Changes is one of the best written songs of the century

Changes by Tupac Shakur is considered to be one of the greatest and well written rap songs ever. Tupac chases a lot of major issues in this topic, he really raps from his heart about the oppression of African Americans in the United States, how they are always depicted to be criminals and how they are always abused by the police for drug use. Tupac does also talk about the hatred and lack of unity among the African American community and it's residents. He talks about how many African Americans are just forced to go into drugs to get by in life and that there is no other choice.

In the beginning of the song, the first verse. Tupac talks about how he sees no changes in his African American community. He sets the stage of the African American community as being one that is filled with poverty and corruption. He notes that being an African American that there is no choice but to go into criminal like habits such as stealing and drug dealing.First ship 'em dope and let 'em deal to brothers. This line signifies how he takes the stance of an African American being forced into dealing. Tupac also talks about how African Americans must see each other as "brothers" and not some "distant strangers" since the community is completely split apart and no one looks out for one another. He continually repeats that there are no "changes" and wants people to change for their own good. He repeats "I see no changes" twice which displays the use of an anaphora. The anaphora helps 2pac try to get into his black target audience on the fact that he doesn't see them moving further from what they are and that they have to change their lives and habits. He also uses an allusion as he refers to a man named Huey and he uses him in the first verse as an example of the disparity among the people in the African American community as he refers to Huey being dead again. The bridge of the song is portrayed as a sort of inner voice as the inner voice states that what Tupac wants to change will not and that we African Americans can't control the disparity in the community.

In the 2nd verse, Tupac brings White Americans into his song and he compares them to African Americans. 'Cause both black and white are smokin' crack tonight he Tupac here shows that white and black Americans are the same and no ethnicity is particularly superior to the other. He continues to bring up that African Americans are really doing things the wrong way and he brings up how the "penitiary" is packed and it is "filled with blacks" which shows that it is the ultimate sign on how they have suffered and what the causes of their actions have resulted into. Tupac also says that the onlt time "we chill is when we kill eachother". This takes into account the negative part of his community and shows how violent it is because people are being shot on the streets in African American neighborhoods everyday. Tupac does have a realistic view as he realizes that some things may not change as a lot of African Americans are into drugs and not even the slightest bit close to realizing their flaws.

The 3rd verse is a sort of motivation as Tupac is constantly reminding his fellow African Americans that our current lifestyle is not acceptable and if we continue to live this way, bad things will keep on piling up. He wants them to really change because he knows that on this path, they will continue to be oppressed, hated on and in the news for all the wrong reasons. The 4th verse, Tupac talks about the government focusing more on drugs than on the poverty in the African American community. He tells the members of the community to stay independent as they are clearly not in safe hands and that white people will continue to oppress them as being the drug deals of society. Rat-ta-ta-ta! is an onomatopoeia in the song that he uses in the end to signify the violence in the community with the simple sound of a gun shot. Overall I believe that Changes is one of the best songs ever written because Tupac speaks out about his own neighbourhood and where he came from and he explains the truth on how his community really has a lot of corruption. He is very realistic as he sees that some of their oppression is a bit overstated but at the same time Tupac realizes how his community is far from perfect and has many issues which need to resolved or else everything could be going downhill. I respect the way Tupac comes out and admits the truth on all that has gone wrong with this community and it is one of the few rap songs that I genuinely like. Tupac really calls out his community for a change and he tackles one of the biggest issues in America.

Losing his identity

Overall, it has been a good summer break for me aside from how fast it went, which annoys me. I went to New York City in July and spent a whole month there. I really enjoyed it there as I did all the usual things like go to Central Park, Rockefeller, Empire State Building, see a play on Broadway and then yeah so many other things as well.

