Lupe Fiasco "Strange Fruition"

"Strange Fruit" was originally a poem written by Abel Meeropol that addressed the issues of racism, emphasizing the horrors of the lynching of African Americans. Similarly, Lupe's "Strange Fruition", is also a song that address inequality and racism that still exit today. This song of Lupe Fiasco, has been influenced by his past and childhood.

Lupe Fiasco, was borned and raise in Chicago. He grew up with a Muslim education. He was well-educated. His parents exposed him to diverse array of subjects and reading was highly encouraged in his household. He also grew up, surrounding by prostitutes and drug addicts, and some muder took place in his neighborhood. His parents divorced when he was five years old. His father was a member of the Black Panther Party, which was a revolutionary black nationalist and socialist organization and theirs objectives was to monitor the behavior of police officers and challenge police brutality. His mother was was super intellectual, left-wing, the whole kind of situation.

Lupe says: "Now I can't pledge allegiance to your flag", from a religious kind of thing, you pledge your allegiance to God and that is it. Being Muslim, and things like that, you don't pledge allegiance to no flag. And, he does not want to be a part of a country where the government acts badly towards the people.

" As long as they look good when they doin' bad" I think that he means that the youth only care for their looks, material possessions and their appearances.They are heading down a bad road.

"You forced us in the ghetto and took our dads" I think that he wants to say that because of the racism, their dads were obliged to create the BPP and then, they were always out and it is the reason why his mother divorced from his dad.

With these examples, we can see that the lyric of "Strange Fruition" is based on real facts.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupe_Fiasco#1982.E2.80.9398:_Early_life

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Fruit#

 "A Good Deal For The Caravan"

1. Boy "That's a flash car mister", he is giving some compliments to Tommy by hoping to get what he wants. Generally when we wants something, we try to compliment the person to whom we are asking, so the person will be influence and be tempted to give us what we ask for. The boy used this method, by showing that the man have a "flash" car, so the man will feel more powerful and will be tempted to give money to the boy.

2. Tommy"As flash as your boots", he is also giving compliment to the boy by adapting his words at the level of the boy. The boy will feel more important because his boots are as "flash" as the car of Tommy. Usually, adults, tries to influence children by showing that they are also important as adults.

3. Pickey, "How big are you? Kids, how big is he?", in this case, he tries to make the man more confortable, by being funny and by compliment him. He also tries to "break the ice" between man and him so that the man can feel important and honnored.

4. Mother"Don't be silly Mickey, offer the man a proper to drink" she tries to honnor the man by telling Pickey to give him proper drink. When we invite someone at home to give him some drink, it is a kind of valorization to the person. Then if Pickey and his wife ask for something, the person will not be able to refuse it.

How do we exert power by speaking differently?

By adapting our speak, including our words and language,is a way of power and strenght that we use on the people whith whom we are talking. When we speak,we do not always speak to the same people,we speak to people who are differents from us. We do or do not have the same knowlegde, general culture, the same humor and the same way of thinking. Then by speaking we must be able to make them understand what we mean.We speak to make others understand what we want to say because we already knew it so we have to choice some words which are at the level of the people whith whom we are talking to make them understand. This is a power and a strenght because the audience will be influenced by theperson who talk.

How to persuade an Apple computer executive to hire you

"We have an environment where excellence is really expected. What is really great is to be open when the work is not great.My best contribution is not settling for anything but really good stuff, in all the details. That is my job-to make sure everything is great"
                                -Steve Jobs-
    Hello, Mr. Jobs, it's nice to meet you,
   Thanks for taking the time to meet with me.  My name is Dana Ouedraogo. I graduated from Harvard University and have a PhD in computer science engineering. All my life, I've wanted to work for Apple, because it is tops in the field and an incredible brand. I grew up with this quote of yours in mind and I've always known that a job at Apple is unlike any other. It would be a challenge and an inspiration for me because whatever the job , I would be a part of something big. Every detail matters. Your computers are so simple, but simplicity is not simple. During my master's degree, I had to analyze every detail of Apple computers and I found some flaws, because of course nothing is perfect. There, I found a way to adjust your program that made more productive for my company.

