H u m a n i t i e s
Uncovering the Truths Behind Fast Food
Most Americans know that fast food is bad for you, but do most Americans know how the meat you eat at a fast food restaurant is processed? Do most Americans know the harms that the workers in slaughterhouses experience every day? Probably not. There is much injustice in the fast food industry with harsh conditions in meat production factories, unethical treatment of animals, and environmental ignorance.
When you go to a fast food restaurant, do you really think about where the food comes from, or how the cattle is treated before it is killed? Most people probably don’t. Every single burger from a fast food restaurant comes from a slaughterhouse and goes down a production line. During this time, many people are harmed in the process. The cows are treated inhumanely, and there are many heath problems that can easily occur in you and the environment. This is uncovering the secrets of the fast food restaurant from cow to hamburger.
There is a whole process of slaughtering and preparing the cows to be eaten. First, the cows are transported from large fields with the cows packed as tight as sardines. By the time they get to the slaughter house, the cows can barely walk or stand because of the conditions they are in. The killing uses a captive bolt “cow” pistol. The pistol shoots a bolt into the cows brain entering right in the middle of the cows eyes. The brain then shuts down and the cow is hoisted upside down with a chain on a conveyer belt. A person then cuts the main artery and the cows blood is drained. Sometimes the bolt pistol misses the cow’s brain so the animal suffers. The workers then have to shoot the struggling animal again, or suffocate it to death by closing up the nostrils by standing on them. Another way to kill cattle is to electrocute them to death. Many of the cows before they are killed are tazed by the cow herders to get them to follow instructions. The process doesn’t stop there. After the initial killing of the cows, the carcass must be skinned and cleaned well. If the carcass is not cleaned properly, then diseases get to the consumer. The diseases come from the cows own fecal matter that they bathe in, in the Confined Animal Feeding Operations. (CAFO) The CAFOs are known as animal concentration camps. The whole cow is then moved to a packaging part of the factory. (Interview from Michael Pollan)
There are many heath issues that all these meat production workers must go through every day. This includes physical, mental, and internal sickness. Being exposed to contamination and chemicals has a large effect on workers. This happening while hundreds of workers with knives are working all day long can make for dangerous work.
Before cows get to a fast food restaurant, they need to be killed and packaged up in mass amounts and shipped many miles to get to one fast food restaurant. During this speedy process, many people are harmed. The fast production line makes accidents happen easily. According to FoodIsPower.org, “The workers get injured very often, and the working turnover rate for most meat production is more than 100% annually.” Most people on the meat production line work with saws and knifes. The work is hard and the workers get fatigued easily. When the workers get tired, many accidents occur because of the abundance of sharp knives. Many people get hurt many times in a meat processing plant. A 24 year old adult was hired by the Monfort Beef Company in 1979. Over the next two decades he suffered many injuries. such as; getting struck by a falling 90-pound box of meat, blowing out a disc and having to have back surgery, inhaling too much chlorine while cleaning some blood tanks, and damaging the rotator cuff in his left shoulder when a 10,000-pound hammer-mill cover dropped too quickly. He also broke a leg after stepping into a hole in the slaughterhouse's concrete floor, and he shattered an ankle and had it fixed with four steel pins. (Eric Schlosser in Mother Jones). This worker went though this for a very long time. More than twenty years in a meat processing plant he worked. He did this work, so you could get a two dollar burger at McDonalds.
Physical heath issues are a big deal, however people who work at the meat processing plants have to deal with mental strains as well. Imagine working a 10 hour shift, just killing cattle. In the processing plants, the people work all day with knives and blood. As Michael Pollen states in a PBS interview, “It is tough work. And it's essentially dehumanizing work. There's a lot of blood and a lot of heavy activity that goes on.” The processing of the cows is repetitive, many people do the same bloody work over and over and over again. Many of the workers work for very long shifts day and night 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
There is much waste that goes on in these meat processing plants. This waste causes numerous different difficulties with the environment. Fecal matter, meat waste, and bacteria are common occurrences in the slaughterhouses before the meat is shipped to fast food restaurants. Fecal matter is very abundant in the CAFOs. One feedlot holds up to 100,000 cows. As you can imagine, there is a lot of waste with 100,000 cattle. The waste is so full of chemicals and bacteria that it cannot be used for fertilizer. What do the companies do with the waste? They dump it elsewhere. Then there are the cow guts. The intestines have many diseases such as E. Coli, so they cannot be used for food, for humans at least. Some of the leftover cow parts even get fed back to the cows. This happens sometimes, but the result of feeding cows to cows? Mad Cow Disease. (Hidden Costs of CAFOs from Union of Concerned Scientists)
These cows cannot be eaten because of the disease, and the cow must be wasted.
