time they didn’t really realize that they could have more freedom than they did. Also she makes it seem that they Native had no such thing as a hierarchy but they did because they already had a leader of every tribe. I just feel that this thought was not really thought out completely.

My second hotspot is “Rape is nothing more of less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep as women in a state of fear.”(108) This quote is introducing the whole essay, and in my opinion is very inappropriate, and the facts are not even right. I must first is that women are not the only gender in this world that get raped; men get raped as well as women. Not only that it makes it seem like men are constantly following women around and just doing as they please. Which is not true women are not constantly worried that no matter where they go they are going to be raped by some guy. Its just not true, and not only that it makes it seem that women just sit in a dark corner crying in fear because that is all that ever happens to them. This statement is just wrong in so many different ways.