RR to Poetry (final)

“The red emblem of michael looked as if it could fly”.  This is one of the many examples Reg Gaines, author of the poem “Please Don’t Take My Air Jordans”, uses to show how Air Jordans taunt people.  Gaines uses the importance of Air Jordans in the poem as symbolism.
Kids have always cared about their looks, but kids now, have taken it to another level.  Kids now a days feel like they have to dress up nicely.  And they don’t do it to impress girls, they do it to make sure they don’t get bullied.  A part of dressing up well, is the sneakers you wear.  If you’re not wearing a brand shoe like Nike, Jordan, Adidas, that’s eighty dollars or more, you’re most likely to get picked on.  There’s a flip side to that as well.  If you’re wearing a flashy sneaker, or a pair that stand out, you run the risk of being jumped by someone who wants them.  People are very greedy these days, and will do anything to look good.
The main character in this poem murders an innocent person for their new Air Jordans.  The main character is a teenager in poverty who lacks the money to buy expensive nice looking clothes.  In the beginning of the poem, the character is looking for new sneakers because is current ones are worn out and ratty-looking.  The speaker uses similes to show how much the character cares about his looks on the outside:  “but I really must get some new gear soon/or my ego will pop like a ten cent balloon”(Gaines 17-18).  The character decides he’ll have to murder someone for a new pair of “fly” shoes.  He then proceeds to ditch school and find his victim at the park.  Almost immediately he spots sneakers he likes, plain white Air Jordans.  He chases down the owner of the pair of Air Jordans, and shoots him in broad daylight.  Afterward he shows no sympathy at all, “the very next day I bopped into school/ with my brand new Air Jordans man I was cool/ I killed to get them but hey...I don’t care”(49-51).
I can make connections between “Please Don’t Take My Air Jordans” and incidents in real life.  In the poem, the main character killed someone to get his Jordans.  In real life there have been many cases where someone was murdered over exclusive, or new Jordan brand sneakers.      Two years ago a young man was murdered in Houston over his newly purchased Air Jordans.  According to the article “2 Charged In Killing Over Air Jordans”, “Neal Bland, 18, and Kegan Arrington, 19 are charged in the Dec. 21 shooting of Joshua Wood...”.  Bland and Arrington were both very young adults at the time and they committed a murder!  None the less over Air Jordans!
After reading this poem, I realized that the situation the main character put himself in sounded so familiar because you always here something like that happening on news when a limited edition Jordan sneaker releases to the public.  We care so much about these sneakers that we forget about the more important things in life, like how we are as people on the inside not the outside.  Hopefully readers can learn from this poem, and stop caring about how they look so much.

Christian, Carol. "2 Charged in Killing over Air Jordans." Houston Chronicle. Hearst Newspapers, 29 Dec. 2012. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.

RR to poem draft #1

“The red emblem of michael looked as if it could fly”.  This is one of the many examples Reg Gaines, author of the poem Please Don’t Take My Air Jordans, uses to show how Air Jordans taunt people.  Gaines uses the importance of Air Jordans in the poem as symbolism.

Kids have always cared about their looks, but kids now, have taken it to another level.  Kids now a days feel like they have to dress up nicely.  And they don’t do it to impress girls, they do it to make sure they don’t get bullied.  A part of dressing up well, is the sneakers you wear.  If you’re not wearing a brand shoe like Nike, Jordan, Adidas, that’s eighty dollars or more, you’re most likely to get picked on.  There’s a flip side to that as well.  If you’re wearing a flashy sneaker, or a pair that stand out, you run the risk of being jumped by someone who wants them.  People are very greedy these days, and will do anything to look good.

The main character in this poem murders an innocent person for their new Air Jordans.  The main character is a teenager in poverty who lacks the money to buy expensive nice looking clothes.  In the beginning of the poem, the character is looking for new sneakers because is current ones are worn out and ratty-looking.  The speaker uses similes to show how much the character cares about his looks on the outside:  “but I really must get some new gear soon/or my ego will pop like a ten cent balloon”(Gaines 17-18).  The character decides he’ll have to murder someone for a new pair of “fly” shoes.  He then proceeds to ditch school and find his victim at the park.  Almost immediately he spots sneakers he likes, plain white Air Jordans.  He chases down the owner of the pair of Air Jordans, and shoots him in broad daylight.  Afterward he shows no sympathy at all, “the very next day I bopped into school/ with my brand new Air Jordans man I was cool/ I killed to get them but hey...I don’t care”(49-51).

I can make connections between Please Don’t Take My Air Jordans and incidents in real life.  In the poem, the main character killed someone to get his Jordans.  In real life there have been many cases where someone was murdered over exclusive, or new Jordan brand sneakers.      Two years ago a young man was murdered in Houston over his newly purchased Air Jordans.  According to the article 2 Charged In Killing Over Air Jordans “Neal Bland, 18, and Kegan Arrington, 19 are charged in the Dec. 21 shooting of Joshua Wood...”.  Bland and Arrington were both very young adults at the time and they committed a murder!  None the less over Air Jordans!  You see, this type of stuff happens in real life too.

After reading this poem, I realized that the situation the main character put himself in sounded so familiar because you always here something like that happening on news when a limited edition Jordan sneaker releases to the public.  We care so much about these sneakers that we forget about the more important things in life, like how we are as people on the inside not outside.  Hopefully readers can learn from this poem, and stop caring so much.

Christian, Carol. "2 Charged in Killing over Air Jordans." Houston Chronicle. Hearst Newspapers, 29 Dec. 2012. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.

RR to "The Garden Of Beasts"

The Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson, makes me think about how unfair justice is in this world.  I haven’t finished this book, but so far a lot of injustice has been performed.  This book is set around World War 2 (WWⅡ), in Berlin, the capital of Germany.  There was a lot of horrible acts committed by Nazis toward Jews in Germany during this time period.  None of the Nazis where punished for these acts though.
I’m less than halfway through the book, so the Nazis haven’t decided to terminate all Jews in Germany yet, but they have decided to make it a priority to publicly embarrass all Jews.  In one instance when a Nazi parade was happening, an innocent bystander was attacked by a group of Nazis because he looked Jewish (Larson 104).  Also the police where two feet away from the incident, but ignored the man’s pleas for help, and instead smirked down at him.  These two police didn’t care about the man.  In fact they where so amused by him getting beaten up, that they failed to do their job, protect people from crime.  The Nazis specifically targeted Edgar A. Mowrer, a reporter for the Chicago Daily News at the time.  They wanted him out of the country so much “They followed his friends and made threats against his bureau staff.” (75).  Mowrer eventually had to leave for his own safety, but it was against his own will.  The only reason the Nazis were angry with him was he wrote the book, Germany Puts the Clock Back, which talked about how the Nazi regime was a horrible thing for Germany and its people.  This book said the truth, and Nazis despised it for that.  They were scared people would read it and actually listen to what the book said, turning everyone against them.
What they did to the Jews during that time was so unfair.  The Nazis discriminated against the Jews just because they believed Jews were evil and bad for Germany.  The only reason this stupid belief even happened was because Adolf Hitler needed someone to blame the depression Germany was going through on.  Hitler led a Nazi regime of terror, distrust, and violence that no one tried to stop until the damage was done.  Almost 6 million Jews where murdered by the Nazis (*not just in Germany).