Tuesday, November 27, 2012

My Five Literature Reflections


Literature can teach us many different things and it is possible that every person learns a different lesson from the books they read.  That is one reason why I love literature and reading; there are many different lessons to be learned through it.  It is solely based on how you interpret what the author is trying to portray to their audience.  At the end of my English15 course in college, our professor asked us to:

“List five things that the study of literature in general and perhaps this course in particular has led you to reflect about.”

With that in mind, here is my list of five:

1.      Group Presentation/ Group Work – going through this course led me to seeing that I need to work on working better and more sufficient in groups.

2.      Widen my reading – going into this course, I only read the “classic” novels in literature; Lord of the Flies, The Scarlet Letter, Huckleberry Finn, Dracula, etc.  Coming out of this course, I know now that there is a lot more out there to read that I did not know about.

3.      Communication – I always knew this was a major role in society, in the classroom, and of course in the work field.  Our professor just made it that more apparent; if you do not know how to communicate face-to-face, you will not get that far…anywhere.

4.      Reading makes you Smarter! – this just becomes more and more apparent to me as the years go by.  I know so much because of the books I read for and outside of school.  It amazes me every time.

5.      Last, but not least, you have to make the best of it – I’m a math person; my brain likes numbers and calculations.  I never had an interest in learning or taking a class in literature/ English what so ever.  As I said in #4 though, I’m starting to realize that I am actually starting to like reading and understanding what the authors are trying to portray in their writing.  It is just another way of thinking I guess and it has become more interesting to me throughout this course.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

GLBT Motif Defined


Melissa Hillman
English 15
Professor Lennon
November 5th, 2012

GLBT Motif Defined

The GLBT that I will be defining is number eight on the handout which is, “Hiding/Secretiveness about Love/Sex Relationships or Encounters”.  It can be defined as when a person is disposed to secrecy about their strong affection for someone arising out of kinship and or emotional attachment towards that person.  It is where a person has to hide their feelings for someone they love because it is not in the norm of the society they live in.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

"Sanctuary" Reflection - Looking in the Mirror


Melissa Hillman

English 15

Professor Lennon

September 17, 2012

Looking in the Mirror

                In this essay I will be reflecting on the selection titled “Sanctuary” out of Frankie Lennon’s memoir titled Mee Street Chronicles: Straight Up Stories of a Black Woman’s Life.  In this selection, the author describes a place in five different ways for the reader.  I believe the author does this so that the reader can fully understand the significance of the place and the effect it had on her life.  Each story in this selection tells us, as readers, one thing the author learned of herself from this place she called her “Sanctuary”.  In the Webster’s Dictionary a sanctuary is defined as “a building set aside for worship.  A holy place.  Asylum of safety and security.  Place of refuge or protection.  A Christian church.  Reservation where animals or birds are sheltered and may not be hunted or trapped”.  I would like to take you through each of these stories and hopefully by the end you will understand them in more detail.

                The first story is titled ‘The Ebony Showcase’.  “When you walked in to the lobby, you could tell she had been a queen, but her reign had ended and that she had fallen on hard times.”  The Ebony Showcase Theatre is what the narrator is describing in this quote.   Located on the corner of Washington Boulevard and Rimpau in the heart of Los Angeles, California.  This was a place of history, where you could see the aging on each seat, on the red curtains with the threadbare patches, and in the faded colors of the walls.  The narrator came to this place out of curiosity, not for the place itself but for what the place held inside of it.  Every Sunday the services of the Unity Fellowship Church of Christ were held here.  It was in 1987 when the narrator came across this church for the first time.  The minister was an openly gay man named Reverend Carl Bean.  He started this church for all those who were hiding in the closet about their sexuality.  So that they too could have a place to be themselves.  This is one thing that drew the narrator to this place over and over again.  It gave her a sense of security to be with and around people just like her; a sanctuary.

