April 28, 2011

Rosa is crazy. Anybody who will smash up her store and leave a life of luxury to live in a “motel” in hell is CRAZY. I have come to the conclusion that she smashed up her store to punish people who do not understand the history behind the pieces she sold in her antique store. Most people are just collectors of items and not the history behind them.  And Rosa is one of those people who question the motives of those in societies, because those pieces represented her story, not just a nameless or faceless persons’ story.

From Rosa’s story Ozick is trying to convey to the readers that the Holocaust experience did not spare any victims even those who did not parish. Rosa’s story is one of survival, but not technically. She hasn’t died like Magda but she is dead inside, she is unable to pick up and move forward and that is true survival.  

April 24, 2011

Cynthia Ozick, author of The Shawl has a very complex style of writing. The first chapter kind of made the book intimidating because Ozick has a very detail oriented writing style. She can talk about the death of a child and make the floating body seem as it’s a butterfly.

So far we see that this story is being told from the point of view of Rosa who is a mother of Magda and the care taker of Stella. The story seems as though it is being told from a diary. Rosa seems crazy calling Stella a devil and carrying on like that. But her daughter was killed right in front of her and she did nothing to protect her. I don’t understand why they killed Magda though. That was cruel.

April 21, 2011

The conclusion of the novel was quite interesting. Being the only time where we get an opportunity to hear the story being told from the father’s perspective. It puts a spin on the whole conflict of the novel. He unveils it in this chapter in his rant and it is racism.

While he never says anything out right, he is basically saying that he is as American as they come and he is also saying that anybody can be a spy not just a Japanese person. Although Otsuka gave him a weird tone, I got the message loud and clear.

While I was reading all I could picture was someone being interrogated and admitting to something they knew they didn’t do, due to the fact that they were being tortured. It’s quite frightening. But Otsuka is pretty much questing the government and their motives in this novel. And I loved it.

April 17, 2011

Being American

The American Dream is based upon firm beliefs established by Middle Class America. The family should include two parents, two children, a pet living in the suburbs. The father works to provide for the family while the mother tends to the home and children. The son usual is an All-American athlete and the daughter is usually some prissy socialite. But can a family of immigrants accomplish the same or comparable measures of success without being seen as a threat?

No. But we sure would like to think that the double standard does not exist. Just more of those White Lies we tell ourselves I guess.

The children in the novel are finding it a struggle to actually identify with a race. And that is quite difficult, because either way it goes they just don’t fit the traditional mold of what it actually is. The son in particular is having a hard time, being flooded with these traditional American values like baseball, and cowboy like symbolisms. It’s quite interesting how Otsuka crafts these struggles through the plot.

April 14, 2011

Lies, Lies, Lies

When a mother has to handle matters regarding the family alone you may see her doing some weird things. The mother from, “When the Emperor was Divine” did something’s that made me question her as a mother. But then I had to put myself in her shoes and I came to the conclusion that I would probably do the same thing to preserve the innocence of my children. And she goes through great depths to do so.

When she is packing up the home to leave for the Internment Camps she makes it seem as though they are going on a vacation. When in fact they are being held as prisoners by the United States Government. But one of the very interesting points that were brought up in class was the thematic point of the book is White Lies.

Sometimes a lie isn’t going to hurt anybody so that is why it is so easy to tell them. Mostly Everybody lives by the phrase that as long as there is no harm done, then it doesn’t matter. And I guess I can attest to that too.

April 14, 2011

Lies, Lies, Lies

When a mother has to handle matters regarding the family alone you may see her doing some weird things. The mother from, “When the Emperor was Divine” did something’s that made me question her as a mother. But then I had to put myself in her shoes and I came to the conclusion that I would probably do the same thing to preserve the innocence of my children. And she goes through great depths to do so.

When she is packing up the home to leave for the Internment Camps she makes it seem as though they are going on a vacation. When in fact they are being held as prisoners by the United States Government. But one of the very interesting points that were brought up in class was the thematic point of the book is White Lies.

Sometimes a lie isn’t going to hurt anybody so that is why it is so easy to tell them. Mostly Everybody lives by the phrase that as long as there is no harm done, then it doesn’t matter. And I guess I can attest to that too.

April 3, 2011

Was the Fathers Death an Accident?

