Week 12 Journal:
Thursday, November 5, 2020: Classwork
In class on Thursday, we were able to discuss the election. It’s now after Election Day, and the electoral votes were being counted in each state. I don’t think I’ve ever been this invested in an election since 2008 when Obama was first elected. And even in 2008, I wasn’t able to vote and I was on the younger side so I wasn’t as interested in politics as I am right now. Growing up in the society that we now live in, it’s critical to be up to date on our government. Having Trump as a president has opened my eyes to the many decisions that he makes and how it affects us all. As a president, you have a responsibility to make sure that the majority is taken care of. Trump did absolutely none of the sort, which is why I was so excited to be able to vote in this election that could kick him out of office. Finally being able to vote, giving me such a liberating feeling to have a say in who our next president is. Looking at the votes made me extremely anxious because the same thing happened last year with Hillary Clinton. Hillary was in the lead for most of the race, and then Donald Trump took the lead in the last few days of counting. Biden has been ahead for most of the race and I wanted Joe to continue with his lead. There were a lot of swing states that were leaning towards red which freaked me out a little, but in the end, I was hoping for the best possible outcome. I like that in my college classes I’m able to talk about the election openly. At my predominantly high school, we were not allowed to talk about the election at all and especially not who we were voting for. In college, I feel like I’m able to talk a lot more freely about my feelings about the election.
The quiz on Black Panther was one of my “favorite” quizzes because I enjoy this movie. I rewatched it for class last week, and I was able to notice so many more leadership/hero qualities within the characters. I felt like I did exceptionally on this quiz, which is a step up from my quiz from last week. The bonus question on the quiz asked something to the effect of, “How many heterosexual white males have we studied throughout the course”? It was interesting to think about this topic of the difference between white and being white-skinned. To me, white-skinned means that you have lighter skin but are not necessarily white. In all of the chapters that we have studied throughout the course, we have never studied a “white” male. We know that these men are white and are portrayed as white-skinned, but we know that these men are white. It’s also interesting to think about how race and sexuality are not used in the past. Especially in the Greek mythology texts, I never noticed sex and race being talked about. It was always about gender.The only character that we studied who was openly gay was from the novel, Another Heart. I enjoyed reading that story because it gave a completely different perspective on leadership in a negative connotation. It was one of the first stories to look at leadership in a negative light, and how sometimes you may think you’re doing the right thing for others but you’re making it harder on them in the long run.
After talking about the quiz for a little, we switched gears to talk about Black Panther. You sent us a survey called, “The Vision of Wakanda”. The survey is based around life in Wakanda and if we would like to live there under their rules. I don’t think it possible for one society to live the exact way as a different society. Putting it into perspective, the way that Wakanda is governed is completely different than the way America is. In America, we live in a democratic system where people of society can give their opinion on how they want the government to run. Wakanda is more of a monarch system where there is one leader in charge of deciding for everyone. I don’t think that I would be able to live in a society where there is a dictatorship. Vibranium is also a source that Wakanda uses that is extremely important to their existence. I don’t think America has one source of something that dictates the state of the country.
After talking about the quiz for a little, we switched gears to talk about Black Panther. You sent us a survey called, “The Vision of Wakanda”. The survey is based around life in Wakanda and if we would like to live there under their rules. I don’t think it possible for one society to live the exact way as a different society. Putting it into perspective, the way that Wakanda is governed is completely different than the way America is. In America, we live in a democratic system where people of society can give their opinion on how they want the government to run. Wakanda is more of a monarch system where there is one leader in charge of deciding for everyone. I don’t think that I would be able to live in a society where there is a dictatorship. Vibranium is also a source that Wakanda uses that is extremely important to their existence. I don’t think America has one source of something that dictates the state of the country. I also love the idea that women have such a prominent role in Wakanda’s government. I feel like in America, women don’t have as much say in rules and government. And even if they do have a say, they usually leave it to the man to rule. Hence why we’ve never had a woman as president.