                The next story that the narrator tells us is titled ‘Affirmation’.  The narrator shares with us that every Sunday morning at the service Reverend Bean would open up with words of affirmation.  Sharing words of affirmation is a way that a person can positively assert someone they care about or can relate to in one way or another.  It is a way that we can heal others with the power of words.  He would start by saying, “Wherever you identify yourself along God’s rainbow, know that you are not in error.  You are God’s creation.  You are not a mistake.  Homosexual, Lesbian, Transgender, Heterosexual, Bisexual.  God made you the way you are.  So love yourself and know that you are very special!”  Sunday after Sunday, hearing these words gradually began to change the narrator’s view of reality.  It changed how she viewed herself; not only on the inside but on the outside as well.  She finally saw herself as a whole person. A true sanctuary of God.

                The third story is titled ‘The Welcome Table’.  The motto of Unity Fellowship Church of Christ is that “God is Love and Love is for Everyone”.  A lot of people were attracted to this church based on this motto alone.  No one was excluded because of their race or the color of their skin, by who they found attractive or what gender they were.  Every person was welcomed with open arms at Unity Church.  The narrator learned that it is not God who discriminated but people that blamed it on the teachings of God who were the true discriminators.  By the late 1980’s, there was a new branch of discrimination. A virus that became a new kind of leprosy; this virus was AIDS.  It mostly preyed on the population of gay men.  Giving people another reason to fear their kind; the ones that they called “not normal”.  Minority AIDS Project of Unity church did the exact opposite of this.  It welcomed and helped people who were ill.  It gave them strength and hope that there was someone out there for them to lean on in this time of pain and suffering.  This is another thing that set apart Unity from all other churches and communities and what also kept the narrator going back every Sunday.  I guess she felt that if she could give a sense of security to others, she would start finding security in herself; as a black lesbian woman in that time and era of segregation.

                The second to last story the narrator tells us is titled ‘The Bible’.  By this time, in 1989, Unity has moved to a bigger location at 5149 Jefferson Boulevard.  Unity has gotten so big that it was standing room only on Sundays.  On Sundays their choir, the Voices of Unity, would sing their hearts out.  The narrator tells us that song was an old African and, now, African American way of healing.  She says, “Song freed us from the worries, the uncertainties, the torments.”  I personally see some significance in the name of the choir itself; The Voices of Unity.  People singing together in perfect harmony the songs of our Lord to bring together the people of the community in a place of worship and security.  They helped others see themselves as creations of God and not freaks of nature and abominations.  They brought people together under the love of God and into the security of his arms.  After song and praise, Reverend Bean would ask the congregation to take out their Bibles.  He told them that they had to “…confront the thing that preachers had used to terrorize us: The Bible.”  The Bible was the tool in which people used to threaten the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community as well as women and the people of color.  Reverend Bean not only preached the word of God, he also taught the congregation the lessons in which God wanted them to learn through His words.  Everyone can interpret The Bible in different ways.  We just have to make sure it is in the safety of others as well as ourselves the way we interpret the readings in The Bible.  Unity Fellowship Church of Christ was not only a sanctuary to the narrator, but a place to learn about freeing herself and others from oppression and injustice.

                Last, but not the least, is the story titled ‘The Pigeons’.  In this story, I personally believe we hear more of the author’s voice than the narrators.  The author explains perfectly the symbolism of the pigeons in the story.  These birds had gotten trapped in the Ebony Showcase Theatre.  In a building where they would stay for the rest of their lives until they found their own way out.  The author says, “Like the pigeons, we had been flying frantically here and there – for all of our lives, really – flapping and bumping, lost and looking for a place we could simply be free.”  I believe that the author found exactly that at this place, at the Unity Fellowship Church of Christ.  No oppression, judgment, or segregation.  It was a place where she could be free to be herself and also learn about her true self.  It was where she felt the safest and most secure.  It was her sanctuary.

                In each story we can learn something, either about the author or about ourselves.  I believe that the importance of the selection “Sanctuary” is to teach us to truly be comfortable with ourselves.  To know that we are not abominations or freaks of nature but that we are all created in the image of God.  We are all temples of the Holy Spirit.  Each and every one of us, whether we are white or black, woman or man, gay, lesbian, heterosexual, homosexual, transgender, or bisexual.  As individuals, we need to find the sanctuary within ourselves so that we can be all that we are capable of.  To become the best version of ourselves we can.  To truly live in the works of God and to help others find their own sanctuary.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

What I wish to gain from Black LGBT authors...