It’s kind of a difficult question to answer because a man with his intelligence would not just walk out into the middle of the street without looking both ways. But there is a chance that there were some blind spots with those logs in his arms over his shoulders. But to counter that, is there is no way that he wouldn’t have heard the truck approaching him.

I honestly believe that his death was a suicide primarily because there was too much evidence shown to support that idea. The death of her father leaves her audience only the opportunity to speculate the reasons behind his untimely death. I feel he did so because he lacked feelings regarding his quality of life. He was miserable. He was already hiding his true sexuality, he was intertwined in a miserable marriage, and he probably felt responsible for his daughter’s homosexuality.  

Is suicide wrong if you hate your life? Yes, because we all have opportunities to change different aspects of our lives. If you don’t like something, change it.

March 31, 2011

It is fairly easy to criticize the story that Bechdel tells in her story, but I feel it is saying more about life and speaks to those who don’t have a cookie cut one. Everyone wants to identify with their parents and Bechdel just so happened to identify with her father more when it came to matters dealing with sexuality. Her father was a closeted homosexual and was jealous of her because she could be open with hers. Homosexuality in women is generally more accepted that that of men. She was interested in protesting with gay rights groups at her school. And I am pretty sure her father was unable to do so.

But the next question that arose through discussion in class was can you make somebody homosexual? And I feel that homosexuality can stem from different places depending upon the individual. Meaning if you met 45 homosexuals then you have met 45 different people with different with reasons why they identify as a homosexual.

Bechdel’s story is one of a coming of age for a family. How tells every significant characters past to shed light on why they ended up where they did. I loved the concept. Just not too thrilled with the contents.

March 27, 2011

Absent Love

Can you believe that someone loves you, if they cannot express it? Allison must have felt as though her father hated her, because nothing in the illustrations gives me the impression that love was in the air amongst them at all.

The Father kind of creeps me out, because no one in the family could give him compliments without him freaking out. Compliments are just a means for expressing a likeness in something. He also seems peculiar in his dealings, because he and the mother never show any type of affection. And the only emotions that are conveyed through the illustrations are despair.

I believe that if this novel didn’t have the illustrations it wouldn’t have its effectiveness in showing how this family was unhappy, and there really was no foundation for a home. Having the ability to show love is really ones confirmation of what is actually being expressed.

That’s why people say that the tongue can be a tool and a weapon.

March 24, 2011

Initial Reactions to Fun Home by Allison Bechdel

I haven’t read a graphic novel before, seems kind of interesting. From the beginning I noticed that the father seems detached from the daughter, based upon the blank facial expression on his face in the illustrations. The family lives in a Victorian home built in 1962, and the father is very handy in trying to re-store the house to its Lumber-Era Glory. There are other siblings that are introduced later in the story. I have the impression that the parents have a withdrawn relationship with each other. It strikes me that the father is more interested in restoring the home in which the family lives in as opposed to being interested in the family dynamics/ He treats the children like furniture and the furniture like children.

The father and mother have reversed roles in the home. The father bathes Allison and dresses her and her mother is not included in any of the illustrations. The father has sex with teenage boys, which shocked me! Because he tries to give the allusion that the family is happy and they’re not.

This entire family isn’t physically expressive at all. Such a shame

March 17, 2011

Dede Timeline

·         Born 1925

·         Fortune Telling as a child

·         Goes to Imaculada Concepution (1938-1941 somewhere during this time)

·         Meets Lio with Minerva (1948)

·         Lio goes into exile, and She and Jamito get engaged (1948)

·         Goes to Trujillo’s ball with Minerva and others (1949)

·         Father is taken to jail for them leaving ball early (1949)

·         Has a Baby

·         Father Dies (1953)

·         She and Jamito have to failed businesses, and filed bankruptcy twice.

·         Moves back home with parents

·         Patria asks them to bury guns in the backyard, she refused. (1960’s)

·         Sisters approach her to join them in the rebellion, Jamito refuses (1960’s)

·         Dede goes to church to talk to Revolutionary Priest, Jamito sees her and packs up the children and leaves (1960’s)

·         Dede tries to reconcile with Jamito to keep her family together

·         People start getting arrested. (1960’s)

·         Dede and Jamito go to capital to try to bail them all.

