Niggaz Wit Attitude

             “Our art is a reflection of our reality.” this is a quote by the famous Ice Cube, O’Shea Jackson; it is something that can be interpreted many ways. Much like how people looking in on the “hood” or Compton can interpret that many ways. Some people may see it as a community of black people that are aggressive and can’t handle themselves and are always angry. When in reality maybe it’s just the racist white people that make life hard for them because of the discrimination and judgement they have to go through every day.  

                N.W.A., aka Niggaz Wit Attitude was a group that started off as young rappers and dj’s that want to tell the world about what really goes on in the hood. They want people like you and me to know what they deal with every day. They want us to know about the trouble and hardships they face and they ultimately want to vent and inform the world on what it’s like in Compton.  During this era cop brutality was a very big issue in the hood and other ghettos or black communities. African Americans in those areas found themselves constantly being checked for drugs and other illegal paraphernalia only because of the solemn fact that they are black. The color of their skin made there every day lives much more difficult than traditional white people, and in this time most of the police force was predominately white. So as the group N.W.A. performed they found that many people in the hood and out enjoyed listening to their music and learning and hearing through it what it is like in Compton. The fan population grew and so did the popularity of the group. This is when they began being questioned about topics like money and how they are enjoying their new lifestyle. This lifestyle was nice for them but some of them had trouble living in it. They were used to the hood where every day it was dog eat dog and they were always struggling to have money. Now that wasn’t as much of an issue for them.

                Later in their career after finding themselves tired of the police brutality they found themselves writing a song named “F*** the Police”. This song was written after they found themselves being treated poorly by cops and they all had finally had enough of it. When this song came out they found themselves hated by any type of judicial force around. The FBI wrote them a letter and during concerts police warned them not to play the song or face being arrested. These men didn’t care about being arrested they cared about getting their message out to the world and telling everyone about how hard life is in Compton. They accomplished this in many ways throughout their career. This song became one of their most famous hits as they sang it to the world and all their fans. It was a shame that they were punished because of their opinions on the matter of police brutality, but it was something that obviously was a touchy subject back in those times. So they found themselves going to jail a time or two for singing that song and receiving plenty of hate mail from sources that didn’t approve of it. This was something that they were used to though. Through the year the group found themselves being hated by many people and that’s exactly what you would expect when they weren’t as traditional as most groups in the world at the time. The way the dealt with this issue and it didn’t bother them was this idea. The fact of the matter is to them they only wanted people to listen to their music if they wanted to listen and feel what the hood is like. If people didn’t like their music and thought it was too violent, vulgar, aggressive, or explicit they didn’t care. They thought if you don’t like our music then don’t listen to it because if you don’t enjoy it we don’t want you to listen to it.

                Our art is a reflection of our reality; I suppose you want to know where all this comes into play. This is a statement that really tells what N.W.A. is all about. It tells us that when they rap and express themselves through music we aren’t just hear random stuff they made up on the spot just to spit some rhymes and call it good. The things they are preaching to us are actual real life events that have affected them and shaped their lives and they want to inform you about these occasions. The reality of it is that these men came from the bottom and rose to the top by sharing their life events and teaching the world about the reality of their life.

                These men weren’t bad guys but they knew their lives had a purpose. They found that purpose through their music. The group single handed lee changed the face of music and the rap and hip hop world as we know it. They taught the world about what the real life in the hood is and they showed us how to rise up and shut out the bad parts of life. They all came from the hood but found their way out and in doing that they became one of the most well-known groups in the world.

                Our art is a reflection of our reality; there art is what taught us. The reality of it is that their mission was to inform the people and they did that and then some with their art. That music was something that may never be beaten and is incomparable to anything that will ever be written. That came from the heart and moved millions of people and that kind of movement and act will never be passed up in the history of music. N.W.A. will never be beaten and for the love of all music may their legacy live on in the hearts and minds of people forever. May they never be forgotten.