Dumped waste doesn’t just stay in one place, it travels. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, waste run off is very relevant in the industrial food process. The fecal matter of cows gets into water supplies like irrigation ditches or streams. The streams run off into bigger streams. Those streams turn into rivers, and the rivers turn into oceans. Many cows have one sickness or another, so large amounts of bacteria are contaminating drinking water and other sources effected by water. (Union of Concerned Scientists) As for the irrigation ditches, this water gets into the soil that industrial farmers use to grow vegetables for the McDonalds burger.
This brings up “hidden costs” of industrial farming with the environment. As the Union of Concerned Scientist states,“Indirect subsidies to CAFO’s between 1997 to 2005 amounted to almost 35 billion dollars. They also state that, “Manure is often handled, stored, and disposed of improperly, resulting in leakage, runoff, and spills of waste into groundwater. CAFO manure has contaminated drinking water in many rural areas, caused fish deaths, and contributed to oxygen-depleted “dead zones” (areas devoid of valuable marine life) in the Gulf of Mexico, the Chesapeake Bay, and elsewhere. Ammonia in manure contributes to air pollution that causes respiratory disease and acid rain. Leakage under liquid manure storage “lagoons” pollutes groundwater with harmful nitrogen and pathogens, and some lagoons have even experienced catastrophic failures, sending tens of millions of gallons of untreated waste into streams and estuaries, killing millions of fish.” It costs BILLIONS of dollars to fix the harms caused by the CAFOs. Is buying a cheap fast food burger really that cheap? Taxpayer dollars that pay for the problems that meat production causes.
Finally, after a whole chain of processing this meat, it is cooked and delivered to you, the consumer. You eat this cheap, fast burger that tastes so good without even thinking about what you are eating. But now you have read the secrets of the fast food restaurant.
When you go to buy a two dollar burger, think about the hard work that it took to get one small cheap unhealthy burger to you. Think about the injustices that happen to the workers, environment, and you. Is the burger really worth all that much work, effort and excruciating pain to be fast? Is treating cows in a painful way really necessary? Fast food isn’t what it seems.
Most Americans know that fast food is bad for you, but do most Americans know how the meat you eat at a fast food restaurant is processed? Do most Americans know the harms that the workers in slaughterhouses experience every day? Probably not. There is much injustice in the fast food industry with harsh conditions in meat production factories, unethical treatment of animals, and environmental ignorance.
When you go to a fast food restaurant, do you really think about where the food comes from, or how the cattle is treated before it is killed? Most people probably don’t. Every single burger from a fast food restaurant comes from a slaughterhouse and goes down a production line. During this time, many people are harmed in the process. The cows are treated inhumanely, and there are many heath problems that can easily occur in you and the environment. This is uncovering the secrets of the fast food restaurant from cow to hamburger.