In New York, I was able to see many ads on billboards especially in Times Square where women were being objectified. There I could remember about the objectification of women discussion we were having in class. I was able to see so much cultural diversity in New York as I met people working at different places who emigrated to New York City from India, China, Italy, Zimbabwe etc. This really got me thinking on the cultural emigration of people coming from less developed countries and going to more developed countries and starting a completely new generation and life in a more developed place. I was in a taxi with my family and we were talking to these taxi driver who emigrated from Ghana to United States and how he goes 6 months every year back there to meet his wife and kids living in Ghana. He was explaining how much of a struggle it is for people migrating from one place to another and how he himself has left his culture behind when living in New York. I remember that he stated he is losing his cultural identity of being Ghanaian and how he doesn't like that matter.

New York City really took the cultural diversity I saw too another level and this was really linkable to the first few things I learned in IB language and literature. 

Price Discriminated

When I was in New York. I went to a small flea market in Manhattan. There I saw two separate individuals buying coffee mugs. One was an African American man who was fluent in English while another was a Chinese woman who seemed to have limited English speaking skills as I saw her talk to some of the people working there about the prices and everything. What I saw was that the African American man and that Chinese woman were buying the exact same mug. I don't remember how much that mug cost honestly but I remember that it was pretty cheap of course since it is a mug.

I saw the African American guy purchase it first for a certain price and then I saw the Chinese woman buy it but this time for a larger price as the man running the stall charged extra to her. I realized immediately that he was able to take advantage of her limited English and charge her extra because she would be unable to realize the price difference. He succeeded after all and this moment reminded me about how difficult it is to live in countries that have a heavy emphasis on the English language and how in certain situations it can be a weakness exposed. The woman had absolutely no clue in this instance and I realized how much of a disadvantage not knowing a native language could be.

Since I speak English, I tend to forget how much of an advantage it is to know the English language and I forget often to see the other side of the picture and see how it can be a huge problem if one doesn't know English as they can be taken advantage of in the smallest of situations such as the coffee mug. Learning a language like English, which tends to have a good portion of speakers in nearly every country in the world really does help you be aware of your surroundings and helps us get through the simplest of situations with ease. This also links me back to the power of English over other languages as I have been to China before and been able to get through successfully by just knowing English and not knowing its main language which is Chinese but in places like USA or Australia you cannot get through by not knowing its main language. Really shows the power of the language.

How to Write About Indians

Make sure the Indian people work in  the call center, run a small run down grocery store or work as doctors (that's if you want to portray them as being rich). If you want to portray them as being on the poor end (which is most of the time) then option 1 and 2 are the answers, feel free to use any of them. They have to smell bad and wear dirty clothes most of the time. When they speak, their heads should be shaking all the time as if it is some sort of wobbly bobble head.

Most of the time, make them live in poverty. Make them the people who are oppressed and victims of all the bad things that happen. Don't make them as the center of the attention though, just make them as part of the people who are lost in the overpopulate crowd of Indians. Their language is Indian, no other language there exists. There are in reality 100s and 100s of languages spoken in India but just presume it's just one and it's called Indian (despite the fact that Indian is not even a language itself). Also, let your audience know about their religion. Let them know that each and every single Indian is a Hindu and doesn't eat beef. Not a single one is neither of the two or else they are extraterrestrial.

They only eat curry that's it and each and every single thing they put in their body, it's always going to be spicy no matter what. They are always your tech people who will help out in repairing your laptops. If they can't do that....then I can guess they aren't really Indian right?. If you are looking at Indian the country, make sure that Indians are riding elephants on the streets not cars because that is something that makes them very special. They don't play or watch anything aside from cricket, their national sport is hockey but no.....it's all cricket, make sure they live and breath cricket and that if cricket died, Indians wouldn't exist.

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They got really tough parents, don't they. If they get 98 out of 100 and top marks in their class, their parents will hit them and not be happy because they missed out on just 2 marks!. They are forced to marry people they have never seen in their life before which makes them unlucky of course. They are always getting the best marks in school yet their parents aren't happy, gotta make sure every young Indian is like that. They all watch Bollywood, make them watch and love the typical Bollywood movies and make them ignorant towards Hollywood and not know what Hollywood even is. They got these strong accents too, their accents are the laughing stock among all accents and make every Indian's accent extremely thick and incorporate the head shaking part to it of course!.

