Window or Mirror?


Window or Mirror? What does this mean? Well, when you read a book, are you looking into a completely new world (window), or realizing you see part of yourself into the story (mirror).

When I read the book “The Black Friend,” I didn’t see how I reflected myself in the story, but I saw my world in the story. I never knew the racism people experienced was this bad, to the point where the author almost got killed for it.

I think this would be a mirror, because I’ve definitely seen things like this happen in real life, like George Floyd and others. So I think this is part mirror, but also part window, because this has never happened to me personally.

But when I look into the world of Frederick Joseph, I mostly see a window, because I am part of the privileged white people he talks about. But I don’t think this means the book can not be a mirror for me. I think that there are people who would hate me for supporting BLM, or for going to a BLM rally. I’ve never experienced racism towards myself, but I’ve definitely seen it happen, which is why I am debating the fact of whether this book is a window or a mirror for me.

There are reasons this book is a mirror, and for the next couple paragraphs, I’ll describe them, starting with my time at Washington DC.

When I was there, I witnessed a rally where there were racist people there, though I wish I hadn’t. People were standing there supporting a racist person, which makes them inherently racist. Or with the incident at the Capitol. People were doing this because they did not want someone with a part Jamaican and part Indian Vice President to be elected, and though it might not have been for that reason, for a lot of people in certainly was.

I have also seen people with a flag supporting a movement that supports racist beliefs, if you can understand that. And while these things are bad, this is their choice, and nowadays it’s hard to change peoples minds, especially adults.  And I’m disappointed in the fact that that still happens these days, and I hope to be the generation that puts a stop to that. I think we can accomplish that because our generation is still young and impressionable. So I hope to be able to change the racism that older generations have inflicted onto us.

There are also reasons that this book is not a mirror and more a window, and I don’t think I have to go into the reasons of that, but I will.

I am part of the dominant culture. And I have not really experienced racism towards myself, which is the biggest reason I think that this book is a mirror, and why I would never say that I am oppressed as much as other people, such as women and men of color. I don’t think I need to go into much more detail than that, because I cannot relate to the kind of racism the Frederick Joseph  experiences in this book, and I never will. But I will try to make this book more of a mirror to me, because I don’t want to be racist, and I don’t want to be one of the people Mr. Joseph talks about in his book. Thank you.

My New Daily Habit

     For my January daily habit, I did push ups because I thought I was okay at them. In the middle of January, I changed my daily habits a few times, because at first it was too easy and then it was too hard. But eventually, I got to a good tempo, and it was a good experience. And at the end of January, I thought I could always improve, so why not continue push ups in February?

     I realized halfway through that I was doing the push ups wrong, and so that made it harder, and I had to make the daily habit progress slower, and I made the number of push ups I was doing go up every two days.

     Of course there were challenges when I did the daily habit, and one of them was, of course, doing the push ups wrong. This was a big inconvenience because I had to re do the whole way I was doing the challenge, and it made it harder. I did find a way to do the push ups that was good for me, though, and eventually, I overcame the challenge.

     I really liked doing my daily habit, because not only am I a lot better at push ups now, I’m also better at pushing MYSELF. Daily push ups helped me do push ups better, and it gave me the experience of doing a daily habit, and I really liked that. The sense of gratification that came over me when I finished the daily habit was part of the reason that I continued the same daily habit into February.