Daniel-Half Human Blog #6

My social issue, racism is a very ugly thing to be a victim of. It belittles a person of their ethnicity, culture, religion the list could go on. Nowadays, with help from the world wide web racism is becoming a social media concern. People are being victims in their own homes. The internet is supposed to connect us to one another not to abuse people of their beliefs. Do you think the internet is a good thing, or a bad thing in today's society? Can we stop the on slaughter of racial acts on the web?

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What is Racism?

Since my social issue is racism and some people might not know the correct definition or are mislead by different meanings. I've decided to leave a link giving a detailed description of racism and where we see it in today's world.

http://www.globalissues.org/article/165/racism

Daniel-Half Human Blog #5

I'd like to share this video of three young university students doing an experiment on racism. While watching the video I couldn't keep the shock and disbelief from surfacing. The thought that we live in the twenty century and this behaviour, this mentality was a harsh wake up call that I needed to starting living in reality. Even though this is just a documentary, and everything was fiction it doesn't mean it's not true. This behaviour happens everyday all around the world. It's just that because we don't see, we think it does not happen. This made me rethink a lot of times when I was around the public, especially in a audience where the ethnic background of the community is very prominent. I realized that it made me uncomfortable being the only one that didn't fit in. I moved from Toronto to Brampton at a young age and it was very difficult to adjust. Moving from a community where it has a little bit of everything to a community where the majority was East-Asian, was very unnerving for me. Over time I made friends that were of the East-Asian culture and mixing in with the other students became easier because of them. I owe a lot to my friends that took me under their wings and helped feel as if I belonged there. Did you every have a moment where you felt like you didn't fit in? If so, what made you accustom to the change?

        

Daniel-Half Human Blog #4

I was inspired by these gravitating poets and wanted to share what they thought of racism. Please excuse the harsh language used in the videos.

Daniel Half-Human Blog #2

I figured that since my book revolves around the social issue, racism. I’d explore Adolf Hitler, the Führer (Leader) of the Nazi party, and his ridiculed ideas, later formulated to be known as the Nazi Ideology. It is a main topic that has blossomed in my book, Daniel Half-Human by David Chotjewitz, quite a few times now. It sheds the importance of equality for every human, and disregards their rights as German-Jews. Hitler fabricated the ideology that human beings could be classified as “races”, differentiated by physical characteristics passed on through genetics from the first human beings in prehistoric times. He ordered that the “lowest” common racial upbringing would deteriorate an Aryan person’s characteristics, attitude, abilities and behaviour by interchangeable “mixings”. It was the Nazi party that grew accustomed to the Darwinian evolutionary theory, that “survival of the fittest” had to be applied to Aryans to produce a ‘race’ that was the purest of them all. The purest would lead to becoming the most dominate race the world had ever seen. Striving past difficulties, only the lesser races would face.

The Nuremberg Race Laws, links located below, orders that any interbreed marriage with a ‘parasitic vermin’ and full-blooded Aryan is forbidden. Full punishment will be held for those unfaithful to the laws, exceptions granted to those with a higher ranking above the average German, then they and their Jewish company was granted immunity for some time. The Nazi party looked down on other races, besides Jews, including Roma (Gypsies) descendent, the disabled, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, and Afro-Germans. Their goal was to rid Germany of the ‘social outcasts’ then move to get them eliminated from elsewhere.

The protagonist in my book, Daniel Kraushaar, is faced with confronting the Nuremberg Laws in his Gymnasium(high school). He is now beginning to realize that what he really wants to do, which is ignore his half- Jewish side and agree with the Germans. Is not right and is something in which he should not do. He starts to question the actions of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, more famously known as the Nazi party. Daniel said, “But to claim that others were subhuman seemed a bit exaggerated, didn’t it?”(Pg. 162)

The protagonists’ mother, Sophie Kraushaar, is an example of the Nazi party’s obedience and loyalty to their new laws. In the book, every Jew and Jewess, fifteen and older not emigrated was ordered to carry a special identification card with a large yellow J on it. Sophie Kraushaar had to take a passport photo with her hair pulled back and head bent forward, exposing the left ear. From Nazi research had indicated that the shape of her left ear was evidence of racial origin. To differentiate the connections between Jewishness and criminality, a fingerprint of every remaining Jew was in order. Stated in the book, “Sophie was made to press her left and right index fingers on an ink pad, then on the identity card.”(Pg. 250) Then to strip the remaining Jews of anymore personal identity. A law placed in August of 1938, demanded that all Jewish males take “Israel” as their middle name and all Jewish females, “Sara.”     

