Author: estrin.11

Alec Estrin Text Review Assignment- All American

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Alec Estrin

COMPSTD 1100

2021 April 21st

 

Text Review Assignment: All-American

     All American is popular TV series that first premiered on The CW network in October of 2018. The series is loosely based on the life of former NFL player Spencer Paysinger and it follows his high school years as a rising football star. When the show first begins Spencer is playing at South Crenshaw High which is located in South LA and this is where he grew up. This is a neighborhood that is a low-income area and is notoriously known for gang violence. In addition, Spencer’s father left him at a young age so he was forced to grow up fast and be a good role model for his younger brother. An example of the violence that occurs in Crenshaw can be seen in the opening scene of the show which depicts a shooting that occurs at one of the football games Spencer is playing in. Following the shooting Spencer is given the opportunity to transfer schools by the head coach at Crenshaw’s rival high school Beverly Hills High. This is a much safer and higher income area that offers Spencer better opportunities for not only himself, but also his family. At first Spencer is against this as he feels he is betraying his home, but after his mother and best friend Coop urge him to accept the offer, he eventually agrees. For this assignment I plan to focus primarily on the first season of the show where Spencer struggles to deal with his newfound identity as a member of Beverly Hills High, and as a member of the Crenshaw community.

A big part of the first season is Spencer’s intersectionality as a member of both the Crenshaw and Beverly Hills community. Although Spencer knows that Beverly Hills offers him a better opportunities for the future, he still finds it difficult to adjust to the new neighborhood. He struggles as he constantly is going back and forth between the two towns and also it does not help that the other football players from Beverly Hills are not very accepting to him at first. The reason they are not initially very accepting to Spencer is that he is transfer that is not from their neighborhood, and they also fear that he will steal the attention of college scouts from them. In addition, they do not view him the same way that they view others that are from Beverly.

It is interesting as the season goes on and they both get to know each other they are able to build a strong relationship and they begin to not only accept each other for each other’s differences, but they begin to embrace them. They both also begin to realize that they actually have many similarities, and they learn from each other’s differences. I think that what this show highlights is a young man as he tries to navigate his contrasting identities as a kid who grew up without a father in a poor and dangerous neighborhood, and his identity as one that is now also a member of a wealthy and upper class neighborhood. As the season goes on he begins to embrace his identity as a member of Beverly Hills, but he also does not forget where he came from and the people that are important to him. I think that ultimately it illustrates that although people may come from different socioeconomic backgrounds, it does not mean that you cannot form meaningful and powerful relationships with others.

Here is an image of Daniel Ezra (Left) who plays Spencer James and Spencer Paysinger (Right)

Alec Estrin Context Presentation: Black Panther

by

Alec Estrin

COMPSTD 1100

April 3rd, 2021

 

Context Presentation: Black Panther

      Black Panther was a hit when it was released in the year 2018. It was directed by Ryan Coogler and starred protagonist Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa and antagonist Michael B. Jordan as Erik Killmonger. This movie is exceptional in many ways and one of its most interesting aspects is how people identify themselves, and how it drives their perspective.

One of the most often spoken about characters in this movie is its “villain” Erik Killmonger. One of the things that makes him so interesting is the different aspects of his identity, more specifically his intersectionality as an African American who grew up in Oakland without a father, and his identity as a member of royal family of Wakanda. These two aspects of his identity come to an eventful clash when he returns to Wakanda and reveals his plans to end their stance of isolation. Something that is very interesting to consider when hearing this plan is how his intersectionality has formed his perspective, and also how this perspective is different than the people of Wakanda.

Being an American is a big part of Killmonger’s perspective. As stated by Christopher Lebron, a writer for the Boston Review, he says “The CIA agent Everett Ross says of Killmonger, “he’s not Wakandan, he’s one of ours,” later observing that Killmonger’s coup is what the U.S. government “trained him to do.” The part of Killmonger that makes him a supervillain is not the part of him that is African” (Serwer, Adam). I think that this quotation is very meaningful as it shows that the part of him that is evil, is evidently because of his experiences as an American. He had experienced first-hand the injustices that African Americans face in this country, and he trained his whole life to change this injustice.

The people of Wakanda have had no such experience. They have lived a very prosperous and excellent life. In addition, they do not identify themselves as African Americans the same way that Killmonger does, but instead identify more as the people of Wakanda. This idea is made clear in a statement made by Ragi Bashonga, a writer for the Oxford Handbooks Online, as he states “For Killmonger, Wakanda belonged to the bigger continent of Africa, and Africa itself is considered to be the origin of Black people as a race” (Bashonga, Ragi). In contrast, “Wakandan identity is produced through a social location, a narrative, and a set of values, rather than a geographical place” (Bashonga, Ragi). These differences in perspective lead Wakandans to value “the nation state rather than race [as] the most important symbol of identity and it was worth protecting from others and from contamination” (Bashonga, Ragi). Dani Di Pacido from Forbesalso states that “Even Chadwick Boseman said of his character, “I am the enemy … It’s the enemy I’ve always known. It’s power. It’s having privilege” (Placido, Dani Di).