Trump and Nixon Election Similarities

1. Both promised to lessen the amount of violent crimes.
2. Nixon and Trump both had many protestors  
3. Trump decided to cancel a rally held in Chicago and riots began, in 1968 in Chicago riots broke out in retaliation over the Vietnam War.
4. Nixon and Trump both came into office during a time of unrest with racism 
5. Both Nixon and Trump had secret plans to stop an enemy, Trump with ISIS and Nixon with the Vietnam war

Free and Reduced Lunches

Kids that live in more of a poverty affected house tend to suffer more when it comes to school. The graphs we are analyzing proves that kids suffering from poverty in their homes and the kids eligible for free and reduced lunch meals tend to do worse on tests and quizzes. The kids that grow up in a richer family or a family in the middle class they tend to do better on tests and quizzes in school. They also notice how younger kids are more affected by this than older kids. This may be because, while kids are younger they spend more time in their home setting and they may not get out as much as older kids tend to do. The graphs show that older kids tend to do a little better in classes whether they are eligible for free and reduced meals or not. This is due to kids gaining knowledge over the years but you can still see the difference in their level of intelligence. Even though they seem to be getting smarter they still struggle compared to the other kids of the same age that are not eligible for free and reduced lunches. All of these graphs just prove to us that kids that live in poverty stricken homes and are eligible for free and reduced lunches struggle in the classroom.

Big White Ghetto

What does the average coal miner make (wages per hour)? $25 an hour

 

Who are some types of people a person might find in the big, “White Ghetto.”         

Drunks, drug dealers, rapists, homeless, jobless, and others that are trying to get out

Why do you think the author calls it the “Big White Ghetto?”

Population is predominantly Caucasian and it’s kind of a bad place to be with a lot of poverty and such

What does the author suggests “keeps the underclass in place?”

Welfare and how easy it is to receive money from the government

The author suggests that “poverty is the natural condition of the human animal.”

How does Pepsi play into this?

People used their product for their own kind of currency to buy other things like cigarettes

List five things/facts you took away from this article.

1. Parents can pull their kids out of school and receive a Social Security Check
2. People use Pepsi as currency
3. Some woman sell their body for $12.99
4. The average coal miner makes $25 an hour
5. Coal mining industry is moving west at a very fast rate

Trump University (Trump has bad morals but im still voting for him)

Trump University was started in 2005 and was said to give students that attend, a better understanding of the business side of the workplace better than any other college could provide. Beings Donald Trump was so successful many kids attended this institution. They paid money for a so called “University” this college of business was trying to suck kids in and teach them better than any other school could in reality they were going to a school and not getting the education that they really needed. Through all this Trump was also forced to change the name of the school from Trump University to Trump Entrepreneur Initiative, this name didn’t make it seem like it as prestigious as Trump had intended it to be. But what I read was no matter how prestigious he wanted this institution to be the kids going to school there were ultimately going to pay a lot of money for an education that wasn’t going to be worth their money. One individual in this article stated that he went to Trump University and spent $34,995 dollars on the program and he only got certificates in some areas. He was not happy about the schooling he payed for and the outcome of students was nothing of what they imagined. They thought they would graduate and be successful much like Donald Trump and in reality they probably wasted a lot of money for something that won’t help them later in life.

click here for more trump details

whtie privilege nra and mass shootings

Because white people will someday be the minority in the United States, we can expect white privilege to decline, increased gun control laws, and powerful groups like the NRA to lose their influence in the political theatre, when eventually we will all lose our guns due to factors that I will tell you about that later in this essay. What will cause us to lose our weapons, and what will diminish programs like the NRA? I think the ideal of white privilege can influence this greatly.

White privilege exists but that doesn’t mean I believe it is right. White privilege has been around ever since we came to America many years ago. Some of you may wonder, what is white privilege? White privilege is believed to be enforced when invisible assets or benefits are given to “white” colored people. This privilege has been around in American from the time the settlers came. It has been around ever since slavery was introduced in the America’s and it will always be around in certain parts of the U.S. for people that will never allow themselves to change. White privilege has been brought back up much more in the news in the last few years. It has been a very big issue in many police cases and jury trials and many more events where white people tend to be the enforcers. There are cases where an African American man gets accused of such a thing as rape and even if he never actually committed the crime, with white privilege, he found himself doing the time. Some men in this man’s situation are brought before a white judge with a white jury and they automatically see this as a lose, lose situation for themselves. Part of this sounds like racism but the white privilege part comes into effect if the man in this same situation is white they would give this man a much more fair trial and would possibly work harder to prove him innocent. Why is this so? Because the idea of whites being the superior race is still in our heads and as long as it is and whites continue to have power in the world this ideology will stick around.

