Essay on the character of Q

Q hides behind other people and is afraid to show his true colors.

In the Aquatic Uncle, Q and his family live on the surface while his Uncle N'ba N'ga still lives underwater. Q's family does not like N'ba N'ga. Later on the story he falls in love with a female named lil who happens to live on the ground, but unlike Q she was born on land. Q is ashamed to tell her that his uncle lives underwater and at the end she ends up leaving him. Q is depressed: "They all had something. I know that made them somehow superior to me, sublime, something that made me, compared to them mediocre." (82) Q realizes that he should have just told lil about his uncle. Maybe telling her would have made things better. The whole time he was afraid to tell her the truth.

In The Dinosaurs, Q is the lone dinosaur left. He's been surviving many years on his own; he decides to resurface. He comes into contact with a new species called the New Ones. They do not realize that he is a dinosaur and accept him into their community. One day he encounters a young female drinking from a spring. He thinks to himself: "if I wanted to save myself, I should tear her limb from limb at once: Start it all over again... I would never imagined it was possible to talk like that with non-Dinosaurs, and I was tense and mostly silent."(98). At first Q believes that the female will fear him, but instead she calmly notices him and begins a conversation. He is amazed by how calm she is. He never thought that non-Dinosaurs would talk to him like that. Since he knows that she views him as a non-Dinosaur, he decides not to reveal his true identity. He hides behind the fact that the New Ones are accepting him.

Later on in the story Q recalls how the New Ones would tell stories about how vicious the Dinosaurs were. Q feels extremely uncomfortable with this, but he keeps his mouth shout: "I always felt like a Dinosaur in the midst of enemies, and every evening when they started telling stories of the Dinosaurs, legends handed down from generation to generation, I hung back in the shadow, my nerves on the edge."(100). Q just sat there like an imbecile while the New Ones were giving the incorrect story of the Dinosaurs. This whole time he hid behind other people, without saying anything. He was terrified to show his true self because he knew that if the New Ones were to know who he was then they would never look at him in the same way. They would forever fear him. This proves how Q hides when the situation is difficult.

Response to Keiland's Swag

Wle reading through Keiland's post on swag i found this quote that made me think "What the hell are you thinking?"

So now i know a lot of people will read this and try to make me " swag down" and try to make me do small things to go against what i said. But it will not happen. Every 1 works up to how much swag you can gain. You start at 5 "swag points" and the highest you can go is 150 . To learn how to "swag up" or "swag down" ask me:)

OK first of all no one cares about your swag. If you have swag that is cool, but you do not have to go all around the world telling them you got swag. I mean is it really that much of a shock that you got swag? How can you really define swag? Who defines swag and how did you come up with this definition of Swag?

Second of all, at the end of your post you state that: "You start at 5 "swag points and the highest you can go is 150." This is confusing me because I mean not sure what actually do you mean when you say everybody starts with 5 points. Are you saying that swag is like a game in which the purpose is to collect the most points possible? What are these 5 points exactly for? How did you even come up with 5 points to start and then 150 words to end? It makes no sense. I don't see how these points apply to swag at all. Swag is not a game and its not about points. Its about what you wear and how you carry yourself. You can get swag from another person or you can have your own personal swag. It is just a matter of how you address or carry yourself. It has nothing to do at all with points.

While Reading Aleah's post about fashion I found this quote that made me think about how certain styles are connected to certain. It is also brought up the question of who should be able to wear what?

I think fashion is an expression of who you are, I;m not saying every white person who wants to, try and dress black I'm not saying that. But I think styles have to fit you inside and out. Just because you may feel like your black doesn't mean you are. I'm not being racist but still.

I completely agree with what Aleah is saying in this quote about how fashion should represent you because I believe that no matter your race, gender, or age you should be able to wear whatever you want. If a person thinks that a certain type of clothing is more comfortable than another type then they should be able to wear it. Fashion is just another in which can express. If a person a gangsta then they should gansta and if a person is emo then they should dress emo. There is no limit to how what a person can wear. People should be able to show their true colors without being judged or afraid of what others might say. A person should not be judged for what they wear, it is a free country. Judging people for what they wear just shows the insecurity that this person has.