I hope that I can  convince you that I  be a great feet for this company.

MAP

Children of Immigrants

In the first picture, we can see someone who is determine to face something like a problem. The picture has more a religious aspect because of it back. The picture suggests that, being an immigrant child does not mean to reject its culture at the expense of another. Someone else could interpret this picture as, a young child who is a good christian and goes to church everyday.

In the second picture, a girl is lying down on her bed. We can see a representation of Indian's God on the wall. It shows that this girl is just flesh and spirit absent because she thinks about her roots and really wants to be connected with them. This picture reminds me Sofia and her problem to fit with both culture. Someone else could interpret this as a girl who is just tired and wants to rest.

The third picture is about and Italian boy who is siting in a bakery and looking out through the glass of widow. He is confused with American and Italian culture and does not really know where he have to be and it suggests that many children of immigrants tend to be identified in American culture. Someone else could just see the picture as a young man who is just in a bakery.

The fourth picture, shows a blond women who is sitting in a dark empty room with two larges glasses and one photo of the Virgin Mary. This suggests that being a child of immigrant is like a big opportinity for someone, because he does not have to work or to suffer and his life is more comfortable. This picture reminds me church and the clergy. Someone else could said that it's just a girl who is thinking.

The fifth picture, which became more sadier, shows a men who is just sitting on his bed and does not have enough space, and we can not clearly see his face. The picture suggests that the man knows now who he are and where he is going and he found his way. It's reminds me the sentiment that you fell when you know who you really are and the way that you take. Someone else could see this picture as just a men on his bed.

The sixth picture is about a women, who has short hair cut, who is in a kitchen, she is drinking something. The kitchen has many candles and some pictures and flowers. She honnestly reveals that she was ashamed of her culture and who she was, but now she also find her way. The immigrants children had to first accepted themselves if they want others to accept them. Someone else could see this like a woman who is drinking.

This seventh picture is about a young man who is sitting in a dinner and drinking something. He shows that it not easy as an immigrant child to keep his native culture and language and he has forgot his roots which is the big problem that these children have to face.

In this eighth picture, it's a girl who is sitting on her bed and who does not feel happy. She is tired and sick to live the same thing again and again. She always have to prove who she is.

The nineth picture is about a Russian girl, who has a long hair and standing up next to a widow. She said that she lost her culture but she always respect it. It shows that even if these immigrant kids lost their culture, they always respect it and like it.

The tenth picture is about a teenager who does really not look like an immigrants. Even his bedroom has the style of American teens. He completly lost his culture and he seems strange to that.He is always frustrated by reminding that he is not an Argentine at all. This is again the real problem that immigrant children have to face.

This last picture is about a girl who is laying down on a bench out of a big city. She feels like she wants to take a break. She feels like she is except like an animal.




There is a big conection between the book How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and these interview. Both of them have the same idea and the same problem about culture,identities and what their are facing as an immigrant children.

                                    Idioms

                    Hello everyone,
Today we are going to talk more about some idioms and their meaning.

"Grean behind the ears" : being new to something

"When in Rome, do unto romans":  you should adapt to the customs of society when you are there.

"It take two to tangle" : this happen without more than one person

"Gravy on turkey" : more

"No use trying to drink spilt milk" : something that you say which means you should not get upset about something bad that has happened that you cannot change

"It is half of one two dozen of another" : used to compare two things that are the same

"Four score and once upon a time ago" : it is a part of Linciln's Gettysburg address

"Neccesity is the daughter of invention" : when people really need to do something, they will figure out a way to do it

