Prejudice
Many can say that prejudice is a judgment premade, like a person knew everything about whatever is under discussion before he/she really get in touch with such thing. In fact, when prejudice against people is concerned, the owner of this pre-conceptualized idea most-of-times know less about it than the victim of the preconception him/herself. But prejudice is not only about people, because concepts are about the world – though people are the ones who suffer this.
Then one can ask: when can I say what I know about something is not a preconception? When do I actually know something? And one can answer: you can never. Knowledge is changeable. What we knew in Antiquity is not the same we know today anymore. What we know today is different from what we knew yesterday, or five minutes ago. No concept can be said as a 100% right thing, that is why all one knows about everything surround them is preconception, i.e. prejudice.
Is prejudice bad? As far as you do not want to improve your know. Because what you know about whatever is concerned is getting older the more the time goes by, it is as if knowing could get older as living beings can. (The assurance about things change because things themselves change, too). Prejudice is bad for the person who persists on not developing him/herself. Only if this person directs his/her prejudice against other person, this other person will suffer, too.
Preconception may be its owner’s fault or not. That is a big fact to reflect on. Why? People who are prejudiced can suffer prejudice for being prejudiced. Prejudice is an ugly thing to many people’s eyes, and in good reason. But these so-open-minded folks often forget that some people just did not have the same opportunities as them to learn things in life. Many of them really do not care about putting themselves on other people’s shoes and deserve being treated like that but when you think somebody is wrong for not understanding other people, remember you may be the misundertanding one, too.
The Twilight Saga: 
a Freudian perspective.
As Stephanie Meyer’s books are considered Best-Sellers, much of prejudice can be felt when you ask somebody’s opinion about them – as you can notice a lot of passion coming from the fans. In fact, all the kinds of Best-Sellers can be victim of this prejudice. But if they are so well sold all over the world, there must be reasons for this. The Twilight Saga has its own reasons, which mostly are its sensibility and its very well-constructed plot.
The love Bella and Edward feels to each other permeates the four books and is clearly the center of the whole story. Bella, the first-person narrator, is since the beggining described as a sensible character, besides her intelligence and independence. That causes an insteresting effect when one contrasts her to Edward, the sensitive and romantic male, the rare sort of guy. This is deliberate.
Bella represents all the girls’ superego. Wisdom, rationality, self-control as far as her behaving is concerned. On the other hand, Edward can be seen as the girls’ deepest whishes being realized. He simbolyzes Bella’s id being satisfied even when it tries hardly to resist, because she is only superego. This conflict is in the center of the reason for the pleasure Twilight can give its readers.
How to make a choice.
This essay intends to help those who, just like me, have a undecided life style. And also those who sometimes get themselves totally between two or more sets of choices and don’t know which way to walk. That means, this essay has the modest aim to help everybody on Earth, since everybody can be caught, later or earlier, on the edge of making a choice.
Before any step given, list all the alternatives you have. Of course each one of them brings a huge sect of consequences. But, for the moment, just set down the options, in order to know how many they are and to affix yourself among them.That’s important to make you more well aware of them, too.
Don’t waste too much time thinking. Surely to think is crucial, but you have to stipulate a time to you to think and take a decision, so you will not spend much more time than it’s necessary and, as it often happens, get at the deadline without a conclusion taken and decide hurriedly afterwards, which will be worse.
Don’t delay what’s sure to come. If you are positive the decision time is coming, don’t delay it. Take advantage of this time to think reasonably, but do not fall in temptation of proroguing what has to be done. You may regret that as well as if you spend more time balancing it than it’s required and not to have gotten into a conclusion at the end.
Measure consequences. Some of them will benefit more ones than others. Try not to be much too altruistic and not consider your own side on things. But, on the other hand, don’t cause anybody pain. Help till where it’s in your power, and a bit more. At this point, there’s no formula of how much you have to give yourself in account of others, but remember being fair without wasting half your life on one unique decision.