There is a whole process of slaughtering and preparing the cows to be eaten. First, the cows are transported from large fields with the cows packed as tight as sardines. By the time they get to the slaughter house, the cows can barely walk or stand because of the conditions they are in. The killing uses a captive bolt “cow” pistol. The pistol shoots a bolt into the cows brain entering right in the middle of the cows eyes. The brain then shuts down and the cow is hoisted upside down with a chain on a conveyer belt. A person then cuts the main artery and the cows blood is drained. Sometimes the bolt pistol misses the cow’s brain so the animal suffers. The workers then have to shoot the struggling animal again, or suffocate it to death by closing up the nostrils by standing on them. Another way to kill cattle is to electrocute them to death. Many of the cows before they are killed are tazed by the cow herders to get them to follow instructions. The process doesn’t stop there. After the initial killing of the cows, the carcass must be skinned and cleaned well. If the carcass is not cleaned properly, then diseases get to the consumer. The diseases come from the cows own fecal matter that they bathe in, in the Confined Animal Feeding Operations. (CAFO) The CAFOs are known as animal concentration camps. The whole cow is then moved to a packaging part of the factory. (Interview from Michael Pollan)
There are many heath issues that all these meat production workers must go through every day. This includes physical, mental, and internal sickness. Being exposed to contamination and chemicals has a large effect on workers. This happening while hundreds of workers with knives are working all day long can make for dangerous work.
Before cows get to a fast food restaurant, they need to be killed and packaged up in mass amounts and shipped many miles to get to one fast food restaurant. During this speedy process, many people are harmed. The fast production line makes accidents happen easily. According to FoodIsPower.org, “The workers get injured very often, and the working turnover rate for most meat production is more than 100% annually.” Most people on the meat production line work with saws and knifes. The work is hard and the workers get fatigued easily. When the workers get tired, many accidents occur because of the abundance of sharp knives. Many people get hurt many times in a meat processing plant. A 24 year old adult was hired by the Monfort Beef Company in 1979. Over the next two decades he suffered many injuries. such as; getting struck by a falling 90-pound box of meat, blowing out a disc and having to have back surgery, inhaling too much chlorine while cleaning some blood tanks, and damaging the rotator cuff in his left shoulder when a 10,000-pound hammer-mill cover dropped too quickly. He also broke a leg after stepping into a hole in the slaughterhouse's concrete floor, and he shattered an ankle and had it fixed with four steel pins. (Eric Schlosser in Mother Jones). This worker went though this for a very long time. More than twenty years in a meat processing plant he worked. He did this work, so you could get a two dollar burger at McDonalds.
Physical heath issues are a big deal, however people who work at the meat processing plants have to deal with mental strains as well. Imagine working a 10 hour shift, just killing cattle. In the processing plants, the people work all day with knives and blood. As Michael Pollen states in a PBS interview, “It is tough work. And it's essentially dehumanizing work. There's a lot of blood and a lot of heavy activity that goes on.” The processing of the cows is repetitive, many people do the same bloody work over and over and over again. Many of the workers work for very long shifts day and night 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
There is much waste that goes on in these meat processing plants. This waste causes numerous different difficulties with the environment. Fecal matter, meat waste, and bacteria are common occurrences in the slaughterhouses before the meat is shipped to fast food restaurants. Fecal matter is very abundant in the CAFOs. One feedlot holds up to 100,000 cows. As you can imagine, there is a lot of waste with 100,000 cattle. The waste is so full of chemicals and bacteria that it cannot be used for fertilizer. What do the companies do with the waste? They dump it elsewhere. Then there are the cow guts. The intestines have many diseases such as E. Coli, so they cannot be used for food, for humans at least. Some of the leftover cow parts even get fed back to the cows. This happens sometimes, but the result of feeding cows to cows? Mad Cow Disease. (Hidden Costs of CAFOs from Union of Concerned Scientists)
These cows cannot be eaten because of the disease, and the cow must be wasted.
Dumped waste doesn’t just stay in one place, it travels. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, waste run off is very relevant in the industrial food process. The fecal matter of cows gets into water supplies like irrigation ditches or streams. The streams run off into bigger streams. Those streams turn into rivers, and the rivers turn into oceans. Many cows have one sickness or another, so large amounts of bacteria are contaminating drinking water and other sources effected by water. (Union of Concerned Scientists) As for the irrigation ditches, this water gets into the soil that industrial farmers use to grow vegetables for the McDonalds burger.