This is how you should talk about Indians, if you don't do it like this then I have no idea what kind of people Indians actually are.

Paper 2 style response, How does Things Fall Apart conform to or deviate from, the conventions of a particular genre, and for what purpose?

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is an award winning and acclaimed novel about the struggles of Africans during the period of colonization. Things Fall Apart does deviate at times away from it's main genre but it also in many stretches of the book, shows the traits of being a historical fiction book or a tragedy story.

Achebe uses realism in his story to create his fictional characters and he uses a realistic approach when illustrating how the characters interact with one another throughout the story. Achebe puts the real and true values of the Igbo culture and components/pieces of the culture to get his message across. The kola nuts, beatings of Okonkwo's wives, crime and it's consequences, harvesting and marriage all show the realistic components of the Igbo Culture. The relationship between Okonkwo and his wives show how in reality people in the Igbo Culture behave with their wives. Achebe makes good use as well of the roles each character has in the film as it adds a very deft touch to the novel and makes the novel flow more towards a realistic historical type of fiction. Differentiating between what Igbo men and women had to do and what their roles were in their respective daily lives shows how realistic this story is. These components make the novel look like a very realistic fiction overall.

On the other side of the story, Achebe makes his novel look more like a tragedy and something that is more fictional overall. Achebe creates a lot of moments which overall affect Okonkwo's personality and he goes on to show throughout the story the decline of Okonkwo and all the problems he is facing. From almost shooting his wife, killing Ikemefuna, Killing Ezeudu's son and to all the way hanging himself at the end of the story, Okonkwo has been portrayed as a very much tragic hero in the story which makes the book look more like a tragedy. Okonkwo starts off being the top man in his town of Umuofia, he is portrayed as the complete person, a man who is a top wrestler and has the most wives which thus makes him to be one of if not the most wealthy people in Umuofia. Okonkwo's demise then starts to begin from internal problems with his family in the beginning to then overall problems with his town and nation. These components make the book seem more like a tragic story as it focuses more on the life of one person and how it declined rapidly compared to focusing on collectively the entire town of Umuofia as a whole.

The novel can also have a view on it's history and historical context overall. The novel does focus soon on the missionaries from England coming to Nigeria and colonizing them. In reality the same colonization period did occur as missionaries came from England to Nigeria and colonized them. Things Fall Apart can have a purpose on showing the effects of colonization and some of the impacts of it on people in Nigeria. Although many of the characters in the novel took the colonization very lightly, Okonkwo didn't and was completely shocked on how Umuofia changed. The novel can show the negative impacts of colonization through the character Okonkwo alone.

There are many different perspectives overall on seeing what is the mian genre of the book Things Fall Apart. Achebe overall doesn't set a particular genre to have in this book but he clearly wants the book to encompass all the various components in his mind from elements of Igbo culture to the colonization and he wants to make the book more suitable to audiences from all over the world so that they can relate to the book in one way or another compared to making it only suitable and relatable to people of his own culture.

Why Things Fell Apart

When I think about how my town crumbled, all I can think of is one word. Okonkwo. My best friend, my brother, he was the reason why Umuofia crumbled. I still love Okonkwo but I feel that he always looked at the negative side of things. I always tried to give him advice about what to do or try to help him think in deeper context but he didn't listen to me very much. I know I am not always right but I knew some of the advice that I gave Okonkwo could have worked out in his favour and I really wish he listened but at the same time one cannot change another person's actions and behaviour. I couldn't control Okonkwo nor anyone.

Our place was colonized by the British missionaries but it doesn't mean all was bad. Mr Brown was a very helpful person, a figure of whom I appreciated.  They built a church for us and they built a school but sure there were the downsides, our religion was lost in the fog as we had to move into Christianity. Okonkwo I feel overreacted, killing himself was way too far. It is a move that is regarded by our culture as a disgrace, killing your own body and soul is a huge sign of weakness and disgrace in our native Igbo culture. Okonkwo should have just realized that we were not the richest nation nor one of the most powerful places in the world and that we would easily been beaten by a Western nation that came to colonize us and rule us. I knew that there was nothing we could do about it, our culture is strong internally, we have formed a great bond and foundation but on the outside we are nothing in power compared to Britain so it was no surprise they took us by storm.

