Journal 11- To Pimp A Butterfly

On Thursday we finished our last discussion of the texts we read in class. I really liked how we studied modern examples of leadership towards the end because it really validated the importance of leadership. Most of my high school English electives were all about classic literature. Even though this class is an actual Classics course, we still took the time to appreciate modern concepts to show how classic ideas still remain today. We had a really interesting conversation about the topics we studied in class. We were asked how many “straight white males” we studied in this course and some students felt like the answer was “too many”. Initially, I thought of the greek characters we studied, but then I remembered how fluid sexuality was back then and how no one, especially men, would consider themselves to only be attracted to one gender. Throughout the course, I appreciated the fact that there was a lot of diversity in our texts. I never had this experience in the schools I went to growing up. If we were lucky we would study one nonwhite author maybe two and never someone who was LGBTQ. I think that this is the case for many other Howard students too. I feel like that has conditioned us to always feel exhausted in classes like these because we never really expect to relate to the people we are studying. I sensed some hostility when we were forced to think of the answer to this question. In our group chat, I said that Olatara might be the one character that our professor was thinking of and I was met with a lot of opposition. Someone told me that it couldn’t be him because he was from Argentina and therefore he is Latino and not white. However, I have learned over the years that race and ethnicity are very different and we confuse those ideas so much in society. Since race is a social construct, it doesn’t apply to any genetic differences we have besides our phenotype. Ethnicity represents our genetics and because of things like geography and other biological concepts, people of the same ethnic group tend to be similar because of their genes and proximity. Therefore, Otalaro can be ethnically Latino and his race is white because he has white skin and would look similar to people in Europe like Spain than the Indigenous people in Guatemala due to colonization. The colonizers are the ones who decided that these people were white because they were treated different socially than the nonwhite skinned people of other races. If this was not the case, race wouldn’t be named after the color of our skin. This perspective is very misunderstood in practice. Socially most people would disagree with this concept but it doesn’t change that it is true. It is even harder for us to accept this because the black race is very unique compared to others. There are some monolithic aspects of blackness due to slavery and colonization. Many of us in America only call ourselves black because we have no idea of our ethnic origin. Therefore we couldn’t identify with a certain culture and used our skin color to develop a culture that was unique to all people who look like us no matter where we came from. See… even typing that was a long tangent. I wasn’t going to say that in our otherwise light-hearted group chat because I knew that it would cause a discourse that could polarize us very quickly. I felt kind of weak in the moment for surrendering and not defending my POV but I remembered that a great leadership trait is learning to pick our battles. It was simply not worth it at the moment to divulge the topic but if there was another situation that was better I would definitely take it. I had to look back on the situation and remember my personal experiences. It is almost impossible to convince someone of things when they are angry and I would get the best response if things were neutral. Sometimes leaders have to ignore that though and push people just because of how important it is. It is up to our discretion to decide if we need to persuade people or move on and I don’t think that conversation needed to go any further in the moment.

Presentations

On Tuesday I watched a presentation from my classmates on Inside Out. I was so excited because I love Pixar movies so so much, especially the newer ones. They tackle so many ideas in such a sweet way that I think is very understandable for young kids and enjoyable for adults too. I thought their presentation was great! You could tell they were very passionate about their topic and the design of the slides was very cute and dynamic. In their assignment for us, they asked us what we thought the primary emotion should be for a leader. Personally, I am not sure but I am sure that a leader should never lead with fear. Out of the other emotions in Inside Out, I still can’t think of the main one for a leader. I think that Joy is a great way to lead for most of us but she can be a little too sensitive for a leader. It is important for a leader to want everyone to be happy and have empathy for others but in a way that can make us weak. However, the lack of it would be detrimental. I would say that objectively all of the other traits are varying degrees of negative feelings. However, the variation of them is what makes them essential for us to function. We need anger to ignite feelings in us. Most leaders start out angry at the current way things are running and that inspires them to want to do what they can to help the situation and others. Sadness is something that must exist purely for us to experience joy. We have to have a healthy way of dealing with sadness or else it can essentially ruin our lives. I think that a moderate amount is good for us to stay humble and learn from the things that make us sad. Disgust is just another way for us to protect ourselves. I see it as the gut feeling that lets us know when we feel “bad vibes” or uncertainty about things. I think we should be disgusted by things in our society and use it to guide our moral compass. As for fear, I feel like it holds us back the most. It is completely normal to feel fear, but it is important to be able to distinguish what type of fear it is. A leader should be fearless of their opposition and never let their fear corrupt their morals and stop them from doing what is right. In my presentation, we talk about this idea a little bit in terms of “selling out”. However, fear can be okay sometimes. We shouldn’t be afraid of the decisions we make but instead afraid of what life will be like without them. This idea came up a lot in the Ida B. Wells unit. A true leader is willing to take risks because the possibility of not taking them is worse than what the negative outcome may be. I agree with this because I can get anxious very easily. I focus so much on the “what-ifs” of things that I try to find the worst possible scenario to make me decide against my initial idea. Sometimes it helps me but it mostly hurts my progress. In most decisions I make, it is never life or death like it would be for Ida. This realization has forced me to learn to let go of this fear slowly. I’m beginning to realize that the anxiety I feel is one of the worst feelings I can imagine. It sucks to stress when there isn’t any resolve because you’re just focusing on hypothetical scenarios. In most cases, I decide that I am willing to risk the negative outcome for the possibility of reward and I know that even the negative feeling is usually better than being worried over it. Overall, I really enjoyed this presentation!

My Presentation

I haven’t had this much fun doing a group project in a long time! With remote learning, I’ve found it harder to properly communicate in the ways that we would in person. Luckily, my group was able to really click. We all were interested in this topic and had some sort of connection to at least one song. I never really pay much attention to lyrics because I usually listen to music when I’m multitasking. I really grew a strong appreciation for Kendrick and lack of respect for other artists like him that don’t use their platform to promote positive messages and perpetuate negative ones. I guess this proves that you can find leadership qualities in so many mediums, we just have to be willing to listen. So many of these traditional forms are inaccessible to black people in poverty. I grew up right outside of Detroit: the blackest city in America. 2 blocks over and I would be in Detroit but I lived in a suburb that did everything it could to separate itself from it. I have my hatred towards that aspect of it but I also appreciate the opportunities that the community gave me. We studied classic literature all of the time and I learned so much from it. I did a school exchange with a Detroit school and I saw how underfunded everything was. The figurative institution of just racism in general thrives off of keeping us down and ignorant enough to not question why. Then this same institution tries to put the blame on us when they created the system and gave us no means to fix it. This is why Kendrick’s album is so important. He is seen as an iconic for so many black youths. The black kids from his poor neighborhood of Compton look up to him as a hero for “making it out of the ghetto”. Most rappers rap about how great their life is now that they are rich and it teaches youth that this what they should go after. They use their background just to show how high they have risen up which insinuates that communities like this are bad. Of course, there is nothing good about gangbanging and it has stolen many lives from youth, but there are positive aspects too of living in a place that is so rich with culture and experience. This is why instead of leaving it behind, he is giving back to it and never forgetting his roots. He wants to tell people they are great on their own without falling into the stereotypes the institution has forced us to believe in. The best part is that he is telling these messages to the black community in a way that we can all understand and unite over: music.