After the Crow.

     Wouldn't it be nice if discrimination was as blatantly obvious now as it was when the Jim Crow laws were in effect?  It would be so much easier to promote equality if there was still a tangible enemy of it.  How can you fight something that some people (idiots) don't even believe exists anymore.  "Oh no," they say, "African Americans just have twice the poverty rate as Caucasians because they don't try as hard."
     The Jim Crow laws were designed to try and hide away black citizens like unwanted pimples.  Now that those laws aren't in effect the citizens are visible, but their problems seem to have disappeared.  Of course the problems still exist; they just aren't flashy enough to attract help.  Even a citizen who prides himself on his morals has no qualms about not helping other races.  The trouble now is that inequality can be overlooked too easily.
     While throwing Jimmy out the door was tough, now we have to get all of that soot that fell off him out of our house.  The trouble is that, by now, the soot is hidden deep in crevasses in the floorboards.  While it might be easy to ignore the remnants of racism, the problem still exists.  If you were to really try, you could still pick up that lingering sooty scent.
     It might be hard to acknowledge, but repealing the Jim Crow laws was the easy compared to what must happen next.  What we need to change now is our basic attitude toward different people.  For some reason, a sense of superiority has become part of human nature.  It is only when we get rid of this sad belief that discrimination can really end.

Writer's Lives

     What really struck me when I was reading these stories was that the writers all came from remarkably different backgrounds.  They had different family experiences, different friends, and completely different lives.  How did they all turn to writing?  How did these seemingly completely separate people connect and take up the same occupation?  It isn't like writing is something that almost everyone naturally wants to do, like being a famous actor or athlete.  In fact, a lot of people despise writing.  They want nothing to do with it at all.
     What is it then, that makes all these various people write?  Maybe it's because writings can be as varied as the people that create them.  People can write about intimate family moments or horrible family travesties.  They can write that eating animals is despicable, or they can detail the complex intricacies of the hunt.  They can even write about a simple guy and his quest to get some scrambled eggs.
     Writing is about people conveying emotions and beliefs.  Maybe writers are simply people that experience deeply emotional events or develop strong, complex beliefs.  But many people have impactful experiences and develop firm beliefs and still don't become writers.  That's because what truly connects all writers is their insatiable need to tell.  To reach out to others, and say, "This is my life, learn from it and be a better person."  They feel they need to reach their readers, not so they hand over their checkbooks, but so they go out and change.  Writers are people who go through their lives and realize that they want to help the world.

Why I Write

I read a lot.  I love to get wrapped up in a story.  I once read a seven-hundred page book in one sitting, and it's this love for stories that inspires me to write.  I want to create a world that can suck people in so that as soon as they leave all they want to do is go back.  I want to make people laugh out loud, I want to make them happy, I want to make them wonder about issues in society.  I want to keep readers up to two in the morning, even though they know they'll regret it later.  I want to entertain people.  Most importantly, I want to inspire readers like the authors I read inspire me.

First Post!

My blog looked pretty weird without anything posted, so I figured I might as well write this. So, welcome! I hope you will find this blog somewhat entertaining, though it exists simply because of AP Composition. I'm not sure what my next post will be about, but I predict that it will be very well written. Bye!