Okonkwo was a great human being, he was the complete man of Umuofia but he never really looked at many things in a positive way. Okonkwo could have seen all the actions in a more positive light but he took things too seriously, he had a pessimistic attitude. Sadly ever since he left us, our inner bond among his fellow people, among my fellow people has just fallen. His death has caused our culture to break into pieces, it is all shattered just like glass. I don't know if our culture can ever be the same again, our pieces are still there but they are broken, they have fallen apart and right now.....I cannot find a solution on how we can attach them and bring it all together.

Social Status in Things Fall Apart

Paper 2 Style Response, Things Fall Apart

The social status is an important theme in the book Things Fall Apart. From the opening of the book, Okonkwo and his father Unoka are both introduced. Okonkwo is shown to be the top of the social class as he is the most famous person in his town, the best wrestler and the strongest. His father Unoka on the other hand is shown to be on the bottom of the social class. Unoka represents a person of negative qualities throughout the book constantly, he was in debt, his life was heading downwards as he was constantly producing failures with his farming and he never seemed to have been able to settle somewhere properly. Unoka was a man who had no titles while Okonkwo was the one who did have titles as he overthrew the undefeated Amalinze the Cat to become the top wrestler of his town.

Unoka’s failures and laziness were the big reasons why he was on the bottom of the social class in the town of Umuofia. The Igbo believed that a person had to work hard, persevere and not be lazy if they wanted to reach the top of the social class. Okonkwo did just that as he worked hard since day 1 and persevered throughout his life as he went through the peaks and troughs of his life but always came out strong in the end. Okonkwo was a very successful warrior throughout the story. A very successful person in the story, one who is on top of the social order was represented to be someone who had won titles, had several wives, was able to farm successfully and be able to have enough money to afford things their wives and children wanted to have. Okonkwo clearly had all of these traits covered which already proves that he was able to be a person who was of very high social class. Social class clearly played a big theme as Unoka’s failures and his presence at the bottom of the social class were clear reasons why Okonkwo wanted to better him and become successful.

Looking at Okonkwo’s relationship with his children, it can be seen that his relationship with Nwyoe is rather negative. This is because he sees Nwoye as very feminine like and he sees him just as a younger version of his own father so therefore he feels that Nwoye is someone who in the future will be on the bottom of the social class. When we see Okonkwo’s relationship with Ezinma, he sees Ezinma having all the qualities of what the Igbo tribe perceives to be of a rather successful person. This plays a part in what makes Ezinma Okonkwo’s favourite as we sees him as someone who will be a top class person in the future.

Another example is Okonkwo’s wife. When his 3^rd wife goes away to get her hair done thus leaving Okonwkwo’s children all alone, this enrages Okonkwo which thus leads him into beating his wife. Okonkwo’s wife gets beaten by Okonkwo himself which overall lowers her social status as she is inferior to her own husband Okonkwo and cannot be seen on the same social platform as Okonkwo. Social status also applies to Obguefi Ezeudu as with his powerful role in the book, he is already viewed as someone very powerful in the society thus he is seen as a person of higher class. Okonkwo views Ezeudu as a powerful person and treats him with a lot of respect showing that Ezeudu is in the same class as him.

Okonkwo’s social power does decline as the missionaries come into Umuofia and overtake the entire village. Okonkwo then starts to experience an emotional decline as he starts to lose control over himself and he accidentally kills Ezeudu’s son. When Okonkwo was once considered to be on top of the social order, he held himself with great pride and was had control over his emotions and was the epitome of “masculinity”. Once he started to lose control over himself and started to lose some of his “masculinity”, Okonkwo started to experience a downfall as his own Igbo values started to desert him more and thus his social status value started to plummet in the end.

The overall social status in the book plays a big part towards the characterization as majority of the characters personality traits and relationship with Okonkwo is defined by their place in the social order.