This brings up “hidden costs” of industrial farming with the environment. As the Union of Concerned Scientist states,“Indirect subsidies to CAFO’s between 1997 to 2005 amounted to almost 35 billion dollars. They also state that, “Manure is often handled, stored, and disposed of improperly, resulting in leakage, runoff, and spills of waste into groundwater. CAFO manure has contaminated drinking water in many rural areas, caused fish deaths, and contributed to oxygen-depleted “dead zones” (areas devoid of valuable marine life) in the Gulf of Mexico, the Chesapeake Bay, and elsewhere. Ammonia in manure contributes to air pollution that causes respiratory disease and acid rain. Leakage under liquid manure storage “lagoons” pollutes groundwater with harmful nitrogen and pathogens, and some lagoons have even experienced catastrophic failures, sending tens of millions of gallons of untreated waste into streams and estuaries, killing millions of fish.” It costs BILLIONS of dollars to fix the harms caused by the CAFOs. Is buying a cheap fast food burger really that cheap? Taxpayer dollars that pay for the problems that meat production causes.
Finally, after a whole chain of processing this meat, it is cooked and delivered to you, the consumer. You eat this cheap, fast burger that tastes so good without even thinking about what you are eating. But now you have read the secrets of the fast food restaurant.
When you go to buy a two dollar burger, think about the hard work that it took to get one small cheap unhealthy burger to you. Think about the injustices that happen to the workers, environment, and you. Is the burger really worth all that much work, effort and excruciating pain to be fast? Is treating cows in a painful way really necessary? Fast food isn’t what it seems.
Food Reflection
This project was to figure out what was in my food, how different cultures had relationships to food, and how food effects myself. Our class when through many different sources such as the Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, and Super Size Me. We spent a very long time researching everything in order to know our position on the topic. We even had mini debates over industrial and organic food. It was a very interesting time for me, because I did not know a lot of the topics being discussed. I found the whole food unit to be interesting and appealing to me because of my curiosity.
My food eating habits were what made me connect to the project. My parents have always bought organic food or healthier foods if organic wasn’t an option. Our family probably only eats at a fast food restaurant three times a year. However, individually, by myself I eat a lot more junk food when Im with friends. I probably end up eating at a fast food restaurant ten times a year. This is what made me connect to the food project. After this project, I will think more about what the ingredients in junk food, or in a fast food meal are. This is because of the research I did about the CAFO’s and corn. I will stop eating as much junk food as I do, even though I already try to keep that at a minimal. I will be more educated on what I am eating.
Some parts of this project were very challenging to me. The research part was the most difficult. I had problems getting credible sources specifically about how cows are processed because the industry is so secretive about what they do. I did end up finding evidence on two websites and ended up cross checking a lot. The second most challenging part of this project for me was paragraph organization. I rearranged my 2nd draft around for 3 hours one night just to get it where I liked it. I then rearranged my 3rd draft for an hour so It was very time consuming, and challenging.
I learned a couple of things about my personal writing process. I learned that I need to work on paragraph organization. I think my paragraphs could have been reworded and reorganized to better state the problems that I was studying. I would have come up with three or four versions of the essay and had peer and parent critique. that is what I would have done differently.
Now I can answer the essential question,”How does one navigate their own personal omnivore’s dilemma in a world of abundant eating choices?” One navigates their own personal dilemma by being educated on what they eat. If you know what you are eating all the time, you can learn to eat healthier because of the choices you can make. By being more educated on food, it makes cooperations more responsible for the health of the people because people would know what goes on behind the scenes.
This project was to figure out what was in my food, how different cultures had relationships to food, and how food effects myself. Our class when through many different sources such as the Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan, and Super Size Me. We spent a very long time researching everything in order to know our position on the topic. We even had mini debates over industrial and organic food. It was a very interesting time for me, because I did not know a lot of the topics being discussed. I found the whole food unit to be interesting and appealing to me because of my curiosity.
My food eating habits were what made me connect to the project. My parents have always bought organic food or healthier foods if organic wasn’t an option. Our family probably only eats at a fast food restaurant three times a year. However, individually, by myself I eat a lot more junk food when Im with friends. I probably end up eating at a fast food restaurant ten times a year. This is what made me connect to the food project. After this project, I will think more about what the ingredients in junk food, or in a fast food meal are. This is because of the research I did about the CAFO’s and corn. I will stop eating as much junk food as I do, even though I already try to keep that at a minimal. I will be more educated on what I am eating.