(ASSIGNMENT #6 – ESSAY)
It’s a common sense that almost every effeminate guy is gay. Ask anyone walking down the street in downtown, and you will most probably figure it out. Whether they are right or not we can’t say precisely and it’s not the aim of this essay, but the concept itself should be taken much more carefully than it usually is, whereas it’s possible to notice the batch of prejudice always coming with that sort of accusation. Otherwise, if you ask the alleged homosexual guy what he thinks about that prosecution, you could get a various set of reactions. He could feel offended as he could say he doesn’t care anymore, or he would even say he isn’t gay at all. Why does that happen? Why is being effeminate as ridiculously considered if it doesn’t tell anyone nothing exactly? And worse: why does effeminate-acting have to be something so bad?
Effemiphobia is something widely different from homophobia, though both are terrible types of prejudice. Effemiphobia is directed not only to gays, but to straight people, too. The ones who suffer this prejudice, beyond maybe being target of homophobia as well, are many times also criticized by those who are likewise homophobic victims: in other words, the gay men themselves. And this is definitely not a rare fact. Gay men are a massive part of the anti-effeminate-behavior army. What happens is that the whole prejudice before over all the gay people is finally starting to lessen. But an abstract image of a straight-behaving gay is being chosen as the unique one deserver of receiving respect.
The fight contrary to homophobia is still far from being finished, though some victories were conquered, yet it can easily be seen out there. Then why do gay people go on getting together against one another instead of to fight for equalty and for the many rights they still don’t have? Maybe because a great part of the gay community blames the effeminate gays for the prejudice they undergo, so they avoid being linked to them and, worse, discriminate them as well. Something else plainly noticeable is that so many people say they don’t feel atracted to feminine guys. It could be explained by the current stereotype of masculinity which remains since prehistorical times. Big and large men would be helpful for protecting home from wild beasts. And unfortunately, though there are millions of fabulous, funny and smart effeminate men around the world, that other requisite is still quite sought.
Moreover, effemiphobia should be banished for the many other problems feminine men have. Besides all the homophobic implications in their lives (difficulties such as finding out the sexuality, coming out to their families, as the difficulties to find a partner and to get out with him), they find it much more hard to get a job, they listen disturbing jokes many times a day, they hear people all around telling them they shouldn’t act (neither be) that way. No one but themselves can know how arduous it is. We could often catch ourselves thinking about it and finding this issue so very problematic that it must be solven, but by someone else. Only this is a problem which belongs to every one of us. There are humans suffering, and this is just because of the cruelty of few and the unawareness of many.
The existence of effemiphobia is a small part of a huge humanity’s disease: hatred. Nelson Mandela once stated, “Nobody was born hating anyone else for their skin color, for their roots neither for their religion. For hating, people need to learn. And if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love”. We must tell the people they are killing one another with guns most of times they don’t even know they’re carrying. A way of disseminating this knowledge is the academic work (there are still very few ones about this topic), which maybe is the main source of information there is – at least the reliable ones. The lore starts inside the universities for so it can go throughout the other medias. And then we can hope that someday, sooner every second, someone will look at something first, before starting to hate it.
It’s raining on the horizon
- far, far away, but it rains, I’m sure.
There, where the sun rises and sets persistently.
There, where everything happens, far from me.
The window yawns.
And the rain can be seen, near the horizon.
(ACTIVITY #2 – WRITE AN ESSAY)
Although the childhood full of fights and arguments, as every ordinary young brothers, Felipe and I have ever been good friends. And even in those times we had nice moments together, lots of games, cycling, hide-and-seek, climbing trees etc. As I’m five years younger than him, at that age we weren’t so close as we are today and I can’t remember any conversation like the ones we usually have today. We’re very alike at the same time we’re totally different from each other. Maybe because of this I always enjoy talking to him, as often as possible.
We are quite different, and of course it couldn’t be by any other way. At sixteen I became atheist while he, who used not to pray nor go to the church, started going to the protestant church when he met his bride, Juliana. When I found out I’m gay, he was the first one in my family who knew. At first it wasn’t that easy, but he accepted me as I am sooner then I had supposed he would. Unlike me, he has a conservative fashion style. He loves wearing polo neck T-shirts (he’s got many different colors of the same one) and he’s short-haired.