"My ship would pass me by night" : you would miss out on a good opportunity

                                  My Story

Early in the morning, my place on the dinning table was empty, but everybody knew that I was taking care of my adorable dog, Kenny, which was very sick since two weeks ago. I was trying to give him some food, water and the medications that the vet had prescribed, but my dog just wanted to be alone and lie down on a cool little space in the house. It was very strange because he never left me alone like this, he was always attentive to me. I left him go looking for his cool place.
At this moment my father came, kissed me and said good bye to me because he was going to his office. He got into his car, turned it on and tried to go out of the garage. He just moved the car when I heard a heartbreaking cry that rang in my ears.........My father stoped quickly the car and went out to see what just happened. Kenny was under the right wheel of my father's car, and had been crushed by the car. Nobody except me knew that Kenny was under the car.
Thereby, it was like the, world, my world was collapsing, everythings became dark for me. There are these moments in life, where you are asking to yourselfs some questions like, why are you existing? Why is it impossible to go back to the past and changed your life? I was feeling like this. Kenny was my best friend, we grew up together, we had the same sizes and he had a place in my heart. I was five years old and I saw the life left the body of my dog.
I started crying, I was inconsolable. My brother came to me and said that" Tears can't revive a dead", this irritated me again. Then, my sister came also to me and said"Kenny was destined to die today even if it was not by dad, it could be by another person and this would be the worst.You have to take everything positively".
I saw since this day and with time that good things are ephemerals. Sometimes someone come in our lives when we need,to start something, help, support, belief in ourselves and when the equilibrium is established and we think that he is our mentors,he disappears and leaves us stand up on our own two feet.

                     How Languages Evolve

Hey everybody, I am back.
       Today's post will be on a video about the evolution of language.
This video, according to me, is very helpful to understand the languages, its creation, evolution and the way that it is used. It eplains a lot of things that we do(or don't) know all of this in a very short time, so it is very easy to understand and learn.I was delighted to know the evolution of the language,the way that it had been separated and divided in many others dialects. I was also surprised by the numbers of languages and that many words are "similar" in many others languages such as numbers. But this last part was confusing to me because I'm sure that it will be difficult to find some words in like Chinese wich are similar in French or English. I think that in generally the video is very good, helpful and provides many informations such as culture varies depending on languages, dialects ans geographics positions.

                         What's Current Creates Currency

 2)Entertaining, popular music portray the most of time younger people. They just want something news, popular for their parties. And also shows that they are cool and fun with some popular music.

3)Popular music doesn't really dictate what we belief but it is our belief that influences our way to perceive the music. A popular music reflects our beliefs and cultural values because it shows that we have all different beliefs and cultural values and shows that they are not obviously the best one as we think and there are some others which could be appreciated.

4) Music becomes popular when everyone listen to it, when it's broadcasted all the time at radio, television, and when everybody sings it. It doesn't have to be interresting or necessarily have to pass a message it just has to be everywhere at every time and has an effect on the audience. A real music is based on our ideas an opinions. Our judgement on real music depends on the meaning that we have for it. If we said that a combination of just a singer and some instruments is a real music, we can agree that pop music is a real music. Or if we consider that all kinds of music are real we can agree also  that pop music is a real one.

6)A song carries a message. The lyric of a music depends of the writter's sentiments because it's based on his life, his everyday's life, his emotions and also what he thinks about many things in life, his culture and what he can't say with something else which is not music. It's also based on the message that he wants to pass. Then people who will hear the song could feel like they are identifying with the song and feel like the song is only about them and their situation. With it, they can mind that they are not alone and there is someone who ever fells it and would like to share the message.

7) Music reflects cultural values by the culture and the ways of thinking of the author. The author can use this sound insteed of another or specifically something because it depends on who he is and his personnality is the result of his culture.A singer is a product of his culture an then he broadcasts his culture through his music.

                              How the Garcias Girl Lost Their Accent

For today's blog, I choose the scene where Yolanda wants to drive north into the countryside toward the coast with an expensive car to look for guavas and her aunt was against it.
This scene shows that in their culture, woman are considered innocuous, without defense and they are the most of the time assault. Also, the countryside coast is very dangerous, especially women which has above all expensive car. she will attract agressor and all kind of worst things can happen. We even saw that when Yolanda had the punctured wheel, two mans with manchetes came and she was very afraid. She was lucky, they didn't do anything bad.