Some parts of this project were very challenging to me. The research part was the most difficult. I had problems getting credible sources specifically about how cows are processed because the industry is so secretive about what they do. I did end up finding evidence on two websites and ended up cross checking a lot. The second most challenging part of this project for me was paragraph organization. I rearranged my 2nd draft around for 3 hours one night just to get it where I liked it. I then rearranged my 3rd draft for an hour so It was very time consuming, and challenging.
I learned a couple of things about my personal writing process. I learned that I need to work on paragraph organization. I think my paragraphs could have been reworded and reorganized to better state the problems that I was studying. I would have come up with three or four versions of the essay and had peer and parent critique. that is what I would have done differently.
Now I can answer the essential question,”How does one navigate their own personal omnivore’s dilemma in a world of abundant eating choices?” One navigates their own personal dilemma by being educated on what they eat. If you know what you are eating all the time, you can learn to eat healthier because of the choices you can make. By being more educated on food, it makes cooperations more responsible for the health of the people because people would know what goes on behind the scenes.
Short Story
The Billboard
It kept changing over his entire life. The billboard in front of his house had various advertisements. “Motel 6 in 156 Miles” It would say. Then and again, the billboard sometimes had nothing on it. The little house that he lived on beside the freeway made him sneeze often. Everything he touched left a residue of sand on his fingers. The house was rotted, and the color would have blended into a cornfield. All the remaining windows were rippled and the ones that were gone were boarded up. The house looked as if it hadn't had an inhabitant for a thousand years.
The house in the field was lonely, besides the one pecan tree, there was just a horizon to see with only small features jutting out in the distance like a saw blade with teeth spread afar. The tree was as old as time, and never looked alive. But the old man knew it was alive. He watered the tree every day, and it seemed to screech with happiness in the wind. All the leaves must have gone with the wind. At night, coyotes howled, or was it just the wind? He thought. There seemed to always be a draft in his house. It seemed that there was always a fan blowing in his face. Sometimes he would look at the tree and his face would light up, It may have been the only living thing besides the old man.
He never knew how he got there, but the man had lived there all his life. The people that raised him had died a long time ago, but he had not cared. He knew he was not related. Maybe he fell out of the car at a young age, or maybe he was dropped of by a couple that didn't want him. Sometimes at night he would have nightmares about a car crash, but did not know what it meant. He kept living his life normally, and he smiled doing it. The man had no money, he had no electricity. He went to bed early, and rose with the sun. In the morning he would hike two miles with a water tank on his back to the nearest well. The windmill that powered it was missing some of its blades, so he had to haul up the water himself.
Other nightmares he had were little flashes of his life. At a young age, the man dreamt of his birth parents. In those dreams, there was no billboard, no house, or no loneliness. But he dreamt of unhappiness. When he grew older, the dreams were of joy. He was alone, but happy in these dreams. He had flashes of tornados in his mind. Knowing undoubtedly he would probably die from one. He never really knew if these dreams were true because he never remembered being unhappy.
He was a scraggily old man who looked like he was a worn out wrinkly leather boot. A cane of cracks sprouted from his hand to the ground. He had a nest of white hair upon his head. The hair was thin like a spiders silk. The back of the old man was bent like a crowbar. He still managed to smile every once and a while. He had joy unlike most of the peoples faces on the road. He knew that the cars were advanced in technology, but wondered why the people looked so smug inside. Shouldn’t the people be happy that they had possessions? He wondered.
80 years he had lived in the house, and 80 years the house lived with him. The house could relate to him, It had gone through what he had gone through. The house had been beat up by nature. It was pummeled with sand, silt, and occasional twisters. The walls were ruins, and plastered with sand. In May, 1960, A tornado came and cleared our everything from his house. A vacuum engulfed his house for a century. It was normal for him to have these kind of storms. He did not have any possessions that were sentimental. He remembered that the sound of the twister was like a air raid siren, then silence. Then the bombs came. The bombs of wind, sand, and broken glass came like a gunshot. When he came and looked at the damage, he sighed, but he managed to crack a smile with the happiness inside of him. He had no possessions left, yet he still managed to have joy.