·         Dede finally realizes that no matter what she is going to be involved with the revolution regardless because her sisters are involved

March 13, 2011

Love and Lies

Minerva is the strongest of the sisters she has her own drum that she marches to. And I like that. Since the last time I’ve blogged I have read of the encounter that Lio and She have had. He had to flee because he was a rebel fighting against Trujillo. Before he left he revealed his love for Minerva to her sister Dede, who doesn’t tell her about the letter.

Minerva is left alone no husband, children or anything. People in the town and her parents are starting to believe that she is a lesbian. Minerva soon discovers all the letters and money that Lion has been sending to her father so she could join him and marry him. Minerva is so hurt she goes to her father’s mistress’ house and confronts him. She does so and leaves. He meets her back at their home and slaps her for disrespecting him.

Then a letter arrives to invite Minerva to Trujillo’s ball. She goes with her sisters and their husbands. She ends up meeting Trujillo again and he makes an advance at her. She declines because she knows what he is capable of. Then she does the ultimate. She lies about knowing Lio when he asks her. After that she is so scared that she and her family leave the ball- which is a crime. She left her purse behind with all the letters from Lio. She is going to get in trouble for that….

March 10, 2011

Initial Reactions

In the Times of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

This novel seems like a slow and bumpy read. Reason being is because the plot jumps around a lot. In the first chapter we see a sister Dede is celebrating the anniversary of some event that she is upset about her surviving. Abruptly the author jumps from present day to 1943. There is not too much going on in the first chapter. The next few chapters are where the plot thickens up. We learn that the dictator is a creep who will kill anybody who gets in his way to keep him from doing whatever he wants when he wants.

This chapter is being voiced by Minerva, who to me seems like she is going to be trouble throughout the novel. She meets some girls at the boarding school and they put on a play called Viva Trujillo. She and the girls get an opportunity to put this play on for Trujillo in person and the girls plan to change their play’s theme so Sinita can attempt to murder Trujillo in the name of her family all of who Trujillo had murdered.

I can only imagine what the next few chapters have in store.

If The Plot Were Juat A Tad Bit Different

If Precious' had not been a victim of incest, sexual, mental, emotional, and physical abuse would Sapphire's audience even be interested in Precious' story, sad thing is probably not. Nobody is interested in reading books that the protagonist doesn't have some kind of struggle. I strongly believe that Sapphire's main point of the novel was to critique social instituitons of large cities.

The novel also leaves the reader inquiring about if whether they turned a blind eye to someone in their time of need. Because you never know if you let someone down by not asking the right questions or not following through on something you turned over to the officials. But this critique alone thickens the plot.

Nobody is soley interested in reading the internal thoughts of someone while they are being raped by their father. Nobody is quite in love with the fact that your body may physically be pleasured by something while your also in utter disgust. But without this the novel would be dry.

I don't know, maybe the rambles have me questioning myself as a part of the audience. Why was the plot so interesting??

Learned Helplessness

I  am a psychology major. I initially started out my high school career with the intentions of being an education major. But that surely changed through my experience at my first real job. I worked at LEAP. It was a program in which under privileged children could receive an enriched academic program that was sited in the empowerment zones of new haven. After working with these children and their parents so closely I decided that education was not the field for me. Because I have seen that these children have such struggles in their lives due to their environment. Like in Push, the main theme was overcoming a sense of learned helplessness.

Precious had been sexually, emotionally, and physically abused. I have worked with kids who have been through similar circumstances. But what had Precious stronger was her ability to understand that the life from which she came from did not have to paint the same portrait of her future. I learned that working with these in the manner in which I could that I would never be able to get my message across if I do not get to the source and it is their  parents.

My goal is open up parenting facilities, drug rehabilitation program for men and women.  I intend on being able to reach the source in order for them to instill a stronger foundation for children like Precious and others that I have worked with in the past. To break the curse of the learned helplessness that has been all they know.

Push-ed

I haven't gotten to find a free copy of PUSH by Sapphire, but I have seen a few youtube videos displaying her reading excerpts of the novel. I have tried to watch the movie Precious, whose plot is based primarily from the novel written by Sapphire but directed by Lee Daniels. But the movie itself was way too much to bear witness to without shedding tears.

The novel is the story of a 16 year old girl named Clarece Precious Jones, raised in Harlem, who is pregnant, a victim of insect, illierate, who is abused. That was already hard to stomach. The novel is told from inside the head of the protagonist.

