Why I hate Abercrombie and Fitch

The chapter entitled, “Why I hate Abercrombie & Fitch” was about a man who started his own small business back in 1892, and how he and one other man’s business have changed the clothing world forever. Abercrombie & Fitch is one of the most popular clothing stores for people ages 17-25. And with the success of their business comes problems, but unlike other businesses A&F has more problems with the foundation of their business, problems with the rules they have to become members of their team. And this chapter reveals their problems and the reasons, and consequences for them. The thesis for this chapter is, “The danger of such a marketing scheme is that it depends upon the racist thinking of its consumer population in order to thrive.” This quote is about how the company works and what it has to have to produce.
In this chapter the author speaks mostly of why he hates the clothing line, and all of the problems that it has. Mostly about how racist the company is and how it does not hire people of color. He also writes about the lawsuits that have been brought on the company for things like illegal hiring practices. He talks about the “look” that all Abercrombie members have and the rules that all of the people who work for Abercrombie have to follow. Then he goes on to say how unfairly these people are to people of color. He says that those people went to Abercrombie looking for a job, and the manager who was there either told them they were not hiring, or he/she gave the person an application with no intent of hiring them.
If there was one thing that I didn’t agree with in this chapter it is the thinking that the author has when he says that Abercrombie and Fitch is worn only by gay white men. I disagree with this statement, I mean I do not wear A&F, but I have friends who do and I know that they are not gay. So why do all the people who wear A&F have to be gay. I disagree with this point, and think that this is the only thing that I disagreed with in this article.
I loved this article, I felt that it fit perfectly in with the thoughts of today’s society, and the problems that we have. It was very appealing to me because I am in the “age range,” that is talked about in this article and also I know about some of the issues that were raised in this article. It was well written, and have good arguments, I thought it was fun to read and hear about the bad things that the company has done.

Takaki Chpater 12

1. The Mexican immigrants came to America across the Northern border into the states above them. The Mexican immigrants came to the United States in hopes of a better life, a better life with better jobs with better wages, also they wanted to get away from the problems that were occurring in Mexico at the time.
2. The title of the chapter is significant because “el Norte, The Borderland of Chicano America” was important to the Mexican immigrants. El Norte was the north, which to them meant freedom and better opportunities. The borderland of Chicano America meant that the only thing keeping the Chicanos from coming to America and becoming part of our culture was the border.
3. The biggest mechanism of social construction that was discussed in the chapter had to have been better, higher wages for workers. The economy in Mexico was terrible, so immigrants wanted to come here to have a better chance to have a life. Also, safety was important to them and sometimes safety was not easy to come by for the families in Mexico.

Comic Book Cover

In the comic book cover that I chose there is a picture of a superhero wearing a red suit with a yellow lightning bolt on the chest the character is known as Captain Marvel. He is enormous and standing over the top of a small village of Japanese people trying to run from him and a mountain further back in the background. He has his one hand on top of the people and the other balled up into a fist ready to pound on all of the Japanese soldiers. On the cover in the text it reads, “Capt. Marvel Swats the Japs!”
Captain Marvel is a white person who is shown in what it looks like he is trying to kill all of the Japanese people on the cover in the village. This comic book cover if I had to guess was published during the time or shortly after World War II. Showing the Americans dislike towards Japanese people. The mountain in the background is probably Mount Fiji, the highest mountain in Japan.
This comic book cover relates to Chapter 10 in Takaki. That chapter deals with Hawaii and the people of Hawaii and more specifically the Japanese immigrants who came to Hawaii and the mainland from Japan. It was about how Japanese people came to America looking for a better life. They came to get better wages on jobs, and to find what they thought was the “American dream.” This cover shows how the Japanese were treated in America, they were not treated fairly and did not receive the same type of treatment that others.
I think that this cover is kind of interesting. It shows how the Japanese people were treated during the time. It shows how much hatred the Japanese had to overcome while they were being treated poorly. They came to America in search of freedoms, and better wages. And all they get is poor treatment for nothing. I think that this cover shows this.

how the jews became white

In the chapter “How Jews Became White” Brodkin’s thesis states, “Instead I want to suggest that Jewish success is s product not only of ability but also of the removal of powerful social barriers to its realization.” She is saying that the Jews had a lot to overcome to get where they are now, and that they overcame the hatred and the racism and the social constraints that were upon them. They were a hated race, but they worked hard to overcome that.
In the beginning of the chapter she starts off by telling a story of how her parents grew up expecting to be hated, and expected to be a part of daily life that was all about racism. She goes on talking about the separation between the Jews and the whites, talking about how some of the Jewish families had to live in different neighborhoods, and even in some cases they were not allowed to attend school. She then goes on a couple paragraphs later to say why all of this ended. She said that the racism with Jews ended because of World War II. She describes how the people that were once before members of society who were going to be deported, were now middle class white citizens. She says this also had to do with changing society, “It was the biggest and best affirmative action program in the history of our nation,” and what happened in this event was the poor people suddenly became educated and could get jobs.
Is there reasoning to believe that the Jews were the only ones being treated this way? Absolutely not, all of the races minus the white race were being treated unfairly like this, races such as “Racism against all southern and eastern European immigrants, as well as against Asian immigrants, not to mention African Americans, Native Americans, and Mexicans.” So, the Jews were not the only ones being treated that way, there were other races who were under unfair treatment just like they were.
This chapter was easy to read and had a lot of good information in it. I think that it is such a good chapter because it is so authentic and so true, because of her own real life experiences that she includes in the chapter.

