Danbi's Deliberations

During our poetry readings in class, we discussed the poem, "Today's News" by Elizabeth Anderson. I thought this poem was pretty intriguing because although this poem uplifts African American representation in the media, I found myself still being able to relate to it as an Asian. Anderson writes, "When the first / black Olympic gymnast was black and on TV I called / home to say it was colored on channel three". This line conveys how excited the speaker is to see a black person on TV and how important it is to them. The imagery of the speaker immediately calling their family to tell them about the gymnast on TV just emphasizes how significant black representation in the media is and also indicates that it is so exciting because black people rarely make it into the news. I just found this pretty ironic because nowadays, sports in America are largely dominated by African Americans. If you ask people who the best gymnast in the world is, almost everyone who i...

Throughout the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, I found myself drawn to Janie's character. Naturally, I gravitated towards Janie and rooted for her even when it seemed like she wasn't doing quite the right thing, simply because she is the protagonist of the story and as a reader, we usually find ourselves on their side. But, there was something else about her. What it was, I wasn't sure at first, but as the story progressed and we discovered more about Janie's character, I actually found myself being less  interested and captivated by Janie.  Looking back upon it now, I realize what drew me to Janie was her seemingly independent and confident nature which I found to be pretty inspiring. Maybe it's because I'm a female who has grown up in a generation where feminism has become a large influence in society, kindling my love of seeing equality of women and independent females being represented in literature. Maybe it's because as a girl who has heard a m...