All the excerpt readings that I have heard have all opened with the part of the novel where Precious is being disruptive in her Math class due to her being unable to figure out how to identify the page that her teacher wanted her to turn to. She lands herself in the principles office due to her cursing her teacher out. From there the excerpt jumps to her mother beating her senselessly in the kitchen in which is the place she births her child. Then she reveals to the nurses that she is a victim of incest because she did not know any better.

Isn't that weird how people who have been mistreated all their lives never knew they were being mistreated? Even after someone from the outside may point it out, it still may be something that the victim is unaware of or able to believe.

When I tried to watch Precious when it came out, I couldn't. It was too painful. The point in which I stopped watching it was during the 'beat down' in the kitchen. It reminded me of a scene in my own life. Everything about the setting seemed to come alive for me. Even down to the thought process from within. It all came together for me.

Wathcing these except readings made me search for more. I learned that the novel wasn't based upon the life of one person its a compliation of stories from people. That was deep. Sapphire touched me.

Saving Our Youth

Thinking about one of the facts along with a few other pieces, what do girls need in High School besides "Sex Ed" in order to not get pregnant, etc.?

I went to one of the most notorious high schools in New Haven. Everybody assumed that every student in the school would be one/some/all of these statistics: pregnant, suffer an early death, or drop out. And I know a lot of people who have fallen victim to these statistics. But I feel as though they followed the wrong path because they needed guidance.

Guidance from someone who chose the correct path and not their friends. Or even a parent that knows where the wrong path can lead you. And is willing to support and motivate their daughter to keep them on the correct track. Girls these days need positive role models. Everyone is so concerned with the "pathway to prison pipeline" for GUYS because they need fathers.  People should start to pay attention to devastatingly high rate of pregnancy in these children. What exactly do they believe that these girls are looking for when they find themselves pregnant. They aren't looking for gumdrops and lollipops. They are looking for love from men, to fill a void within them.

Girls do not get pregnant by themselves. Come on these are not the days in which immaculate conception still exists.

Younger people in general not only need guidance, they need protection; someone who can secure their youth/innocence. Children do not stay children for long due to the fact that people do not believe in censorship anymore. Children do not watch Disney movies anymore. I mean the Disney channel exists, but the kids on those shows are all chasing love.

In addition to guidance and protection, high school students need love. Motherly, Fatherly, Sisterly, Brotherly Love!! If these girls felt love, they would stop looking in all the wrong places

Be Your Clitoris

"She told me my clitoris was not something I could lose. It was me, the essence of me. It was both the doorbell to my house and the house itself. I didn't have to find it I had to be it."

This is probably one quote that bought the whole book of monologues together for me. When I was younger my mother used to say that I had no business having sex because I didn't even know myself or what I was doing. I used to think she didn't know what she was talking about, but as I take this journey into adulthood I now understand completely what she was referring to.

She wasn't talking about the act of sex in totality, but she was talking about knowing myself outside of sex. She meant that I had to know myself as a person, not a vagina my anatomical organ. And those words taught me a valuable lesson, that I will pass to my daughter if I am blessed to have one. I want her to learn what it is to be a women, not a vagina, coochie, or cunt a WOMEN!!

Angry Vagina

This is the Ninja Maxipad. Comical Huh?
Earlier today I found myself watching television and I seen a few tampon commercials, and the first thing that came to mind was the Angry Vagina Monologue. I found this monologue funny from the very first line.

All commercials for sanitary products depict the menstrual cycle as a blissful feeling. Which is the complete opposite of what the monthly experience actually feel like. Most women can say they have some discomfort whether it is from cramps, fatigue, bloating. But I can bet for sure that women won't tell you they feel like a flower in a garden or a happy fish in a dry pool. And from those few commercials they struck a nerve of curiosity. I wanted to compare commercials that were targeted towards women and commercials targeted towards men.

I looked at a few condom commercials and tampon commercials on youtube. And I noticed that most of the condom ads include both men and women willing to purchase or use condoms, and in all tampon ads I noticed that there is either a male or a female in the commercial. And depending upon what the purpose is, determines which of them are present.

All men hate buying tampons for women, but safe sex is both the responsibility of men and women. Interesting thought huh?  