It was interesting to look at the results of the quiz because, for a lot of the questions, the results leaned in one direction. A lot of the time, the class seems to have the same thoughts, and we just add on to each other. Looking at Wakanda through a movie, of course, I would enjoy living there. Everything in Wakanda seems perfect, but it’s not a practical place for someone who’s lived in a democratic society.
Tuesday, November, 9th, 2020: Classwork and Presentations
Today was the first day of presentations, and I had no idea what to expect. I enjoyed the first two presentations because it was something different. We usually go off of the Kallion chapters that you give us, so it was nice to have a class that was student lead.
The first group to present was: Ethan, Madison, Miles, and Obi. Their group presentation focused on the Tupac song Changes, and how that song conveyed Tupac’s leadership for his community. A question that Miles is, “How does music impact leadership development”? Personally, music has an enormous impact on my mood. I can’t imagine my life without music because it’s an everyday activity for me to listen to music. Some songs provoke leadership development more than others. The song “Don’t Stop Believing” is a specific song that we talked about during class. This song gives you a sense of hope that you’ll be great. Ernestasia discussed how she listened to this song every day in the morning before she started her day. I want to try listening to this song every day in the morning before starting my day to see if it has any impact on how I go on about my day. Another question that Obi brought up was if music can be used as a form of leadership or unification. I believe that music can be used to unify a group of people; an example is the Star-Spangled Banner. This song plays the role of a “unifying” song for America. The piece that this group chose to focus on was Changes by Tupac. I’ve listened to this song before, but I never listened to the lyrics closely. Tupac is a friend of humanity, but for a certain group of people. He gave back to the hip-hop community, but especially the black community. Tupac’s music mirrors a lot of the social injustices that the black community faces in the present day. During the age where Tupac was extremely popular, he wanted a change. But not for everyone necessarily. The white community already had everything, and he wanted the black community to be on an equal playing field. So although Tupac was a friend to humanity, his humanity only consisted of the black population. The third verse specifically stood out to me because it portrayed the type of leader that Tupac was. He was persistent in making a change in his community. Ethan then played some of the key parts of the song and explained why they were relevant to Tupac’s leadership development. This is the same way that you incorporate scenes from the piece we are looking at, so I liked that this group put that into their presentation. I also enjoyed how they didn’t present google slides and incorporated the class with discussion questions.
The next group to present talked about the Princess and the Frog. Kendra and Alicia did a spectacular job because I felt like I was able to add to this conversation more than the first presentation. The Princess and the Frog used to be one of my favorite movies, so I’ve watched it a bunch of times. I also enjoyed how this presentation didn’t have google slides, and we were able to have a classroom discussion instead. It’s so interesting to think about Tiana’s work ethic and how she has an end goal for herself. Tiana’s love of humanity is strong because the whole reason she works so hard is to make sure that she can have a restaurant and keep her family well rounded. The fact that Lottie having so much money didn’t help out her best friend even though she knew she was struggling was weird. But I feel like even if Lottie were to give her all of the money in the world, she still wouldn’t accept it because she wanted to work for her success. But even though Tiana wouldn’t take Lottie’s offer, she ended up taking Naveen’s offer. Tiana is hard on herself, which can be detrimental to her leadership development. I brought up this point that sometimes you need to be hard on yourself because you cannot stay at the same level for the rest of your life. If you want to reach higher levels in your leadership development, you need to be harder on yourself. That’s why I believe that Tiana did the right thing by working hard for her success. But it was hard for Tiana to see what she already had. It was interesting to see the different characters that people related to because they are all completely different. The connection between Binti’s mom and Tiana’s mom was something that I didn’t even realize. Both of the mother’s let their child leave to spread their wings and fly, but always were questioning what they were doing. They never completely brought it to their attention but they always worried about if they were doing too much. The last thing we talked about was if there was anything that we would change in the movie. I wish that Ray didn’t die at the end of the movie, but I feel like Disney movies are not complete without a death. Overall, I absolutely loved this conversation we had with this movie and how much leadership development plays a role in this plot.
