Harshi Pannala Q2 #1: Headlines
Mass shooting in Florida.
Hindu temple was defaced in California.
A college student attacked a Jewish fraternity at Syracuse University.
An Illinois man killed a Palestinian child.
The headlines never stop.
I have lived within the borders of Fremont, California for all 17 years of my life. I grew up with the privilege of having school-initiated presentations about Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, and Christian (and many more religions) holidays and practices. From a young age, I was taught to respect other beliefs and practices regardless of whether ours coincided with them or not. I was able to go to school with mehendi on my hands and rotis in my lunch box. Instead of looks of disgust and disapproval, I was greeted with my fellow classmates asking if they could try my lunch and compliments on the painstaking labor my mom had put in to keep me from moving while she applied the mehendi. I was naive to believe that this sanctuary was eternal and gifted to everyone in America. It’s not even safe within the state lines of California, according to recent news articles.
Every morning, I open Google Chrome to read the news—a new habit of mine that I’ve adopted for this class—and I see sorrow on top of sorrows. There is so much bad in this country. So much hate. So much disrespect. The information I read is devastating and sometimes I reprimand this country. I question why my parents moved to such a despicable nation. Is that fair to America? Yes, its issues are deep and undeniable. No, the blows cannot just be swept under the rug, but there is so much good here.
Despite the negativity highlighted in the media every day, I appreciate this country. Where else would I be able to have the opportunity to be exposed to so many beautiful cultures. When America isn’t creating policies induced with venom towards different ethnic-groups it truly is a beautiful place to be. I can literally buy kimchi, falafels, naan, and sushi from Costco—you can argue they’re not authentic, but at least we have options. This is just a small aspect, although it's a pretty big deal for me because I love food. I believe America fosters kindness and respect regardless of how the news can make it seem. The exposure this country allows us to have to various ideologies and cultures is something I deeply value and thank America for.
Some of the news articles I've read and mentioned above if you're interested:
Illinois Man kills Palestinian Child
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ReplyDeleteHello, Harshi! I love how you managed to capture such a complex view of our society in such a short blog post—As I was reading, I kept asking myself, “This can’t be it, where’s more?” I really like that you use short paragraphs to really emphasize the different shocking headlines you have seen, it really fits with the provocative and shocking nature of the headlines and conveys the emotions you feel from them. I also appreciate how you present American society with all its nuances, with its faults and its virtues, and I completely agree with you. I don’t think we should think of American society as either inherently perfect or perpetually flawed, but change definitely needs to occur. I think that the “good side” you see sometimes of America is the goal that we aspire this country to be, with its freedom and equality, and that is certainly why your parents (and mine too) moved to this country, and that precisely because we admire America for the values it represents, we feel obligated to help guide it to better represent those values.
ReplyDeleteHi Harshi! I really appreciated how you captured the seemingly paradoxical nature of America when it comes to diversity. I also read the news almost every single day (although I started during my freshman year) and feel extremely disheartened by how our lawmakers are trying to halt and block policies and people that make America so great. The nuanced nature of your writing really captures how people tend to only read headlines that are the most shocking and most distressing. In times of hardship—which it seems our country is currently experiencing—we tend to focus only on the negative. But I also agree that these ideals are somewhat rooted in America’s founding. I feel like we are very lucky to have been brought up in an area that values inclusivity and rejects bigotry, but it is important to practice these ideals when we are faced with the opposite. Great post, and I am excited to read the next one!
ReplyDeleteAs someone who, like you, did not spend as much time reading the news before taking this class, I can testify that this overwhelmed feeling you have written about is indeed difficult to escape. There are times when I feel I really do embody that meme with the dog sitting in a room on fire.
ReplyDeleteBut, as you said, there are still things worth cherishing in this world even if it feels as though everything is ablaze. When everything gets too horrible, I always have to remind myself that people have made it through before. Believe it or not, people were able to lead fulfilling lives during the fall of the Roman Empire—not due to ignorance or undue complacency, but just because of this innate human ability to keep going. Keep rolling that rock up the hill, and maybe one day it will erode.
I admire your use of text structure in this blog; the individual sentences being so different from the dense paragraphs effectively conveys the experience of scrolling through the news tab on Google, reading headline after headline. I also admire your ability to still have hope for this country, which is something I have yet to master, but that’s more of a personal problem for me to figure out. Anyway, great work on your blog!