Courtland's house of wisdom

English 102 has pressured, changed, and developed me into a better writer and speaker.  The constant stream of projects, essays, readings, and blog post taught me to manage my time better. The novel “The Good Negress” By A.J. Verdelle taught me responsibility. This was a more challenging time in the course for me. Some chapters in the book were very interesting, while the ones I learned lessons from were very boring. The boring chapters challenged my discipline, as much as I didn’t want to read, I had to be an adult and do it because it would effect my grade in the class. In my opinion “Buck”  by MK Asante was a better book than “The Good Negress”  by A.J. Verdelle. “Buck” taught me that when reading books, in order for me to stay interested, I most times have to relate to the text. I learned that I look for action and life themes in books. Action keeps the book interesting and will help me actually keep reading. The life themes help me gain wisdom and knowledge for problems I may face in the future.

After reading these books we were given essays. My writing process from the first semester to the second didn’t change much. I use the same outline, rough draft, and final draft process. However, my word choice and essay structure has. In the first semester I had a problem with organizing my supporting evidence paragraphs. I learned to list my supporting evidence in order (example: 1. little pay, 2. how life is affected by little pay, 3. disadvantages) to enhance my writing. As I have improved in this area, I still need to work on comma splices and run-on sentences.  Overall this class took me out of my comfort zone when it comes to the topic digital literacy. At first I wasn’t very comfortable doing online work. I didn’t know much about doing inserting links and editing videos. Now I’ve learned how to think outside of the box. My laptop wont let me save Youtube videos. So I’ve learned to screen record them from my phone, then email them to myself. After I email them to myself I can now save the video, and edit them for projects like the Baltimore Oral History Project.

Reflecting on my time in English 102, this course has challenged me and helped me grow. I would recommend this course to someone else because it focuses on African Americans. I’ve learned many useful skills and enhanced my writing. I’ve learned how to deliver speeches and present presentations. This has made me increase my English overall and not just when writing.

This image is a result from the search term “Baltimore Uprising”. This picture shows the significant difference between the words riot and up uprising. This makes the protest look peaceful; multiple races have joined together to stand for something. People are smiling; the environment looks healthy. The term up rising makes the people look like model American citizens.

The picture chosen was from the search term “2015 Baltimore riots”. This picture has so much significance because it shows the normality of the chaos of events. The picture has a man sitting in the middle of a street in a calm manner like he’s at the park; but really their is a burning car behind him. Another guy is seen riding his bike with a smirk on his face like the events taking place is comfortable for humans to be around.  This picture and these details show the true disorder of what was going on in Baltimore at this time.

Chapter 9 touches heavy on the topic affirmative action.  In this chapter Coates expresses how whites in the government system denounce affirmative action. The politicians state that affirmative action is too broad of a subject to receive any compensation or reparations for. Coates gives examples of how government funding programs still leave African Americans out of the loop. For example, Medicaid being made optional leaves many blacks not qualified for it in southern states.

In chapter 8 of The Case For Reparations, Coates emphasizes the large amount of African Americans who couldn’t keep their home due to unfair circumstances. In this chapter the audience gets to hear first hand experiences from older generation African Americans who experienced segregation and racism first hand.  The audience learns how lucky the very few people were to be able to escape with their homes at the end of this era. Whites would pressure other home owning whites into selling their houses for cheap. They’d do this by scaring them. After the house was sold for cheap, the new home owner would sell to the blacks on contract. Most times the contract would have extremely expensive rates, that the whites knew the African Americans couldn’t afford. The African Americans would be evicted and the cycle would start over. Some African Americans were lucky enough to keep their home, but they had to sacrifice in other areas.

In The Case For Reparations by Coates, chapter VI. informs the audience about Chicago’s history of racism and segregation.  This chapter is significant because it exemplifies how throughout history African Americans have been restricted to do certain things that still affect them today.  In the chapter Coates talks about how African Americans were black balled from buying houses because whites didn’t want the neighborhoods integrated. Chicago’s state government system systematically segregated neighborhoods. The government did this by denying federal home loans, using laws that were unjust, or doing illegal crimes to keep blacks and whites separated. 

-Crime rates in newly segregated areas.  Were crime rates in newly segregated areas higher due to whites trying to get blacks out of the community (bombings etc.)

• Was the Contract Buyers League effective? Was a larger number of people able to rebound and save their homes due to this organization?
• After neighborhoods were segregated overtime did they become predominantly black?

Ta-Nehisi Coates is a well accomplished writer and author. Coates has received a MacArthur Fellow award and been the author of numerous best selling books.  He perhaps is most known for his books Between The World And Me, The beautiful struggle, and We Were Eight Years In Power. Current author of Marvel Comics The Black Panther and Captain America, his journey and career as an author still progresses to this day.         

Reparations is when a person or company has harmed something or someone (race, ethnicity etc.) and is responsible for compensating the affected group with money and or relief.

Works Cited

Lewek, Tom. “About.” Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ta-Nehisi Coates, 6 Dec. 2018, ta-nehisicoates.com/about/.