Invictus

I decide to made a blog of the movie Invictus because I enjoyed a lot this movie and because it is a really nice one; apart from that I remembered that on class you told us about a book ( I can’t remember the name nor the author) that has basically the same theme that the movie has. In these case is about how Nelson Mandela, the South African president, achieves to unify the apartheid-torn lands. How he achieves it? well I am not really telling you so that you watch the movie; but the movie is centred a lot in rugby ( yes, rugby the sport) and how rugby’s national team becomes a key element to the country unification in a political strategy. This movie teach you that even thought it may not always be clear, behind every decision and act there’s a reason. It also gives us an overview of how political strategies are organized and the importance of paying attention to small little details that may seem insignificant but turn to be very helpful at the end and without them achieving your goal could get even harder.

Invisibility of Racism: Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

I found this pretty interesting book named, "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong" As its title says, this book is about how learning history mainly depends on books and how the government and other institutions, such as the church, ask to delete some information. This chapter named, "Invisibility of Racism" is about how politics and society have treated minorities, especially African-American, badly.

First, it talks about how some American Presidents such as Washington and Jefferson owned slaves, and Wall Street was the marketplace where rich people could buy slaves. Ironic, isn't? It also says that slavery was one of the main factors that led to Texas War: Crockett and the other people fought for freedom...The freedom to own slaves.

While in politics, white people were so racist that one of the Democratic candidates won, because the Republican candidates attempted to guarantee civil rights to African Americans. By 1921, African American people were considered as second-class citizens and people used any chance they had to make fun of them, one example is that newspapers published cartoons degrading black ability, such as how black people were happier on the plantations than in city since they were not "competent".

History books show Ku Klux Klan history and that once, they dropped dynamite from an airplane onto a black ghetto, killing people and destroying homes. But, the truth is that it was not a “black ghetto” but one of the most sophisticated black areas at that time known as “Black Wall Street”. Here, people were wealthy, and well-educated. There were a lot of businesses: stores, cinemas, pharmacies, libraries, among others.

Invictus: a movie that give us a lesson

This movie leave a message in all of us: we all are the same, no matter our skin color is. Based on true life history, Invictus show us how Nelson Mandela become president of South Africa and tries to unite his country, I mean, to destroy the walls of society between black and white people through the National Rugby Team, a very interesting plot.

In the movie it is seen how when "Madiba" (Mandela's nickname) arrives to presidency, people from different societies in the president offices are struggling to have a good communication between them. And of course that complaints came right away to president Mandela. When a black officer questioned his boss about why there was a white working in the same office than him Mandela responded: "Reconciliation starts here. The Rainbow Nation starts here".

That quote put me to think a lot. How many times do we stop doing something because no one out there is doing it. If we want to make a change, why not starting us? Why most of people wait until an entire society is doing something to make that change we want.

Personally, I am tired of people who respond me "Oh come on! nobody does it, why should I?" when I ask that person about why he/she don't throw garbage in it's place.

It is our choice to make an impact of society, to make a change for good in our neighborhood or in out city. If we are strong people, good leaders, we will be able to do more. There is no doubt that Mandela was more than a leader, more than a president.

Invictus is a very inspirational movie that motivates all of us to have an impact on society, to stop with racism, to be good humans every time, that even with sports we can unite a city, a region, in the case of Mandela, an entire nation.

"I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul". Nelson Mandela

Racism against Haiti

Last week the deputy from PRD Ariel Gómez León during his radio program said some comments about the people from Haiti. Hearing this you would think he had said something about being soildare with their condition and that as a society we should join and help them; but to the contrary he started to say tha the people from Haiti are "muertos de hambre" and really despective comments about the people. He also said that they deserved to die because they are black more exactly he said " negros abusivos!!!"; In what way could he think people from Haiti are abusive?

I think that after everything they are suffering people shouldn´t be critizing them nor beeing racist at them, we should all be trying to help. If they were a poor country now they are even worst than you could imagine.

As far from the deputy Ariel "El Chunko", its a shame that someone like him is representing us;he is supose to have if not the same critiria Mexican citizens have at least watch what he is declaring because we may not all agree with him. Ariel should recieve a strong punishemnt.

Racism

Ariel Gómez León, diputy of Chiapias who also is the announcer of a radio show, made a very racist comment the other day and unfortunately he was heard by a lot of people, he said that in Haiti people looked abusive, that they were kinf ot taking advantage of the situation, and he also said that they were all alike (or the same) he said that they were all black and stuff like that.

I think this is a really big problem because racism is a big problem right now (even though is not a problem that big as it used to be), but how can we demand respect when we are not capable of respecting others not even in that really sad sitation they are in now, and even after he did it he denied it and he said that he thought that the microphone was turned off and that he just say it jocking that he did not meant any harm, and that it will be ironic if he was a racist because he said his dad is a veru dark man.