     Personally, I do not have any expectations for this literature class.  As with all my othe classes, I go in to a new class with an open mind and an open heart.  I learn from every experience and every class I have.

     What I wish to gain from Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender authors is a new insight on the culture of African Americans.  It will be very interesting to read and discuss the true background of men and women growing up in true African American culture.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Bonded written by Donald Jolly

This was an extra credit opportunity for my English 1B class.  We had to see this play and respond to it answering these five questions given to us by our professor.

1. My English 1B course required me to see this play.  The play was titled "Bonded" and was written by Donald Jolly.  The play was about the quest for freedom, not only from slavery but from the guilt caused by the attraction to the same sex. 

2. Miss Pat is a character in "Git On Board" in The Colored Museum by George C. Wolfe and Jack is a character from Bonded by Donald Jolly.  These characters are similar because they tell the truth that no one wants to admit to themselves.  That African Americans during slavery were supposed to "stay in their place". 

3. The Corporate Man in “Symbiosis” in The Colored Museum has a similar attitude and perspective on his life to Lily’s perspective about her life in Bonded.  The Corporate Man see’s the world from a white perspective.  This is the reason why he throws away all his cultural items.  He does not want anything to remind him of where he came from or who he is.  In that era, you had to follow the ways of the white man in order to be successful in the business world.  Lily’s character in Bonded was a slave during the play’s era.  Some of the things that she saw were a must would be getting married or “jumping the broom” and having lots of children for her master’s to use as slaves too.  She also believes that slaves should not try to escape from their masters.  When Sonny asked her to run away with him she told him no because she was dependent on her mistress, or master.  Both of these characters just try to fit into the norm of their society.  If they don’t follow what is right they feel as if they will be punished.  They are just trying to survive in the world and living to see tomorrow.

4. A motif, according to our class glossary, is something- a theme, symbol, image, phrase, object, character- that recurs in a work.  Based on our classes African American Motif’s list, the motifs that I found apparent in the play Bonded would be Intimidation, Terrorism &Threats or Acts of Violence and The Continuing Vernacular/ Oral Tradition.  The example of Intimidation, Terrorism & Threats or Acts of Violence I saw in the play was when the new slave, Asa, came onto the plantation.  He came in chains and had to be stripped down to be washed and then was redressed in rag-like clothes.  Another slave named Sonny had scars of being whipped.  Also, threats of selling slaves, like Asa, to other masters were in the play as well.  The example of The Continuing Vernacular/ Oral Tradition I saw in the play was when Asa sang the song his mother taught him that came from their culture in Africa.  Also the way the slaves dance in the play symbolizes the way their ancestors did in Africa; cultural dancing.

5. I enjoyed seeing this play.  It opened my eyes to the African American culture, a culture that I did not know a lot about.  It also showed me that everyone is a slave in their own way and trying to free themselves.  Whether it be trying to free themselves from the guilt of being attracted to the same sex, like the characters in the play, or trying to free themselves from the societal norm that is placed upon their heads.  They need to act a certain way because society tells them to; if they don’t they will get punished in some way.  I learn a little from everything in my life; from movies I watch, books I read, people I talk to.  There is always a little life lesson we can all learn in our daily lives.  We just have to keep our eyes and ears open and they will find a way to us.

Monday, April 18, 2011

African American Storytelling: Traits of a Trickster Character

In my English1B class we are reading trickster stories. There are many different kinds of trickster characters. Some examples are the monkey and rabbit, like Bugs Bunny. Here are some of their traits:

  • Fearless
  • Optimistic
  • Creative
  • Quick witted
  • Outlandish
  • Unorganized
  • Malicious spoiler
  • Wise
  • Ingenuity
  • Free spirit
  • Fast thinker
  • Levels the playing field
  • Deceiver
  • Outlawish activities

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Statement about The Colored Museum by George C. Wolfe

If the African-American person wants to stay with the "norm" of our society, they have to forget their past and cultural ways and live in the world in a way the white person would.

This is my personal view on what George C. Wolfe was trying to get at in The Colored Museum.