Thoughts Of Jessy

Have you ever been embarrassed by the things you used to like? Anime was one of my favorite things to watch growing up, and it remains so now. As a young child, I was very fond of cartoons and animation. Loving the different art styles, fight scenes, and dynamic storytelling. It all melded together well, and anime became the bread-and-butter of that masterpiece. Reflecting, I remember always being excited to pull up my favorite illegal websites to watch shows like Naruto and Dragon Ball Z because I didn’t appreciate all the ads back then. Don’t judge me, we've all been there. Anime was really enjoyable to me, but it wasn’t as enjoyable to everyone else.  Back then, anime wasn’t a mainstream thing to watch before the COVID-19 lockdown era. It was seen as “weird” or “childish.” People weren’t allowed to express what they watched, whether it was talking about it, dressing like the characters, or even acting like different characters. A vast majority of people who watched anime wer...

  Don DeLillo’s Libra doesn’t just retell the assassination of President JFK; it really dives into the murky world of conspiracies surrounding one of the most shocking events in American history. However, we didn’t get to really see all the insane theories and conspiracies that people created and continued to argue about. The assassination of the President remains one of the most heavily debated events in American history. Even though the government's conclusion claims Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, many people have found it unsatisfying or thought that there is probably more behind it. A wide range of conspiracy theories has emerged, fueled by inconsistent evidence, mysterious circumstances, and the public’s growing distrust of authority during the Cold War era.  One of the most popular conspiracy theories suggests that the CIA or other government agencies were also involved in Kennedy’s death, which is spoken about within Libra . Supporters of this theory argue that Kenned...

  As we know, Octavia Butler’s Kindred is one of the most powerful literary explorations of slave narratives ever written. Through Dana’s sudden travels from 1976 California to an early 19th-century Maryland plantation, Butler forces readers to confront the brutal realities that enslaved people faced. To actually feel the emotions and fears as if they were there in that moment. While Dana begins with a modern understanding of history, living through it firsthand changes her completely. This shows how many Americans today learn about slavery only through textbooks and educators, which are often only surface-level. Never fully understanding the fear, violence, and loss that defined everyday life for enslaved people. Thankfully, at Uni, Mr Leff taught us beyond surface level.  Many of the events in Kindred directly reflect real historical practices of slavery. For example, Dana witnesses slaves being whipped, families being separated, and enslaved people being denied education. A...

     Jes Grew represents a powerful cultural force that spreads like an uncontrollable epidemic, embodying freedom, creativity, and African diasporic expression. In Mumbo Jumbo, it is expressed as a “plague” that infects people with dance, rhythm, and joy, standing in direct opposition to rigid Western structures that try to suppress individuality and Black culture. Obviously, now we know that Jes Grew is not a literal disease, but a metaphor for cultural awakening—a rebellion against conformity and the erasure of African identity. Ishmael Reed celebrates how culture, especially music and art, cannot be contained or silenced by systems of control. During the novel, the Atonist Order symbolizes the forces that seek to suppress Jes Grew: institutions of power, colonialism, and cultural dominance. Fearing that the spread of cultural challenges hierarchy and celebrates expressions outside the normal “American” norms. In a sense, Jes Grew becomes more of a fight for authentici...

    As we took a deep dive into Ragtime, Mother's Younger Brother emerges as one of the most dynamic yet troubled characters in the story. Being faced with the struggles of identity and change. Initially, he is a young man living at his sister's house. drifting through life without direction or purpose. He has an obsession with Evelyn Nesbit, letting all his decisions be directed towards her. "Mother's Younger Brother was in love with Evelyn Nesbit. He has closely followed the scandal surrounding her name and had begun to reason that the death of her lover, Stanford White, and the imprisonment of her husband, Harry K. Thaw," (Chapter 8). Revealing to us his immaturity and inability to distinguish a real human connection from shallow desire. One of the reasons he falls downhill is after his situation with Evelyn Nessbit fails. Endowing him with thoughts of suicide after placing his whole life purpose in obsessing over her. "The young man was in mourning,"...

                   In Sag Harbor, Colson Whitehead creatively uses the depths of nostalgia throughout the novel to explore the bittersweet memories of adolescence and the passage of time. Benji often looks back on his teenage summers in Sag Harbor during the 1980s, creating vivid memories of frozen moments like slurping down icees, biking through town, and hanging out with my friends. Whitehead’s use of detailed, sensory descriptions really brings the readers into memories and feel the emotions that Benji is feeling. “We were all there. It was where we mingled with who we had been and who we would be. Sharing space with our echoes out in the sun. The shy kid we used to be and were growing away from, the confident or hard-luck men we would become in our impending seasons, the elderly survivors we’d grow into if we were lucky, with gray stubble and green sun visors” (Whitehead 305). This is a point where Benji is on the brink of ...