As a child when he looked through the window he would see Cadillacs driving by. When they drove by, he always wondered what the wing things were for on the back of the car. The old man now saw Priuses without wings, and wondered how they kept straight on the road. Black projectiles would fly off the big trucks from their wheels. He knew that their tires were flying off, but wondered why the trucks kept on driving without stopping. He always thought that cars needed air filled tires.
One day, when the clouds looked especially dark and menacing, and the winds were strong, with a mix of cold air, there began a tornado. It ripped through his house like a bull in a china closet. The tornado broke all but one of the houses windows. He was okay but his house was damaged. Just another project for me he thought happily. He had no money to replace the windows, so he just boarded them up neatly.
The billboard was set up right in front of him and was there all his life. The billboard grew with him, and by the time he was 50, the billboard was peeling. It seemed as the man grew older, the billboard did too. By the time he was 65 the billboard looked like it had gone through a bad paper shredder. At 80, the structure was a splintered crumpled piece of paper. Somehow, there were still small advertisements getting put up. It had survived mother nature. When he passed, the billboard died with him.
He died of old age.
When he died, his final breath was a mixed sigh of contentedness and confusion. confusion. He was happy that he lived such a happy, wondrous life. But as he breathed out he asked himself Why can’t we all just be happy? The house was still there when he died, and no one discovered him, over the years he turned to just another part of the house. Dust.
The billboard was replaced after he died. Another century of advertisements was going to occur. The house stood for a couple of years, and another walked in the door, with a smile on their face.
It kept changing over his entire life. The billboard in front of his house had various advertisements. “Motel 6 in 156 Miles” It would say. Then and again, the billboard sometimes had nothing on it. The little house that he lived on beside the freeway made him sneeze often. Everything he touched left a residue of sand on his fingers. The house was rotted, and the color would have blended into a cornfield. All the remaining windows were rippled and the ones that were gone were boarded up. The house looked as if it hadn't had an inhabitant for a thousand years.
The house in the field was lonely, besides the one pecan tree, there was just a horizon to see with only small features jutting out in the distance like a saw blade with teeth spread afar. The tree was as old as time, and never looked alive. But the old man knew it was alive. He watered the tree every day, and it seemed to screech with happiness in the wind. All the leaves must have gone with the wind. At night, coyotes howled, or was it just the wind? He thought. There seemed to always be a draft in his house. It seemed that there was always a fan blowing in his face. Sometimes he would look at the tree and his face would light up, It may have been the only living thing besides the old man.
He never knew how he got there, but the man had lived there all his life. The people that raised him had died a long time ago, but he had not cared. He knew he was not related. Maybe he fell out of the car at a young age, or maybe he was dropped of by a couple that didn't want him. Sometimes at night he would have nightmares about a car crash, but did not know what it meant. He kept living his life normally, and he smiled doing it. The man had no money, he had no electricity. He went to bed early, and rose with the sun. In the morning he would hike two miles with a water tank on his back to the nearest well. The windmill that powered it was missing some of its blades, so he had to haul up the water himself.
Other nightmares he had were little flashes of his life. At a young age, the man dreamt of his birth parents. In those dreams, there was no billboard, no house, or no loneliness. But he dreamt of unhappiness. When he grew older, the dreams were of joy. He was alone, but happy in these dreams. He had flashes of tornados in his mind. Knowing undoubtedly he would probably die from one. He never really knew if these dreams were true because he never remembered being unhappy.
He was a scraggily old man who looked like he was a worn out wrinkly leather boot. A cane of cracks sprouted from his hand to the ground. He had a nest of white hair upon his head. The hair was thin like a spiders silk. The back of the old man was bent like a crowbar. He still managed to smile every once and a while. He had joy unlike most of the peoples faces on the road. He knew that the cars were advanced in technology, but wondered why the people looked so smug inside. Shouldn’t the people be happy that they had possessions? He wondered.
