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            For this Satire Blog I listened to the interview with Sacha Baron Cohen who plays Borat on Fresh Air. I was very interested with the way he got the idea of starting to film the movie, he said that when he was filming some other segment, he decided to go to a group of skateboarders in his character and they accepted him as the character. They were really surprised when he told them that that wasn’t really him. He also mentions that it’s very interesting to see the reaction of people in an uncomfortable situation, like Borat saying racist things and waiting for people to either to uncover some of their prejudices or to maintain their integrity. He also mentions that “all forms of prejudice are really delusional”. Borat believes that the Jews were behind the 9/11 attacks but he also believes that they can shift shapes and transform. Some people might believe Borat as encouraging anti-Semitism but on the contrary, it’s showing how pointless and useless prejudices are.

T            The master never whipped, that was left to the overseerT            Slaves got every Monday night molasses, meat, corn meal and flour, but it did not last for a weekT            Children only got a little piece of bread in the morningT            If a married couple didn’t have a child within a year, the wife was sold 

These are just a few things that I learned from reading the slave narratives of Annie L. Burton. Her narrative talks about her as a child in a plantation while the Civil War started. She talks about her master telling the slaves about the Emancipation Proclamation and letting the slaves go, except for Annie and her siblings because they were young and their mother had run away. I got the feeling that theses slave-owners were not totally cruel people, but they did think that having slaves was absolutely normal. I got to learn a lot about the life of slaves during the Civil War and how some masters treated their slaves.

Before I start reading the slave narratives I’m very curious to learn what the slaves really thought and what they really experienced. I have heard a lot about how they were awfully treated and all they wanted to do was escape, but there has got to be more to slavery than that. I’m not saying that slavery has any good in it, but since most slaves went through their whole life being slaves without escaping, I want to a little more about their daily lives in general.

I found a great article on racial profiling, even though it takes place in Canada, I think America also has this problem and it raises very good points about racism and police. The article can be found in http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/racial_profiling/.

Racial profiling is any action taken for reasons of safety, security or public protection that uses stereotypes about race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, or place of origin rather than on reasonable suspicion. We see this happen every day in our school, the streets, everywhere. People are more likely to suspect a hispanic person for doing something wrong than a white person. But the fact that a public institution, such as the police, would act in such racist ways is just unbelievable.

A study of police statistics in Kingston, Ont., released in May 2005 found that young black and aboriginal men were more likely to be stopped than other groups. The data showed that police in the predominantly white city were 3.7 times more likely to stop a black as a Caucasian, and 1.4 times more likely to stop an aboriginal person than a white.

I can’t believe how the police, who are supposed to be enforcing the law, could be so racist, but then again, they are people, and a lot of people are still racist in a country that is supposed to be a melting pot of many religions and ethnicities.

The clip from The Colbert Report at first was a little hard to follow but after watching it a few times I found it very funny. He was making fun of President Bush, the war in
Iraq, and the possibility of being drafted. It shows us how ridiculous it would be to have a draft and how little support there actually exists for this war. He makes fun of the political system in the
United States and the way we are lead to believe something that is not necessarily accurate. The character he is promoting is someone who is against the war in
Iraq and believes that the Bush administration is not doing its job in doing what is best for the American people.  

Today in class we discussed Iraq and the recommendations made by both parties to solve the problems we have by being there, including the casualties and the amount of money we have to pay each day to be there. Both recommendations were reasonable and do not involve a lot of effort from the
U.S., so I don’t see why President Bush would not agree to them. All he wants to do is “follow the course” but the course will only lead to more casualties and an input of lot of money to a lost war. President Bush is not the only one who does not want to leave
Iraq, I bet Vice President Cheney does not want to leave either. His monopoly on oil in
Iraq is leaving him with a lot of money. This monopoly is totally unfair because he is not only taking money from the Iraqis but also from the American troops that need to buy gas there. That is totally unethical and should be illegal. I think that the troops should slowly leave
Iraq and Bush should have more political and diplomatic talks with leaders of
Iraq and nations neighboring
Iraq to create a more peaceful environment.

The news article I found on racism was Rabbi gets hate mail over airport Christmas Trees in this link:  http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-12-12T011757Z_01_N11256250_RTRUKOC_0_US-CHRISTMAS-RABBI.xml&WTmodLoc=USNewsHome_C2_domesticNews-1>

This article is about how a Rabbi requested that a Menorah was placed at the airport, the airport instead of following his request removed all the Christmas trees, and now people are blackmailing the Rabbi for ruining their Christmas spirit. The article says that

“the removal of the trees sparked a public outcry over what some say was political correctness run amok and part of a trend to adopt a secular tone toward Christmas.”

 I do not think it is fair for non-Christians to have to live with the fact that December means Christmas, even though Hanukah and
Kwanza are also celebrated this month. Business owners should be more open to and decorate for this other holidays as well.  

I think the Rabbi’s request to have a Menorah in a place that already had Christmas trees was totally legit because it’s not fair to people of other religions to have to “celebrate” Christmas wherever they go. The way the airport responded by taking down the trees was a good idea because the airport is not a religious place where people go celebrate their religious holidays. Everyone has to realize it’s not all about their own religions and what they believe in, there are other religions in the world and blackmailing a Rabbi for requesting a Menorah does not seem to be reasonable at all.  

According to dictionary.com, satire is “Irony, sarcasm, or caustic wit used to attack or expose folly, vice, or stupidity” (by the way, folly means foolish and vice means immoral and evil).  Satire pretty much makes fun of the things we do that do not make much sense. Satire is popular because people realize there are problems in our society and they want everyone to realize the problem is there. People use humor to attract the attention of a larger audience and to get the point across. This type of humor is can also be seen as very uncomfortable for the people being made fun of. Scary Movie is not satire because it makes fun of movies, not of social problems; while Borat and “A Modest Proposal” are actually making fun of the actions of a group of people. Most of the time I enjoy satire, but sometimes I think it goes a too far. My favorite example of satire is The Daily Show.

But then, there were times in growing up here in Jim Crow Natchez where you had to use survival psychology… We call it “black psychology.” That’s the time when I would grin, shuffle, say “Yes Sir” or “No Sir,” look down. All of those things that said that you were inferior, you know. But, that was a survival tactic.

 This relates to A Lesson Before Dying because when Grant was at Henri Pichot’s house, he felt the need to say “sir” at the end of every answer he gave. He also looked down whenever he felt that he was supposed to look down. He did not complain to Henri or any of the gentlemen for making him wait all afternoon in the kitchen for them to finish talking about whether or not he could visit
Jefferson in jail. All these things made the white men feel superior, and Grant did not enjoy doing these things, but if he wanted to stay out of trouble, he needed to do them. The Jim Crow laws were designed to make the white men feel that they were more powerful and that the blacks were less educated and were not good enough for the luxuries the whites got.

To get an idea of what we were getting into by doing a Shakespearean play, I watched Romeo and Juliet with Leo Deo and Claire Danes. I enjoyed this movie a lot because even though it was in modern times with modern actors, it still used the original script. Some of the chosen scenery was very strange, such as the gas station, the desert-like place, and the amusement park, but since I know the play fairly well, I understood what was going on. My opinion might be somewhat biased because I love Leonardo DiCaprio, but I think the actors were amazing and they made me enjoy the movie more than I expected. I would totally recommend this movie to anyone who loves Leo Deo, Shakespeare plays, or action filled movies.