Arthur Ashe

Today, I had an English assignment that was about listening, and I was listening to a radio program about Arthur Ashe.

Arthur Ashe (1943-1993) was an African-American tennis player who was very tenacious, brave and honest. He was, besides a tennis player, a social activist who fought racism, encouraged people, even his opponents, to do their best, helped poor childed and taught people about the two diseases that ended with his life: hear disease and AIDS.

He was born in Virginia, at the time when we was born, American government separated people according to their race (Black people attended different schools and churchs, for instances). He was poor, and his father work all daylong, and his mother died when he was six.

At the age of seven, his father became in charge of the public play space, so they moved there. There, he started to practice tennis and he became very avid, and won a local championship. Later, UCLA offered him a scholarship if he joined the tennis team. He did and he led the team to the victory.

Later, he won the United States, Australia and France Open and a championship in England. Then, he was invited to the South Africa Open. In those years, South Africa was known for being a very racist country, and the government wanted to clean their image to play in the Olympics. Ashe decided to help South Africa, but he played in racially-mixed groups, said and did whatever he pleased. Actually, he became a close friend of Nelson Mandela, who is very known for fighting racism in Africa and going to jail unfairly.

He created foundations to help poor children and taught them to play tennis and golf.

When he discovered he had heart disease, he had to stop playing. But he never stopped; he taught people about this disease, how to prevent it, how to cope with it.

He needed a heart transplant, and he received a new heart, but the blood he received was infected by AIDS and he got infected.

But this encouraged him the most and did not become a burden for him. He also thought the community about AIDS and how to prevent it.

He died in 1993, in the week of his last speech.

Racism in American basketball

I read this article about racism in basketball, especially about NBA. This article said that through the years of 1991 and 2004 every foul called by white, and black officials against all players of both racial heritages. It said that it was more likely than a black referee called a foul to a white player or a white referee to call a foul to a black player.
This is very sad because even in sports racism is present. But in the other side I think that in this kind of events (competition) racism is over-rated. With this I mean that every little aspect or disrespectfull action is seen as a racist action. Maybe it should not be always clasiffied as racsim, maybe is sometimes just a disrespectful action.

Racism, The Impediment of Progress

I was interested in this issue because I have noticed that our society constantly makes racist jokes by calling each other nigger, Negro, and other insults related to black people or people from other cultures, when we really don’t know how serious this problem is.

First of all racism is defined as the belief that characteristics and abilities can be attributes to people simply on the basis of their race and that some racial groups are superiors to others. We have to understand that Racism is not only about black and white people, it also involves people from any culture in the world. This problem affects the society in such a level that it has been used as weapon by encouraging fear or hatred of others in situations of crisis.

An example of this kind of discrimination occurs in the US, where racism is a well known issue. Several actions such as police brutality against minorities and also the history of slavery in which slave labor by African Americans created a great amount of wealth in the United States and unfairly, this wealth was all taken by white people. We are all living beings, and we must be treated in the same way. The use of values such as respect and tolerance is the key for the end of this inhuman practice. If we want to progress it is important to learn to tolerate the people around us, even though their race, culture or social class. The world must be joined so we can face any other global issue.

A Racist "Helper"

A few weeks ago a delegate from the PRD party & also a radio host, named Ariel Gómez León “El Chunko”, made a comment about the fact that Mexico was helping Haiti (because of the earthquakes they have had). As most of us know, the government took a little percentage from the people’s wages (The ones that work in government; in order to help Haiti.), Well he commented that the Haitians are abusive and that Mexico should not help them because they are black, and also because in the T.V. we can “see” that in Haiti there are some people giving them food and according to him, they have enough food and they are just asking for more and more.

In my personal opinion he did totally bad in making those comments. First of all he made a racist comment… we are not in those times that people care about the colour of their skin (or at least the ones that are in an important job shouldn't do it). We are all humans and color is not a matter of discrimination (shouldn't be); Then he said that in television we could observe that they are being fed & they are asking for more and more (that they're being abusive), but I think his kind of cretin because in television everybody could notice that they couldn’t be fed because they were so many and the soldiers were just few (in comparison with them). That’s why the soldiers couldn’t distribute food fairly. I think he should had though about what was going on, besides criticizing. He made a wrong comment through radio (his show) and a few days after he was fired because of those racists comments.

I think they did well (the poeple that fired him) because we can't have those kind of people that base their, let's say their critical thinking (the way they see poeple) on the color of their skin, in important jobs such as an delegate. We are in 2010 that shouldn't happen anymore, but there's still racist people. One more last comment I'd like to add is that even if there's still racist people, they shouldn't care of the color of sking when is a matter of helping others (in sense of natural disasters, scarcity, etc.)