Taking a Stand for Women

Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues may initially draw some readers away, due to the explicit title. People automatically assume that the book is saturated with sex. And it is not, although sex sales. This book is primarily about women and their struggles in the skin they're in. These monologues have the ability to touch every women in the audience, the stories are so relate-able.

Both men and women can benefit from watching a production of the monologues or from reading the book. They can learn valuable lessons that are applicable throughout everyday life. One of the biggest things I took from the book was a new found love and appreciation for myself and other women.

Women have overcome so many struggles, from not having the right to vote, to finally being accepted in the workplace that it is disgusting that women still are being mistreated. Not just solely by the hands of a man, but by society in general. Ensler touches on the many instances where women have been wronged; from women being used as sex slaves,  women being sexually mutilated, and etc.

Women are seen as sexual beings and not for what they truly are HUMANS, with red blood, hot breath, with arms and legs. We should all take a stand and care for the rights of women!

Vaginas, Cunt, or Pussy

For Ensler, language is important? Why? What does it matter what we call body parts? What is the importance of language in defining sexuality, bodies, etc.? Why do you think she asks those questions about what vaginas would wear, etc? What is she trying to do with that?

For Eve Ensler author of the Vagina Monologues language is an important topic because there are so many names that women have adopted to name their lower extremity. And as children you don't question the name that your mother gives yours until you have reached adulthood. Regardless if whether it is Cunt, Goodies, Vagina, or Coochie; but these very names are what defines the character of your vagina or if whether you embrace having one or not.

Ensler has a reason to why she is interested in questioning women about what their vaginas would wear, I feel this question is valuable because whatever the women may select speaks loudly about how that women defines herself. Lets say for instance that the women may respond that her vagina wears diamond jewelry. That woman feels highly of herself.

The questions she asks the women she interviews also serve as a way to have the women question herself. Woman don't quite often sit down and talk about their vaginas with one another as if it is a secret that they have one. A vagina is what anatomically defines who we are. If you have a concise definintion as to what defines you, then it is easier to answer those questions.

Night Women

Tonight I chose to blog about Edwidge Danticat’s story Night Women. It gives you an inside look to the harrowing tale of a twenty-five year old Haitian woman who is prostituting to provide for herself and her young son. Although the mother is trying to maintain her child’s innocence by not truly conveying to him her true occupation, she is running her “business” next to her young son’s bed as he sleeps.

This night in particular she allows him to sleep in his Sunday’s clothes, and her scarf that she uses to lure her ‘angel’s’. She tells him she gets made up before bedtime because she’s waiting for an angel to come. She worries he’ll someday find out the truth, especially as she sees him becoming older and more sexually aware. Sexually aware in the aspect that he mimics the sexual groans and moans he hears her and her ‘angels’ make awhile he sleeps.  

If he ever wakes to find her with one of her regular married men, she will tell him it’s his father, visiting for one night. Now, for me to not be a mother myself I try not to past judgment upon what one has to do in order to keep her family intact, but I just feel that that is a wrong move all together.

But Danticat’s protagonist has an interesting perspective on the situation, “And as long as there’s work, they will not have to lie next to the lifeless soul of a man whose scent lingers in another woman’s bed.” I feel that this line alone speaks more of painful experiences that she has with men in general. She must feel that she has no other choice but to do what she is doing.

A reoccurring theme throughout the novel is women and their ability to keep going in times of despair.

Arabic Coffee

After I read the poem Arabic Coffee, by Naomi Shihab Nye I was compelled to Google the phrase how to prepare Arabic coffee, and I was directed to a page that described in elaborate detail what the process is to make Arabic coffee, as Nye did in her poem from the beginning of the second stanza until the conclusion of the poem.I believe that Nye used her poem Arabic coffee so show that there is a commonality between the American and the Arabic Cultures, although after 9/11 some Americans adopted an ethnocentric attitude towards the Arabians; believing that the American culture is better than the Arabian culture.

The poem is clandestinely using the preparation and serving of Arabic coffee as a way to rhetorically juxtapose that idea that spending time with family is known universally to man. This is a reoccurring theme in, Father and The Figtree, The Words under the Words, My Grandmother in the Stars.