But we are also really alike. In High School I got in the same school he did, CEFET. There while I got more mature our friendship got closer and we got the habit of having long conversations (some of them about God’s existence and the life’s reasons). Of course all the brothers talk a lot to each other, but I kind of consider these conversations with my brother something like a class. As if he were the teacher (he is one of the most clever people I’ve ever known), and I the student, attentive and eager. And always following his steps. In fact, sometimes it really is a class, since he is graduated in History. First CEFET, secondly UFG. What comes next?
Nowadays, he is commited to his bride, therefore we have had much less time together. Then, I learned to valorize these moments and each little minute, like going to university by motorcycle, or the little time between his coming home and my going bed, or some scarce others, have earned a lot of meaning to me. Naturally I adore the idea of his wedding and Juliana’s become a gorgeous friend to me. Actually their love even gives me a sort of faith in its existence. And of course our friendship (Felipe’s and mine) will last all over our lives, much much after his marriage.
Updated: His marriage is on next Tuesday. Yesterday we were watching the news and he said, about the pirates of Somalia’s costline: ”With the money they are asking for, they could buy three jet fighters.” Surprised, I asked him “How can you know how much a jet fighter costs?” for what he replied “I saw its prices last week.” No, he was not wondering about crashing against any built out there, but he’s got this gift for memorizing what he reads. I said it to him and he explained, “No, I just memorize what interests me somehow.” I: “But you are interested on everything!” He: “Yes.”
(REWRITTEN ONCE)
(NOT THE ESSAY YET, OK?)
Some people may describe me as an 18-year-old mix of a kind of a colorful taste for music and dressing and a few philosophical (as I got used to call them) ways of think – and act. You can also find people such as Sofia Amundsen, Rudy Steiner and Amélie Poulain a little alike me (they don’t know what authenticity is /tsc tsc). Here you have one pic:
There I was letting grow a mustache. How cute I was at four!
I like trying out everything that passes over my way just for knowing what they are in truth. You know those popsicles of Cerrado. I’ve known them all. And so the flavours of Cacau Show’s truffles (a secret: I’m addicted to it). New places, new outfits, new recipes of soups, New Age’s sects, whatever.
I engulf coffee little by little for melting a piece of chocolate on my tongue. I like Darwin. I waste time reading blogs on the internet (sometimes writing them) and seeing retro photos at Deviantart.com. I like peppers. I like Carla Bruni’s French accent when she’s singing in English. I give my cell phone number for strangers. I write poetries in my mind when I can’t fall asleep. I forget them when I wake up. I open the window for watching the rain. I’m too shy for approaching someone when I’m into them. I listen to the same song a thousand of times, as I rarely enjoy anyone. At home, I try not to make any noise when I’m walking. I love cloudy weather. Sometimes I try to draw…
…but it never works out.
To finish this post, I leave here one of my favourite videos:
Grace Kelly, by Mika.
(ACTIVITY #1)
Writing is recording what we want for the future, for the sake of reminding or of transmitting informations. The reasons for writing are nearly the same of speaking i.e. expressing our feelings and thoughts (ideas): I don’t like pequi tea, I love you so much but I just can’t stand you beside me; informing or warning somebody: Watch your step!, You ought go to the end of the line now please; enternaining: Once upon a time there was a ten-inch-dicked prince… And as in spoken communication, when we write, we’re writing for somebody. Even if we’re expressing our own feelings, we always write (or say) what we think that could be of somebody’s interest.
The written word has so many different meanings as the spoken one, since it can never be read (or heard) in the same context.
These are some of the characteristics of writing (the ones I could remember now). The biggest – and maybe the only one – difference from the speaking is the way it goes through.
I was supposed to talk about myself in this first post, but that’s impossible without talking about the course I do, Letras, and the language I’m learning, that is… I know you can guess it!
I’m sure there couldn’t be better place for me then here, where I’m studying all I like the most. Owz, I’m in love with this course! s2s2s2…
Surely I’m studying English ’cause I wanna become a teacher. I hope I can become fluent as soon as possible, then I can also try an exchange.
Hope y’all enjoy it! Thx!!!
