Wednesday, May 3, 2017
Reading Response: Letters
We've now read several different pieces of epistolary literature (written in letter form), so for this response, I'd like for you to choose one of the final letters in The Fire This Time, "Message to My Daughters" or "This Far: Notes on Love and Revolution" and write your own letter in response. You can address the author, or someone you know, or me, or us as a class, and respond to the ideas in the letter you choose. This response is due on May 9 by the end of the day (11:59 pm).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Dear Daniel,
ReplyDeleteLet me be the first to say welcome. Welcome to America. I am sorry you have not yet received a proper greeting.
I’m curious to know, what you have received instead since arriving in “The New World”. Have you experienced a new sense of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
Perhaps you have not. Have you experienced subordination? Has your hope in humanity been stripped away?
After arriving in the USA, do you question your wife’s choice of hope?
How is your son?
I am sure he is precious.
I am sure he will say “Dada” any day now.
I am sure you are excited to see him take his first steps.
I am sure you eagerly await the next time he lets out the cutest of giggles.
I am sure you practice healing boo-boos with your kisses as they progress.
I am sure you are ecstatic for big-boy undies.
I am sure you look forward to pee-wee soccer games.
I am sure you anticipate the day your son is squirming next to his peers, singing “This Land is Your Land” at the annual third grade Memorial Day concert.
I am sure you are collecting quarters to have on hand, to be left under his pillow, when he starts losing teeth.
I am sure you are saving up for the immense expense of braces.
I am sure you’re preparing to bear shrill, high-pitched recorder notes as he practices for his recital.
I am sure you await the day he comes home with a pretty girl on his mind.
I am sure you’re nervously formulating a way to present the concept of sex.
I am sure you are rigorously studying mathematics, english, and science to best help him with his homework.
I am sure you dream of your boy making varsity.
I am sure you tear-up at the thought of him lighting the candle at the NHS induction ceremony.
I am sure you nervously anticipate the day he comes home after experiencing a new form of prejudice.
I am sure you are carefully developing an explanation for the injustice he is and will experience.
I am sure you worry about what his future holds.
I am sure you are preparing him well for the future.
I am sure you will raise him into an exceptional, successful man.
I pray you get to experience all of this and more. May your son live a long and happy life.
If there is anyway I can help as you transition to the States, do not hesitate to contact me.
Again, welcome,
Courtney
Dear Allen,
ReplyDeleteI understand we haven’t talked and I do not expect for you to understand my inquisitions but I do hope you have an answer of some sort. Do you feel like you are living the existence of refugee? When they took you away to prison did you feel the discrimination that many black men have lived through? I can only imagine what it would be like to be imprisoned for ten years and feel like it wasn’t your fault. You say they put you away because of the color of your skin. Is this true? Are you bitter? Do you regret the loss you have experienced in life? You say you’ve moved on to a better life, but do you ever wonder if these things didn’t exist? Where the community that tore you from your children didn’t resist? Where we would be accepted no matter the color of your clenched fist? I do. I think about it all of the time. I think of my mother and the marriage you had, I think of the times when you were my dad. I think of when your newborn was pulled from your arms as you were arrested in front of your dying wife and frightened children. The painful memories I hold of the discrimination you face is nothing compared to what you gone through. I can’t imagine, I don’t want to imagine. I want to apologize to you, I want to hug you and cry with you. I want for the way of this world to apologize to you, to hug you, and to cry with you.
sincerely,
Nicole
Dear Nolan (my roommate),
ReplyDeleteWe’ve only known each other for nine months but I feel that together we can make a difference. You haven’t yet taken this class so I feel I should educate you on some of the things I have learned this year. Don’t feel bad if you haven’t heard some of these ideas because it seems as if the public school system has failed a lot of us in terms of educating us on certain issues.
The most recent topic we have been talking about in class is the oppression of minorities in our country for the past several hundred years. From the mass incarceration of African Americans to the violent crimes of man police officers, we need to open our eyes to the injustice around us. I know it may seem like us as college students are incapable of making any change whatsoever, but with that mindset nothing will ever change. All it takes is a one or two people to stand up against this injustice to get a whole movement started. As to white males, we have had the privilege of growing up in a world where we have never had any problem with racism or specific injustice towards us that has gone unseen or undealt with. However, imagine growing up in a world where nobody eve gives you the benefit of the doubt and refuses to listen to what you are saying.
I guess what I am saying is that let’s do something. Let’s not just wait around for the person next to us to do something first. Let’s fight this injustice head on and show the world that everyone can be united together.
Sincerely,
Lawton
Dear classmates,
ReplyDeleteI am so excited to have taken this class with you. I hope that we, as people living in the United States during such a formative time, never forget the impact history has made on this country. I hope that we can strive to create change where we are lacking. I hope that we can restore the feeling of hope that we originally had when President Obama was elected. I hope that our energy will not be diminished because of our preoccupation with our lives. I hope that we can choose an selfless outlook over our own selfish interests in matters of race, gender, and class. I hope that optimism can triumph over despair in instances of oppression and that we strive to teach our future children how to love and how to talk to and about those that are different than us. I hope that we can continue the conversation that we have started in this wonderful setting. I hope that we can carry our voices out into the world.