                         Disapearing Languages

The language that I selected comes from the Eastern Siberia and it is call Tofa. I choose it because it is very endanmaged and it could disapear during the next few years. In additional, I never heard it before I want to know more about Siberian's cultures.

It is a "Dying Language" because for 10 months of each year, the three remote villages in the eastern Sayan mountains of south Siberia where the 731 members of the Tofa Nation live are accessible only by helicopter or small 1950s vintage bi-planes. In the dead of winter, visitors can drive along frozen rivers in an all-terrain truck to reach the villages. The Tofas’ extreme isolation has proved to be both a hardship and a benefit as they struggle with the impending loss of their language.

This language could stay alive if the small people refuse to speak Russian and if they improve their living conditions so that they will have  tourists who will learn their language and also that older persons writes some novels in their language. In addition if they teach languages ​​to young people.

5 slangs words for my generation

• Busted: To say someone is busted is to mean they are ugly.
• Tope: It is something cool, it is a combination of tight and dope
• Frenemy: It is a combination of friend and enemy, it is a person who appears on one hand to be your friend but at the same time is antagonistic towards you.
• Gangsta: is a person who is both tough and cool a the same time.
• Flop: which mean a planned event does not happen.

My generation could keep this language alive if we commits every possible way to learn the language, like humor,expressions and others.

                     How the Garcias Girls Lost Their Accents

Today we are going to talk a little bit about this novel of Julia Alvarez, she talk about "antojo" which is cravings,but what is it connotations?
The connotaion of craving is a very strong disire of something and also something and a not fulfilled promise.
The author wanted to write it in English but keep the title in Spanish because she tries to show us that she wants to keep her mother tongue,her first language,and no matter what she will do, Spanish will always be her first language, a part of her, and it will always take the first place in her mind, heart and sentiments even if she can't write in it. She also wanted to write in English because the most part of her life was in it and English take the second part and also to make sure that the  principal audience will understand her.

Thesis Statemen

 How could the text be read and interpreted differently by two diffrent readers

Firstly,we have to know that when read a text, we don't read it with just eyes and mind, it's more than it, but the question is what do we use in addition to mind and  eyes?and why? and on what basis are we constituted our reading and interpretation?
The text on which we will be discussing is "How to tame a wild tongue" by Gloria Anzaldúa. A text  could not be read and interpreted similarly by two "different" readers because they are different, they have different education, different personality, different culture, different language, different storie,  different mind and ways to think and they have different lifestyle. 
Every one is unique and even if there is someone who  looks like another one person, they can't be exactly the same,the proof is that even twins do not have the same characters.

                                  BILINGUALISM

Espaillat's use of parentheses to translate several words into Spanish, makes the audience more concerned by the text and it's like she wants us to really understand her writes and what she mind. She also translated words that are important for her like citations. The method that she used is different than Bhatt's and Alvarez.In Bhatt's poem, he swithes English  to Gujarati and back again,with this the audience can't be focus on the poem,they will be confused because most of them won't read the second language,because they do not uderstand it then they won't understand the poem. We can see that he wants to show a part of his culture and language, but give a text to a person who doesn't understand it,is equal to give nothing. In Alvarez's poem,mixes language is also different but close to Bhatt's one,the audience can't be focus on it,because they have to always look for the words that they don't understand because they don't have translation in the text.

In this Poem,the father insisted to separated the two languages"one there" "one here" "English outside" "Spanish inside", btut this idea didn't work with her and she wasn't able to separated the two languages. The father could keep it serapated but she still the heart was one. Now she feels like she is a combinaison of two world and two culture.

In Bhatt's poem,there is also the idea of separation"had two tongues in your mouth" "You could not use them together" we can see with it that the author is also frustrate but will keep his mother language.

Alvarez said that she was confused.

In her poem,the author mentionned that children learn by pointing a thing and say it out loud,and by associeted an image with words. This is how memories are creating and stay stick forever.

In the poem Bilingual Sestina, ther is an irony at the last part"I hear my Spanish beating inside what I say en ingles", the author wants to say that even if she is speaking English,Spanish is in her mind, so she can't really speaks English.