These differences in perspective are vital to recognize in order to truly appreciate this film. By understanding these differences in perspective where Killmonger views himself as an African American, and the people of Wakanda instead view themselves as Wakandans, it allows the viewer to truly see what drives the main conflict of the movie, and is it ultimately makes this movie so exceptional and interesting.

 

 

Works Cited

Bashonga, Ragi. “Home, Belonging and Africanity in the Film Black Panther.” Oxford Handbooks Online, 8 Oct. 2020, www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190930028.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780190930028-e-19.

Placido, Dani Di. “Why Killmonger Was Such A Compelling Villain In ‘Black Panther’.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 5 Mar. 2018, www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2018/03/05/why-killmonger-was-such-a-compelling-villain-in-black-panther/?sh=34615a1424aa.

Serwer, Adam. “The Tragedy of Erik Killmonger.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 21 Feb. 2018, www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/02/black-panther-erik-killmonger/553805/.

 

Alec Estrin Diary of Systemic Injustice Showcase: Systemic Racism in the Education System

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Education is vital for getting ahead in life and is key in opening new opportunities for a person. Some opportunities include the chance to attend better universities, which in turn can lead to better paying jobs that also have better benefits.

In an article posted by americanprogress.org, an article in which I recommend everyone reads (https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-k-12/news/2020/07/08/487386/fighting-systemic-racism-k-12-education-helping-allies-move-keyboard-school-board/), they highlighted how African Americans were facing a systemic injustice in the education system. In that article they discussed three ways in which people can help combat this systemic injustice which was to advocate for equitable funding, advocate for less policing and surveillance of students, and to advocate to end de-facto segregation through school and district boundaries. In this entry I am going to focus primarily on advocating for less policing and surveillance of students, but you can read about the other two with the link above.

Following the deadly school shootings that have been going on across the country in recent years there has an increased focus on preventing gun violence in schools. This focus has led to an increase in policing and surveillance in schools, yet there is evidence that this does not help address the threat of gun violence. Instead, this increase in policing has had different effects. In fact, “According to data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, Black, Hispanic male, and American Indian students face higher rates of school disciplinary consequences such as suspension and expulsion than white students, and they are also subject to more interactions with police in schools in the form of contraband sweeps, interrogations, physical restraints, and arrests. Black students are also more likely to be subjected to social media surveillance and the use of biased artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology”.

This data helps illustrate that this increase in police and surveillance is really causing more harm than it is good. Although it is definitely important that the issues regarding school shootings needs to be addressed, increasing police and surveillance is not the answer. In fact, “legislatures in 26 states allocated nearly $960 million for security upgrades and the addition of police officers to school campuses”. This is a tremendous amount of money that could be going into other areas that could not only correct the systemic injustices that are going on in our education system but could also improve the mental health of all school children in general. As stated in the article, “Approximately 1.7 million students attend schools with police officers but no counselors; 3 million students attend schools with police but no nurses; 6 million students attend schools with police but no psychologist; and 10 million students attend schools with police but no social workers”. This statistic illustrates another area that this money could go to where it could be beneficial to all school children: nurses and mental health staff.

In a way this situation reminds me of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s concept of a single story. This is because if you looked at this increase in surveillance and policing of schools from the perspective of someone who does not experience this injustice, there seems to be no downside to this increase. It is only after you consider the perspective of people such as African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indians that one can see that this increase is causing more harm than it is good.

In order for this systemic injustice to be corrected, and for the mental health of children to improve, people must start advocating more for this funding to go elsewhere rather than to policing and surveillance. People must start advocating for this money to go toward increasing mental health staff such as counselors or psychologists which are often nonexistent at certain schools. In doing this it will correct this systemic injustice in which certain people are forced to go to school in fear of being unfairly mistreated, and also improves the overall mental health of students which in turn could also lead to less school shootings as well.

 

 

 

Works Cited

Chatterji, Roby. “Fighting Systemic Racism in K-12 Education: Helping Allies Move From the Keyboard to the School Board.” Center for American Progress, 24 Sept. 2020, www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-k-12/news/2020/07/08/487386/fighting-systemic-racism-k-12-education-helping-allies-move-keyboard-school-board/.

“Data and Statistics on Children’s Mental Health.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 15 June 2020, www.cdc.gov/childrensmentalhealth/data.html.