Can white privilege be involved in mass shootings? Who commits mass shootings? Well one thing that seems to be a common characteristic of most mass murders are they are young white males. Does race play a factor in who commits most mass shootings? It obviously must because white males have predominately committed most of the mass shootings in the U.S. over its lifetime. All of these mass shooters though happen to percentage wise match up with their same percentage of the population they withhold in the United States. For example the white population takes up 63% of the U.S. and white males tend to take part in over 64% of the mass shootings in the U.S. alone each year. This proves that yes white males do tend to commit more of the mass shootings but if there were more African Americans in the U.S. or more Asian and Japanese in the U.S. would they be leading in most mass shootings committed. According to the study I found, that stated this, technically if the African American population was greater than that of the white population then African Americans would be the leading race in mass shootings in America. Another factor that has an effect on who conducts mass shootings is gender. How often do you here of a female murderer? Hardly ever, and when you do it usually catches you off guard. Some of the reasons men are more likely to conduct mass shootings is because men are more likely to own a fire arm. They are also more likely to keep their feeling sheltered up inside them. All these things seem to be much like what most people think about men. Men aren’t going to go out and tell everyone about what they are feeling inside and ask for help to get it fixed. Most of them will fight through it and try to tough it out no matter what it takes to get it done, and for some of them that means committing a mass shooting. These men have usually flown the cookoo nest and are no longer thinking strait. What makes them conduct these shootings? Most of the scientists and psychologists working on this matter immediately think insanity. When in reality most of them actually do have serious mental illnesses that can lead them to think this is the right thing to do to save them or help them get over whatever they are going through. Some of these people have had things earlier in their life influence whether or not they decide to do this. Some of them for example may gain hatred and anger from getting rape or beat as a kid. All this built up aggression can lead to the occurrence of a mass shooting. These entire factors can prove why it seems that most of these shooters tend to be young white males. It shows the different traits all of these young men have and is easily understandable why they have committed or had the idea of committing mass shootings.

When it comes down to who can stop mass shootings the matter is really hard. There are many reasons why, one is Americans need guns for many things like recreational shooting sports, and hunting. So why should we take guns away from the law abiding citizens who use guns in the right and proper ways. The fact of the matter is the types of people committing mass shootings are the type of people that who regardless whether or not you take guns away from all Americans will end up with a gun somehow anyway. These people don’t care that they would be doing something illegal by getting guns illegally when the reason they are getting the guns is their main objective. It all refers back to the old saying,” Guns don’t kill people. People kill people with guns.” This is something people need to think about when they say we need to ban guns from all Americans. The NRA promotes the proper use of guns for recreational purposes as well as hunting purposes and collecting purposes. They don’t promote gun violence in anyway and most of their true followers aren’t people that commit mass shootings anyway. The people that support and follow the NRA are the people that you don’t need to be worried about having guns. These people are the ones that understand how to use them and when to use them.

What can we learn about white privilege, mass shooters, and the NRA? We know that most mass shooters are white and we know that juries tend to take more of a pardon on white men. They tend to make sure to give them the fairest trial they can. So where does the NRA tie into all of this most of the enrolled members of the NRA are actually white. They all have a decent understanding of safety with weapons and they fully understand the intended purposes of these weapons. The NRA makes sure people understand weapons and how they should be used, so in this respect they do help out the world in some ways by teaching how to handle weapons but the only thing that could make it all better is if we could find a way to get everyone involved and teach everyone how to understand how powerful a weapon can be and how they themselves need to learn its safety instructions and its intended purpose.

Freddie Gray

I believe that society let him down. It all started back when his mother had gotten pregnant. Her blood was filled with lead and thus when he was born his blood had lead in it as well. As he grew older and continued being stuck in the horrible neighborhood he was forced to grow up in, he developed even more lead in his blood and this impaired his thinking abilities as well as physical functions. He had trouble focusing and paying attention and his reading and writing abilities were much lesser than of someone from other better neighborhoods. His whole life he was stuck in the dumps and he couldn’t get out.

Freddie was a nice and genuinely funny guy when it came to his personality. Even though he had trouble doing some everyday tasks for us; like reading and writing he still found a way to be cheery. But all the fun he had eventually got him in trouble. This kept getting him in trouble until for years until the one time he got in trouble and he couldn’t come back from it. Freddie had, had many different little harmless crimes over the years like drug possession and other little things of that nature. But one day he wasn’t even smoking weed or doing anything illegal but he got caught up in the wrong area at the wrong time and he ran from the police when they showed up. They then jostled him around a little bit and he ended up damaging his spinal cord and this later led to his death.

                Freddie was a well-liked man in the community that never left the place he was born and raised. I believe if Freddie would have been raised in a better neighborhood that maybe he would have had a fighting chance. When he is stuck in a place that attracts the scum of the earth it is hard to get out. He was just a product of bad habits that were all influenced by the community around him. It was hard for him to control but it was the place he had to be, because that is the place where all his problems began.