ZInn ch. 9

In Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom, Zinn is talking about slavery and the freedom of blacks in America during the times of the 1800’s. Zinn on the first page in the first couple paragraphs speaks about how the blacks during this time were seen through society’s eyes; he talks about how the people especially the whites saw them and what they thought of them. All of these were cases of people in the south. He describes a way to end slavery by saying, “It would take either a full-scale rebellion or a full-scale war to end such a deeply entrenched system. If a rebellion, it might get out of hand, and turn its ferocity beyond slavery to the most successful system of capitalist enrichment in the world. If a war, those who made the war would organize its consequences. Hence, it was Abraham Lincoln who freed the slaves, not John Brown. In 1859, John Brown was hanged, with federal complicity, for attempting to do by small-scale violence what Lincoln would do by large-scale violence several years later---end slavery.” This quote is about how messed up the political system was in the U.S. at this time. The entire country was against the blacks, including the court systems, and the armed forces just to name a few. The system was completely screwed up and as Zinn says the only way to end it was through violence.
The authors argument is not as much about how the system was corrupt, but about how even after all of this was said and done, the blacks still did not receive the freedom and rights that they should have. They were still treated the same. He goes on to talk about the Underground Railroad and they brave men and women who led other blacks to the north. He speaks of a couple of them such as Harriet Tubman, who led the most slaves to the north of out all the black leaders of the railroad. There were other figures who helped get rights for the blacks during there time, people like Nat Turner who was a slave who gathered around 70 of his fellow slaves and went on a “rampage” for plantation to plantation, murdering whoever tried to stop them.
One question that I have would be why did some of the white states, even after the slaves had been freed not accept blacks? Why would they still not let them have the respect they deserved? The answer is because of racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Groups of white people who hated blacks and did not believe that they should have their rights, they believed that they were superior to the blacks.
This was an interesting and informative article to read. I enjoyed reading it because it had a lot of good information, and was kept interesting and was not dull and drug out. It was a lot of previously learned information, but not as in depth as I had learned it before.

Takaki Chapter 3

Chapter 3 of A Different Mirror is all about how slavery started and how it continued throughout history. In this chapter Takaki starts off talking about the play The Tempest and how the theatergoers were aware of the possibility that Caliban could have been black. He goes on to talk about how blacks are perceiver by the English, he says “In the English mind, the color black was freighted with an array of negative images.” Then he talks about whites and says “The color white, on the other hand, signified purity, innocence, and goodness.” He continues on about Caliban and says how the English noticed him having African traits. He also says that they viewed blacks as cannibals. His thesis for the chapter states, “Though they had been “sold,” the first twenty Africans might not have been slaves, persons reduced to property and required to work without wages for life. Also, Takaki talks about white indentured servants and how they were treated. They were kept with the black slaves, and he talks about how the blacks and whites didn’t have an understanding of each other. They were fearful of each other because they were unsure of the others.
Is what the author saying about how the English perceive the African Americans accurate? Is how Takaki describes it correct, do they really believe that Africans are cannibals and would eat human beings? I believe that at the time that is what the English believe, but over time they realized that this was not true.
This chapter was kind of slow to read, I did not enjoy reading this there was really no excitement or anything fun to read in the chapter. I found a lot of useful information, but the way it was presented could have been better. It could have been more thrilling to read.

Johnson chapter 8

Johnson in chapter 8 says, “No one likes to see themselves as connected to someone else’s misery, no matter how remote the link. Usually their first response is to find a way to get themselves off the hook, and, as I’ll show below there are all kinds of ways to do that.”
He is saying that no matter the situation, when something bad happens, nobody wants to be apart of it. Nobody wants to be known for causing something bad to happen. He goes on in the chapter saying, “Perhaps the easiest way to get off the hook is to deny that it exists in the first place.” He is saying that people try and weasel their way out of sticky situations by lying and saying that they had no idea that anything wrong was ever even going on. Denial and resistance are key components in the chapter. He uses good examples to paint a picture of resistance and denial in the world today. The most grabbing example is on page 109 when he describes a parental situation when a child says that he/she is hurt and the parent says that they aren’t hurt that bad or it doesn’t hurt that much.
The author gives many good examples, but my question is why are so many people in denial in the world? What is wrong with society that nobody wants to take responsibility for their actions? People in the world today have problems with themselves, they have problems with how they see themselves, they have problems with how everyone else sees them. So, that is why nobody will take responsibility for themselves. They do not want to be seen as a person who does bad things, they don’t want to take the fall when they think that they can get out of it. That is a major problem with society today.
This chapter was excellent because it gave an accurate understanding of how the world is today. It told how people act in the world today. Johnson gave great examples of people not wanting to accept something that was wrong, so they just stayed in denial. This was an enjoyable chapter to read about.