The Nuremberg played a huge part in Daniel Half-Human, it was the very nature that kept Armin Hillmann, Daniel’s best friend and Miriam, Daniel’s Jewish cousin, apart when they began it form romantic relationship. It forced Daniel to switch schools, so that their precious Christianeum be “one hundred percent ‘cleansed of Jews.” It affected the way Daniel and his family lived their life. It was almost as if they, were living in a jail cell, subjected to regulated routines, with very little freedom. The only thing that separated them from that kind of life, was that Daniel’s father was a full-blooded Aryan that was awarded the Iron Cross, giving his son and wife limited security from the SA (Sturmabteilung or Storm Troopers).              

http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007695- The Nuremberg Race Laws

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007903 – Translation: Nuremberg Race Laws

http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/DEFN/sturmabt.htm - Definition of SA

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007457 – The Holocaust

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/triumph/tr-nurem-laws.htm - The Nuremberg Laws

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/holocaust/resource_center/item.asp?gate=2-57– The Holocaust

Daniel Half-Human Blog Entry #3

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/boluwaji-ogunyemi/racial-profiling-black-doctor_b_6701140.html

I chose this particular article because it deals with my topic of racism. However, it shows a different point of view, one that I have never witness in my attempt to finding articles. It portrays the thoughts from young physician, Boluwaji Ogunyemi and his racial experiences in an Vancouver hospital. This article shows how racism still exist till this day, and how unfair and static the social status ladder is. The uneven level playing field has not changed despite the drastic events in history. The day in which everyone will be treated as equals rather than minorities or majorities, is still an ongoing project.            

Sniper Review

It’s the 1920’s and Ireland was struggling to do everything they can to keep their independence. The feud between the Republicans and Free Staters was getting more violent day after day. “The Sniper” by Liam O’Flaherty portrays a young man’s love for his country and doing whatever it takes to make sure that his country gets the government they deserve. A young man stationed at a rooftop of an abandoned building had been there all day. His job was too take out a necessary complications that might have been in the way in his country’s republican society. He thought his whole day had gone to waste, until he chose to light a cigarette, resulting in gun fire aimed at him. He spotted movement from the opposite building’s rooftop. However, before he could shoot back, an armored car approached down below on the lonesome streets. A women came out to greet a man that had come out of the vehicle. An informer was what the women was, and she was pointing towards the sniper’s hideout. Before he seconded guessed himself the sniper shot both of them in the head, killing them instantly. In the rounds fired the sniper had, unfortunately, gotten shot in his right arm. He tended to his wound and then decided to take a shot rest, since his arm was in immense pain.

The author is implying that even your best friend can be your worst enemy. It’s all about how we learn to perceive our most difficult conquests. The sniper did not know that the boy he shot was his brother, only that it was the enemy. If he had realize that it was his brother, then he probably would not had shot him, and instead told him to run and hide. This goes to show how much people put their lives on the line for some politician. When people are taught what is right from bad at a very young age, it gets harder as they get older to change their perspectives. That way of life soon becomes the only thing they know how to do and when people come forcing in, to change it, they get very defense and will take physical action to ensure that nothing changes. That is precisely what happened in the book, when the Republicans were fighting against the Free Staters. The Republicans wanted to change the system, however it did not sit well with the Free Staters who were against the change. Due to this disagreement the two opposing sides with at it with all their might to cause as much destruction and chaos to the other side. All in all the author was trying to get his readers to understand how easily it is to be manipulated and turn against someone, who you once loved.