I disagree when she said about if you feel black t doesnt mean that you are black because skin color determine your race. We are all the same, just because someone sags their pants and wears a baggy t-shirt it doesnt mean that they are black. It doesnt mean anything, it is just a fashion choice. There is no reason at all that race should be tied into with fashion.

Free write on nonviolence in our community

            Every day I wake up and see on the news that someone got killed, shot, or robbed. It is always something negative and it always seems to be in the Oakland/Alameda area. I am tired of living in a city that is known as one of the most dangerous cities in the US. Every day I step out of my house with the fear that I may never get to see my family ever again. No one should ever have to live with that fear.

           Whenever something bad and violent happens people react to it with more violence. For example, when Oscar Grant was shot and killed by a Bart police officer; people went out on the streets to protest. Many of these people did not even know who Oscar Grant was. They just took his death as an excuse to go out on the streets and cause trouble. This violence was useless; it did not do anything, things were not made better, if anything things were made worse. With no consideration or respect for the young man's parents these people vandalized police cars and local stores. The family of Oscar Grant had to come out in public and ask the people to stop the violence. His mother said that this is not how she wanted the death of her son to be remembered. She did not want people to cause any more trouble. The violence eventually stopped, but people kept protesting his death.

         Instead of using violence, people could follow the examples of great public leaders such as Gandhi, Mother Terissa, or Martin Luther King Jr. These people fought for people's rights in nonviolent ways. Gandhi fought for the rights of Indians, Mother Terissa fought for woman's rights and Martin Luther King Jr. fought for the rights of African-Americans. All of these leaders did not use violence, but instead they used their words to persuade and convince other people to fight for their causes. This same concept could be used and incorporated today to solve and prevent future problems from occurring. Instead of using violence we can work together to fix problems that affect us and our community. Together we can work on projects that raise awareness about problems that we all face. We can help stop the violence that keeps us locked in our houses fearing about what might happen.

           Like Gandhi once said, “Be the change that you want to see.” In order to make that change I think that we should come together as one strong community. We are all each others brothers and sisters and we should look out for each other. What is the point of fighting or killing each other for dumb reasons such as my street is better than yours or I represent this color. There is no point in this. The only thing it is good for is for tearing up families and causing harm to innocent people. We should look pass our differences and look ahead to a better future. Would like your children and grand children to live in a place where they are likely to be harmed. I know I would not. That is why we have set our differences apart and work on making this place better for us, our children and grand children.

Elijah and I opening statement

         The death penalty is an extremely controversial topic. It has been said that the death penalty is just as wrong as what the person who is receiving the death penalty did. Most people that receive the death penalty have committed murder or another serious crime. Killing this person is pointless because they have already committed the crime. Does killing a person bring the person that they killed back to life, no it does not. This person committed murder which is ac rime, but using the death penalty is basically murder. So basically we are committing a crime by killing this criminal. Killing a person is morally and ethically wrong. This is clearly stated in a quote by Thurgood Marshall JD, late justice of the US Supreme . He sates: “[Capital punishment] violates the Eighth Amendment because it is morally unacceptable to the people  of the United States at this time in their history.” This quote shows us that the death penalty is morally unacceptable. Killing a person for punishment does justify the fact that you are taking a person’s life. Who is to say that we wont just kill a person if they commit less greater crime. What bis to say we will not take advantage of this power to kill a person who has committed a crime. What’s the point of killing them; what is done is done. People gotta leave the past in the past. Killing a person due to the fact that they killed someone only shows that you are willing to go down to their level. It only shows that you are no better than them. There are better ways of dealing with this person. They should just be thrown into jail for the rest of their lives to reflect on what they did. They should just rot in there.