80 years he had lived in the house, and 80 years the house lived with him. The house could relate to him, It had gone through what he had gone through. The house had been beat up by nature. It was pummeled with sand, silt, and occasional twisters. The walls were ruins, and plastered with sand. In May, 1960, A tornado came and cleared our everything from his house. A vacuum engulfed his house for a century. It was normal for him to have these kind of storms. He did not have any possessions that were sentimental. He remembered that the sound of the twister was like a air raid siren, then silence. Then the bombs came. The bombs of wind, sand, and broken glass came like a gunshot. When he came and looked at the damage, he sighed, but he managed to crack a smile with the happiness inside of him. He had no possessions left, yet he still managed to have joy.
As a child when he looked through the window he would see Cadillacs driving by. When they drove by, he always wondered what the wing things were for on the back of the car. The old man now saw Priuses without wings, and wondered how they kept straight on the road. Black projectiles would fly off the big trucks from their wheels. He knew that their tires were flying off, but wondered why the trucks kept on driving without stopping. He always thought that cars needed air filled tires.
One day, when the clouds looked especially dark and menacing, and the winds were strong, with a mix of cold air, there began a tornado. It ripped through his house like a bull in a china closet. The tornado broke all but one of the houses windows. He was okay but his house was damaged. Just another project for me he thought happily. He had no money to replace the windows, so he just boarded them up neatly.
The billboard was set up right in front of him and was there all his life. The billboard grew with him, and by the time he was 50, the billboard was peeling. It seemed as the man grew older, the billboard did too. By the time he was 65 the billboard looked like it had gone through a bad paper shredder. At 80, the structure was a splintered crumpled piece of paper. Somehow, there were still small advertisements getting put up. It had survived mother nature. When he passed, the billboard died with him.
He died of old age.
When he died, his final breath was a mixed sigh of contentedness and confusion. confusion. He was happy that he lived such a happy, wondrous life. But as he breathed out he asked himself Why can’t we all just be happy? The house was still there when he died, and no one discovered him, over the years he turned to just another part of the house. Dust.
The billboard was replaced after he died. Another century of advertisements was going to occur. The house stood for a couple of years, and another walked in the door, with a smile on their face.
Mask Project
The World Around Me
Before my freshmen year, I really never thought of what was behind and reinforcing American stereotypes and unfairness. Take the stereotype that all African American looking people are criminals. You might ask, “When did this stereotype start?” or “why hasn't it gone away?” Well this is most likely because of the cycle of socialization. In Bobbie Harro’s article, “The Cycle of Socialization”, she wrote, “The media (television, the Internet, advertising, newspapers, and radio), our language patterns, the lyrics to songs, our cultural practices and holidays, and very assumptions on which our society is built all contribute to the reinforcement of the biased messages and stereotypes we receive.” I think that socialization is both positive and negative, but most of all, I think it is unfair. I have tried to incorporate what makes up my identity into my mask. I have the South Korean and United States flags on the bottom shaping my identity. A tree grows from its roots, and so have I. Although the base of my mask sculpture may seem very simple, it’s not, and here are a few reasons why. There are flags of two different countries and trees connecting them for a reason. The flags both represent where I originated from, and where I currently live. The South Korean flag represents where I was born, and adopted. The tree roots and the trunk coming up from it represent where my roots are from, and where I was born. The American flag represents where I currently live. The flag also represents the culture that has shaped my identity. The American culture has most influenced me. The bark on the back of my head represents that I am still growing into my identity. I am only 15, so I hope there are many years to shape my identity. Living in Colorado definitely shapes my identity with sports and physical environment. The Colorado flag represents where I live. If I live in some place without mountains, I would not do the same sports, and I would not act as I do today. Being a part of a skiing subculture shapes my identity. I believe I wouldn’t say things like “dude” or “sick” if I wasn’t part of sport subcultures. Sports have shaped and are still shaping my identity. The slackline also represents a sport that I like to do. Sports do shape my identity very much. If I wasn’t athletic, or I liked to play video games, I would get negative sanctions from my peers. I believe I would only get these negative sanctions in Colorado, or in other “athletic states”. In the Cycle of Socialization, Bobbie Harro states that,“People who try to contradict the “norm” pay a price for their independent thinking, and people who conform (consciously or unconsciously) minimally