3. Comb Jellies

What if I told you that the first superhero movie was about the KKK? It sounds dramatic, but it’s true. The 1915 film, The Birth of a Nation is based on the play The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan , written by Thomas Dixon Jr. This film follows a Confederate colonel from the end of the Civil War into Reconstruction who ends up forming the KKK.  This film is not only notorious for its glorification of racism and the KKK, but it inspired the famous robes and cross burning practices adopted by the second KKK.  Clearly, its impact stuck.  Personally, I love the superhero genre. It’s the perfect combination of “suspend-your-disbelief” fun and social commentary, at least with what I consume. Examples of the latter include The Boys (political commentary), the most recent Superman movie (themes of immigration), and the X-Men (symbolic of queerness). I’m even writing a story in the genre with similar goals to The Boys --so you could imagine my shock when I ran...

When you ask someone that question, the answers that you may receive are countless. Some may speak of America like it is a paradise, the land of freedom, some may call it a hellscape, a capitalist horro, and some may just change the topic, declining to approach the controversial topic of the United States, a global power, and an altogether confusing country. America has always been seen as more of an ideal than a country. “The land of opportunity, the land of freedom.” The place where anyone can do anything. But I’ve never truly understood that view. Yes, America is a free place. You can speak about whatever you want and do whatever you desire, but at the same time it is a dangerous place. People can shun you for your ethnicity, for your sexuality, for your gender. You can walk down the street and hear people calling you slurs if they so please. Terrible things happen in the U.S. all the time. You look on the news and there it is: school shootings, murders, passing of laws that restric...

  I’m American. I despise the British (cuisine).  Most appetizing photo of British food products. Just like the precious British tea which Americans found so horrid, we threw it overboard, I openly detest whatever “food” the Brits like to eat. My friend on the other hand, loves the British…and their dastardly sustenance. But this friend of mine, oh bless her, is also an American like me. Why on earth should I even stay friends with such a traitor to our nation of greater eats?   Well, why should I tie a person’s value to the stereotype they should portray?  (Nobody told me to do such a thing…but I naturally wandered toward this perspective when lightheartedly conversing with my friend).  The stereotype in question is that Americans should not be quite fond of the British, or of whatever disgraces they happen to be conjuring in their kitchens. Of course, not all Americans really openly dislike the British people—its been hundreds of years since some certain ...

Today (because like almost everyone else I am writing this on the day it is due), as we began our anti-prejudice unit in class, I let my eyes wander towards the books my classmates held in their hands as they rushed through the door, mumbling about word requirements for the POAS biography or the latest test they just bombed. As I did, I saw something astonishing; my classmates had actually annotated their books . And no, I’m not talking about little doodles of cats and Labubus, I’m talking about actual Pinterest-worthy collages of multicolored post-its, highlighting, and notes scribbled in juicy black ink. I was bombarded with the realization that these productive people had actually committed the act of analysis—instead of, like me, drawing a silly egg on the first page of an account of violent American xenophobia before giving up and leaving the entire book looking fresh, crisp, and clean out of its plastic wrapping. At first, I felt a little ashamed, especially as my peers humbly s...

No Kings Earlier this week, I dreamt that I went to the No Kings rally. It was very abstract---signs that paraphrased those I saw from photos, voices I heard from the news, and the sense of drowning in the clamoring of bodies. A smattering of skin toned paints over the American flag would be the most accurate feeling. This is mostly me trying to remember the details and taking heavy inspiration (and a quote) from a news report on the rally by MSNBC. From the pit of the dark’s stomach, Buried in a snow-laid bed in a nowhere suburbia Acid sparks fire from light. The marching commences,  Un-metronome movement—it’s messy, Try shoving water in a single file line  It thrashes and dances  Hope drives it up, anger drives it further up the shore Spirit moves and will move  Bodies. Hearts heard the trembling trumpets calling. The silence that followed, How the flying flag slowed And turned a deeper scarlet.  And the rhythm crawled all the way home To the listening eyes an...

(I would like to preface and ask you to listen to “The Bigger Picture” before reading. Trust me, it is a SUCH a great song by Lil Baby + IT WILL MAKE THIS SO MUCH MORE ENJOYABLE!) “Wah-wah-wah.” What does this make you think of? Probably the cries of a baby. But, AND HOPEFULLY, not just any baby—the sound of American rapper Lil Baby, but more specifically the line from his hit song “Yes Indeed.”  Two years later—in 2020—Lil Baby released what became another hit song, “The Bigger Picture.”  At this time, I did not truly understand the lyrics of this song and the message he was conveying. But, after growing—physically and mentally—I have come to understand he is more than a rapper; Lil Baby is an activist.  “The Bigger Picture” was created in exigence of George Floyd’s death. Lil Baby, or Dominique Armani Jones, starts this melody with the repetition of protesters chanting, “I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” alluding to the tragic death of Floyd. Baby then criticizes the p...

  Jaycee Week #5: Unknown America America is well known around the world but only for the largest landmarks. Think about it, whenever you visit another place and you tell them you're from California the first question is always, “do you live near Hollywood?” There are only a few places that are truly known about like the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, D.C., and of course Hollywood. But, there are many more areas that played a part in making America into what it is today.  Fort Mose, Florida This is a 40’acre historic park in Florida is where the first legally sanctioned free African American settlement was created in 1738. The 100+ African Americans who lived here combined American, Spanish, and Native American cultural customs together to create a new  cultural community. Calumet, Michigan Now a ghost town, Calumet used to be a large copper mining town in the 1880’s. The town was filled with a dense number of immigrants coming to work from all over. This led to an exchange ...