Allison

5/12

In this project, our class separated into groups and each group was assigned a candidate for mayor of a town in North Carolina. The groups were tasked with creating an advertising campaign for the candidate based on the information provided. During the course of the project each group was handed a scandal relating to their candidate which they would have to counter, and they were also given information relating to the other candidates. At the end of the project there was an election where a representative from each campaign performed a speech detailing their candidate's plans for the town, and they also debated with the other representatives. Then the class voted on the winning candidate. My group used many propaganda techniques in our campaign. We used the Plain Folks technique to present our candidate, Dane Himesh, as being relatable by telling potential voters that he is a veteran, therefore he can help veterans. We also used name calling to call out our opposing candidate, Laini Adams.

The most challenging part of this project was navigating the scandals thrown at us. My team got the worst scandal by far, so we had trouble trying to save our campaign. I enjoyed the debate part of the project. I really like arguing with people so I had a lot of fun defending my candidate. I think maybe the scandal we had should be changed for future classes, because it is really hard to defend and caused our candidate to get zero votes.

In this class, I can use the techniques I learned from this project to help form arguments or answer questions in which I have to defend my position. I also might use them if I ever take an advertising class, which I might be doing in the future. Outside of school I can use these skills to advertise my own business if I ever create one.

3/14 Free Write

You know what really pisses me off? The comments on this video from the "Ban Bossy" campaign: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dynbzMlCcw Are these people really stupid enough to think that they're actually trying to ban a word? Ban Bossy is just a catchy slogan that encompasses the idea they are trying to get across. The idea that women are treated differently for doing the exact same thing that men do, just because they're women. I heard a quote once that sums up what I feel about this: "The comments on any article about feminism are justification for feminism." Which is completely true. Same for articles about pretty much any controversial movement.

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2/28 __Character Traits We Should Prize__

Women:
 * Self-Confidence - So many young girls feel bad about themselves, and this is partly due to a lack of strong female role models. If girls had more strong, confident women to look up to, they would see that it is okay to be strong and confident themselves.
 * Independence - Society often presses the notion that for a woman to be valuable, she has to have a man by her side. I really hate this because women are completely capable of being important and beneficial to society without a man helping them. Many young girls are taught that they should aspire to marriage, which discourages them from trying to pursue a successful career.

Men:
 * Respect - Society sees men (more specifically straight, white men) as being above everyone who doesn't fit that demographic. And those men are listening to the message society tells them, causing them to be disrespectful to women and others who they perceive as "below them." We need to teach boys that their social status does not give them the right to degrade others.

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2/21 I hate clothes shopping. Mostly because I can't seem to find any "normal" girls t-shirts. They're either tightly fitted, low cut, or see through. And I can't seem to find any shorts that are long enough to even fit the school dress code. Young girls today have very limited options when it comes to clothes; which forces them to dress more sexually than they may like. There is nothing wrong with girls being able to dress skimpy if they want to, however when it's their only option, it becomes a problem.

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2/7 It is very crucial that we are critical of the words we say and hear. The media/popular culture is probably the most influential thing we see on a daily basis, and it shapes our ideas about pretty much everything. A child who grows up listening to music that uses words such as ft and nr is much more likely to think negatively about those groups of people as an adult. As a member of the LGBT community, I have seen what these words can do. The “F word” dehumanizes gays, makes them feel lesser than everybody else. The more this word is used in music and popular culture, the more “normal” it becomes to be homophobic. There is nothing normal about hating and oppressing because of their sexual orientation. Every time someone posts a YouTube comment saying “that’s gay,” or listens to a song with the F word in it, they are perpetuating the notion that being gay is a bad thing. Which it most certainly isn’t. Some of the nicest, most honest people I know are gay, and it makes me sick to think that there are millions of people who would hate them for such a trivial reason.

Brother Ali discusses this topic further in his article titled "The Intersection of Homophobia and Hip Hop: Where Tyler Met Frank"