receive the benefit of being left alone for not making waves, such acceptance in their designated roles, being considered normal or a “team player,” or being allowed to stay in their places.” I believe the environment shapes my identity very much. I also think that conforming to things against personal beliefs because of stereotypes, and negative sanctions is unfair. The mouth of the mask with “Words” crossed out inside, symbolizes that I don’t like public speaking. Last year, I failed my Presentation of Learning because of this. I think I might be nervous to talk because of the negative sanctions I might receive for saying the wrong thing, or saying something socially unacceptable. I think that I have been socialized to not think that public speaking is “scary”. Having a world and an airplane on my mask symbolizes that I traveled the world, which has shaped my identity drastically. I may see things differently then other people from being exposed to so many different cultures. The camera lens on one of my eyes represents the way I see people and also represents my avid filming habit. Socialization shapes almost everything in our life, what we do, how we act, and how we are raised. It shapes our identity everyday, but most of the time we are unconscious of the changes we make in order to fit in. We are influenced continuously by media, religion, family, and friends, consciously or unconsciously. I never realized how traits that you are born with can shape your identity, without choice or fairness. I was born a South Korean male without choice. I am an agent and target. Others can be born into just targets or agents depending on the culture of the society of where they live. These identity traits cannot be decided, and sometimes we base our own decisions on these traits. I really think this is unfair, but it is life. As Steve Jobs once said, “Life is not fair — get used to it!”. |
Mask Project Reflection
Our identity mask project was for our Humanities class and involved making a mask made out of plaster, and shaped to our faces. The mask would be painted to fit our identities and we wrote an essay explaining our creation. We first started with the planning process of the mask and and created our design on a piece of paper. We then made the mold of our faces with plaster by wrapping saran wrap around our heads and plastering over that. Then we pulled off the mask and let it dry. After refining the mask by adding plaster strips, or cutting away extra plaster with an X-Acto knife, we added plaster of paris. After adding the plaster of paris we sanded the mask so it was smooth. We then added a layer of mod podge for a clear base layer to paint over. After painting our design we added another layer of mod podge so the mask was glossy. We planned our essay around the socialization concepts and our identities, and made a rough draft. After many revisions, we came up with with a final draft to present. There are many interesting things I learned about the world that I am living in and society. I learned that the more privileged a person is, the less they realize how well off they really are. I then realized that many people in the agent group don’t realize how they are agents. I thought it was very interesting how targets are the ones who say that they are targets. The cycle of socialization was another interesting concept that I learned about sociology. I thought it was interesting how each generation is shaped very much by their parents, and their parents by their parents, and the grandparents by their parents. It is what made up the cycle. There are many things I learned about myself, but one stood out to me more than others, I am part of the American culture, and the American culture is not a very excepting culture. I learned that by being a part of the American culture and society I reinforce the cycle of socialization and stereotypes. I think that the cycle is unfair, and that Is what learned about myself as I said in my article,” Take the stereotype that all African American looking people are criminals. You might ask, “When did this stereotype start?” or “why hasn't it gone away?” Well this is most likely because of the cycle of socialization. In Bobbie Harro’s article, “The Cycle of Socialization”, she wrote, “The media (television, the Internet, advertising, newspapers, and radio), our language patterns, the lyrics to songs, our cultural practices and holidays, and very assumptions on which our society is built all contribute to the reinforcement of the biased messages and stereotypes we receive.” I am most proud of my mask in the whole identity mask project because of two things. I am most proud of the symbolism behind my mask structure, and the simplistic elegance of the design. I am proud of how I made all the symbols incorporated in the mask relate to each of the other symbols. I am also proud of the design with the three flags that summed up the design, but also had relation to one-another. I think the mask looked very professional, neat, and simple without being to “crowded”. There are some things after the project that I realized I could have done better. First of all, I think I could have managed my time better by working in class both on the essay and the mask equally. I will keep that in mind for the next project. I think I needed to use more evidence when explaining my project at exhibition, and given more personal examples as my evidence. That is what I would have done better for my mask project, and what I will use for my next project. |