In the first stanza she is dictating to her father how to make the coffee so that the audience is aware of the process as well. She is also demanding that he tells her more family stories as he has done so throughout the years. The family must gather together and drink coffee to talk about things. Ending that stanza stating, how luck lives in a spot of grounds, Arabic coffee must be one thing that completes her being.
In the second stanza there was a line that captured my attention it says, No sugar in his pot. I believe that sentence has a deeper meaning. I believe that she is capturing her father as a strong man, stating that he is not sweet.

Her poem signifies not only the glorification of a strong familial bond, she also is stressing that Americans should throw their ethnocentric ideas out the door.

19 Varieties of Gazelle

The Gazelle

I decided to write an analysis of the poem 19 Varieties of Gazelle, by Naomi Shihab Nye. The interesting thing about it is, upon my initial reading of the poem I thought a gazelle was some type of bird. Then I Goggled images of gazelle, and to my amazement they favor deer’s. This bought together the whole poem for me. Deer’s have this peaceful grace to their existence (that they allow humans to see anyway). So I drew that as a commonality between gazelles and deer’s based upon Nye's description of them being elegant, graceful.

Nye uses the gazelle as her protagonist of this poem to elude peace, and she is contrasting their existence with the negativity in society. I feel that as the poem progresses the reader starts to question how can an animal so peaceful exist in a society where there we lack humility, there's a tenfold of violence, and no type of sanity.

She takes the reader on an adventure in the seeking of peace on a path on a small sandy island, asking the reader to let go of their adversaries and go.  That is evident is lines 22-26 where some island keeper is trying to convince her not to chase the gazelle, because they have gone too far. But that did not stop her from taking the journey.

In lines 27-30 she is taking the reader on the actual journey, she and this other person is hiking and come across the Tree of Life, which emphasizes the gazelle’s path of grace. But then she raises the point that society begets society, she photographs a sign that reads, “Keep to the Path.” Reading that line signifies that society is not peaceful because nobody ever decides to travel the road not taken, they just stick to the script; because they do not know any better.  

But as the poem is coming to an end she asks the reader rhetorical questions to bring focus back to the gazelle. In line 33-34, she asks, “Does a gazelle have a path? Is the whole air the path of the gazelle?” These lines serve as reinforcers for us to continue to question why we as human do not seek peace and we have an amenity that gazelles do not possess; a voice.

The poem was very powerful to me…

Why: By Unknown

Why are we ignorant
To the things that we do
Like Black on Black crime
From the violence we brew
Why do we wear
Our pants hanging low
Like ghetto-ish bums
In a circus freak showWhy do we curse
And cuss like we do
And talk in Ebonics
Like the slaves use to do

Over four hundred years
Of shame and disgrace
We use the "N" word
Like no other race

Why do we leave
Our young ones alone
No family like structure
No house to call home

Why can't we prosper
Like Immigrants do
Who came here with nothing
And pave their way through

Why do we live
Such drug hungry lives
With gangsters and thugs
Packing guns and sharp knives

We seem to enjoy
Life on the streets
We work those slave jobs
Where pay is dirt-cheap

We live a life style
Of roach broken homes
Where trash and graffiti
And rats seem to roam

We don't get involve
In political laws
Nor do we vote out
Laws that have flaws

We're exploiting our music
With our sexual drive
Degrading our women
And destroying their lives

Our schools become jails
That we seem to fill
Like thieves in the night
We learn how to steal

So why can't we learn
Constructible skills
And walk the right path
To conquer all hills

Why can't we start
A new kind of trend
As Doctors and Scholars
And Builders of men

Why can't we sharpen
Our minds and technique
And show the whole world
That we are unique

Why can't we come
Together as one
So No one can say
That we were born dumb

Why can't we break
This bondage we keep
This hole that's been dug
So low and so deep

Why must we feel
It's been too many years
Wearing these chains
Of blood sweat and tears

And why can't we send
Our kids off to college
Its always been known
That strength comes from knowledge

We are destine to lose
This destruction of doom
The road of dead ends
These shadows of gloom

I pray we could change
These things we do wrong
For it's tough being Black
And hard to stay strong

This poem was chosen because it ids something I came across that caught my attention as I was looking for poems to embrace the African American culture. Although this poem may create an image that most may frown upon, I am in love with this poem because it is describing a real epidemic and shedding some light on relevant issues in the African American community. If more people spoke out about them as this anonymous author did, then maybe we will see some changes being made within the community. But until then the community will continue to destroy itself, because people will not do better until they know they need to change.