Modern Day Puritan

Although Puritanism doesn't exist as a religion any more, many traits and values have been passed down and made a part of other religions and common principles.
          The Puritans believed that a single mistake in life could cast you down in hell and out of God's favor forever. Nowadays, religions are a lot more lenient about repenting for sins and confessing so that you may have a clear conscience once again. I personally am not religious so there's not much I can say about this without stepping into unknown territory. But I can say that I haven't a lot of the straight-as-a-ruler laws of Puritanism in modern society.
          While we do have some rules that aren't as bendable as others, they're nowhere as harsh as those of the Puritans. For example, in the book The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne committed adultery and while she got off with what seemed like a simple punishment, some of the townspeople were saying that she should be put in jail or hanged for it. Whooa, nellie that's super extreme. In our society, cheating is certainly frowned upon, but it's not something you can be arrested for! (Usually..)
          That's another thing. Hanging. I'm not too caught up on the different ways death penalties are carried out but I think death by hanging isn't one of them anymore. Let alone to have it done in front of the entire town for everyone to come watch. That's just absolutely barbaric. This doesn't only apply to the Puritans though. Back in ye olden days hanging and decapitation witnessed by ruthless, bloodthirsty townspeople was the norm and I'm so glad that's been shunned since then.
          Most of the traces of Puritanism is gone from our society these days but there are still some values that have been passed down and altered. We have come up with new, more-but definitely not completely-humane ways of dealing with breaking the law or rules of a religion. And I'm sure down the road there will be people analyzing how primitive our society is as well.

Proctor...Hero or Stooge?

          Definitely a herooge. Stooro? Whatever you might call it, I think John Proctor was both a hero and a stooge.
          John was a stooge in the way that all men are stooges. He was an idiot, not cognitively but in his mindset. He did foolish things without thinking about the later consequences. However each (well, maybe most) of his actions were brave and were done with good intention.
          Proctor's affair with Abigail? Foolish. I'm not sure what went on before Act I between them or how she may have been appealing. But she was not at all attractive while wildly accusing her rivals of witchcraft. Abigail was crazy bonkers no doubt about it. Like I said though, men are generally idiots so maybe Proctor just couldn't help himself and couldn't see past her pretty face. His wife was pretty cold and whether or not all of her shrewdness resulted from the affair, their marriage didn't seem all that happy. So this could be another factor of John running into another's arms.
          Standing up to the unfair justice system for himself as well as countless innocent others? Heroic. It's clear that no one who was accused was really guilty of witchcraft. However, everyone was encourages to admit to it anyway to same themselves from hanging. Obviously there's something wrong with that logic. When Proctor was accused he remained vigil and would not confess. He had a last minute panic and falsely admitted to performing witchcraft but he soon saw how he could not live with the lie and would rather die with the truth. Although Proctor was murdered, he spoke up against the insane court system and the people who confessed to a crime they did not committ and then blamed an innocent person to save their own skin.

Arrivals...There Goes the Neighborhood

As Chicagoans, we pride ourselves on being integrated and "color blind" and anything else we might say to boast about acceptance of many different races and cultures. But we couldn't be more wrong. 

          To look at our city and say we're integrated is mind-blowing to me. When someone says "south side", what do you think? Do you think, oh yeah south side, what a nice neighborhood, I remember when those little girls sold me girl scout cookies. No! You think the ghetto, the bad neighborhood, that's where all the black people shoot it up. And it's the same thing for north side, to a lesser extent. North side is where all the white people live, it's clean and perfect and nothing bad ever happens. Both of these stereotypes are incredibly wrong, of course, and I can say I understand that but that doesn't mean I can help but think them anyway. 

          And no one can. These are things that have pounded into us since birth, maybe not intentionally but they've been there. We've all been little kids making racist jokes (we probably still do) and repeating what we've heard our parents saying as if we know we know what we're talking about.  I was raised in a pretty mixed environment, being mixed myself my family is very accepting. I went to a diverse elementary school and now I'm in a diverse high school. Walking around the city you can people from so many different places. I was never really exposed to segregated neighborhoods or "real" racism. My friends and I talk about racism like it was thing from 50 years ago, completely unaware that it still lives and in our own city no less. 

          Before we bought a house, my mom and I lived in a three floor town house in a mostly Puerto Rican neighborhood. I remember my mom walking into the house with one of the last small boxes from the car. Two older women walked by speaking in Spanish and they kept glancing at my mom and me on the porch. I don't speak Spanish but I understand it a little so all I caught was "them moving in" and "just the beginning of". My mom does speak Spanish because she needs to for her job and she had obviously understood all of it. She stopped short and looked down at the box. The look on her face was unforgettable. The women saw that my mom heard them and they quickened their pace past our house and stopped talking.  

          As Chicagoans we pride ourselves on being mixed and accepting even though when you take a step back you can see the neighborhood boundaries. We think of ourselves progressive and to an extent it's true. But we actually spread ourselves out, every time someone moves in who doesn't look like us, all can we can think is "there goes the neighborhood." 

Me

     Hi!  My name is Calista Brown and I'm a freshman at Whitney Young High School. I'm also a frackie and we have a pretty bad rep. I hope to do well in this class because English is my best subject and writing is my favorite thing to do. Um so this is supposed to be a blog about "who I am" right? Well, my favorite color is blue, my hair is really hard to manage and I love cats. Big cat, domestic cats, any kind you can think of. I hope I'm reincarnated into a fluffy kitty when I die:3 Anywho I'm a really big procrastinator and one of my biggest goals this year is to spread my workload out a little more evenly. I tend to work harder on assignments that I like and they usually turn out better that way. I'm excited for this year but as usual I'm also really nervous about my classes and all of the work we'll have to do. I'm not sure exactly what I want to be when I grow up nor do I know what college I want to go to but my mom says she plans on going back to school to get her master's when I go to college. She always says we're going to go to the same school and be roomies and best friends the whole time....fun times. I'm looking forward to a lot of things this year and I'm going to try to enjoy high school a lot. Everyone always says that these were the best years of their lives and not to let them go by too quickly without getting everything I can out of them. So let this be the beginning of a great four years:D