In "Seach For My tongue,Bhatt plays with the literally meaning and figurative meaning of the word tongue by using moral feelings with physical,to help people to understand her poem.

Write a poem is not like write an aticles,memoirs or journals. Poem is a kind of way to express our sentiments and our desire. In journals,articles memoirs,the readers  just have to read it and it's all,but in a poem, the readers have to analyze every words that the author used,they have to think like the author and to read many times to understand the author. The author also have to weight his words and to make sure that the reader will think like him and understand it. Then,by this ways,poems is a better way to be understand and to understand and I think that it's why they choosed it.

 

Why would someone want to write a poem or song in more than one language?

When someone writes a poem or a song in more than one language,this person have an international objective.It helps the person to understand very well the languages and it gives chance to this person to make understand his write by many people because poems and songs are not just words,they reflects our sentiments and our desire. If this person writes in French only, someone who speaks English or other languages will not be able to understand it, but if he writes it in many languages, many people could understand it. Also,if someone writes in just one language, it will seems like this person doesn't want to share his ideas and sentiments with others cultures and languages.
By writting a poem or a song with more than one language, it includes more than one audience because people from every where,could be able to understand the song or poem, to sing it or recite it, and to compare it with themselves.

 

"Who is to say that robbing a people of its language is more violent than a war"

In this article I give my point of view about this quote.

Robbing a person because of its language is more violent than a war for me. War can kill many people, it is very violent,but it doesn't robbing the culture or the language of someone and even if it kills a community, the little remains can still save and strenghthen their culture and language. We can take an example of the movie Rio2 and also the Jews,they were separeted because of many wars,but thanks to their language and culture,they were able to come together and reform their contry. A culture and language is a part of us, it constituted our life,our home, our contry.A person without a culture is considered like dead because culture and language constituted the human. A person without a culture or language is not helpful for the society, our culture and language are helpful to another one. It is because of our culture and language that we developed relationships with others and share the main part of our behavior and history.

             

HOW TO TAME A WILD TONGUE

The text explores many themes. It is more focus on shame,culture,integrity and repression.



The caracters of this story are the narrator, Hilda her sister, Carito her brother and her mother.



The conflict is the fact that spanish's language and culture are not taken into account and the Spanish are losing more and more of their indentity, to be American, what makes their culture disappears.



The stting takes place in San Francisco.



The passages that stand out to me: "Who is to say that robbing a people of its language is less violent than war?"; "Wild tongue can't be tamed, they can only be cut out", "If you want to be an America, speak 'American'. If you don't like it,go back to Mexico where you belong.", "In my culture they are all words that are derogatory if applied to women-I've never heard them applied to men." ,"So if you want to really hurt me,talk badly about my language. Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity- Iam my language."



The text is divided into long paragraph that is chronological and it begins when she was student to when she was teaching. Each paragraph explains the differents "dialects" of Spanish ans the turns of spanish with time. The author noted some citations between paragraph and also some explanations of words. There is also a lot of word and sentences in spanish.



The storyteller is Gloria Anzaldua.



For the words,it is like the author weighed her words before using. We see that she want to explain with the best way, what she feels about all this, and it is a kind of high level, anyone can't understand it.



The author used metaphors or symbolism to explain us how bad and horrible the situation was. The author enhance the message by tying to make us understand how they where considered, how their culture was and is losing.



When we based on refferences that the author used,we can see that the story took place in the 1950's to 1970's.



We know that the author is Mexican,she moved to San Francisco during high school and she became an english teacher for "Chicano" students.



The author speaks about some things of her culture like food.



I nerver really had an experience that connected to this story because I never been ashamed for my culture but I ever been laugh for accent but I'm not ashamed for that. My culture helps me to understand the text because my culture is losing more and more for the benefit of another culture. The text relevant is relevant for me because it shows how the latin Americans feel here. I'm not the intended audience but I'm a part of the audience because it teaches me that I have to keep my culture and to not let it for the detrimrnt of another culture.