Kaepernick and Ali

You probably recognize the names in the title, as one of them is the name of debatably the best boxer of all time Muhammad Ali who recently passed away lately, and the other one is the name of a NFL quarter back who whose career as taken a turn for the worst but, has been making a serious impact not the world lately. The one main thing they have in common is that they both have helped with the civil rights movement. The main reason why I chose these two people was the fact that they were in the spotlight when they decided to make a difference. The fact that they were in the spotlight made them more influential.

The point of this post was not for me to tell you about some famous atheletes, it is to show you the other similarity that they have. Both of these atheletes were involved putting there foot down to fight for what they believed in. Muhammad Ali was told that he had to go fight in the Vietnam War. He was sentenced to prison for up to 5 years and a $10,000. At first he refused induction at the Armed Forces Examining and Entrance Station in Houston that spring, and refused to be inducted into the Army. He said  “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong,”(New York Times) that basically stated that because he doesn’t have an issue with the Vietcong means that he shouldn’t have to go to war with them. He did this because black people were being treated like second class citizens at the time. He condemned racial discrimination in America declaring that “no Vietcong ever called me n#$%*&”(New York Times). He put his foot down to being treated like a second class citizen.

If you don’t know who Muhammad Ali is becuase you have been living under a Rock for a very long time. He was born with the name Cassius Clay and he was mainly known for being a boxer and one of the greatest ahteletes of the 20th century or even of all time. He won an Olympic Gold Medal in 1960, he was also the world heavyweight boxing champion in 1964. He won the heavyweight title in the 1970’s twice more. Some of the more well known boxers he beat were Joe Frazier and George Foreman. His boxing record was incredible with 56 wins while 37 of those being knockouts and 5 losses before he retired when he was 39 in 1981. Shortly after that in 1984 he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Because of that he devoted a lot of his life to philanthropy which earned him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005. He recently died in 2016 at the age of 74 after being hospitalized for a respitory issue.

Colin Kaepernick became larger than football after he refused to stand during the National Anthem before NFL games were started. He did this because he wanted to fight against police brutality and racial injustice. He said “To me, this is something that has to change,” and also that he could not “show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.” He first sat during the anthem but he later decided to kneel instead “to show more respect for men and women who fight for the country”. It was suggested for him to change by former NFL player and Green Beret Nate Boyer. This sparked a whole movement as other players were inspired to do it as well such as his teammates Eric Reid, Eli Harold, Jaquiski Tartt and Rashard Robinson. People all over the NFL started doing this from Jeremy Lane in Seattle, to Malcom Jenkins on the Philadelphia Eagles who actually raised his fist with some other people in the NFL. More people started doing it the year after in 2017. Michael Bennett of the Seattle Seahawks told reporters he couldn’t stand for the National Anthem until he saw equality and freedom. Browns tight end Seth DeValve was noticed as the first white NFL player to kneel. The NFL stated that players were encouraged to stand but did not have to. After this happened Kaepernick became a free agent and no NFL team offered him a contract. Because of that he filed a grievance against the league, accusing team owners of colluding to keep him from being signed. Kaepernicks attorney said those who protest peacefully “should not be punished,” in a statement. Players continued to kneel. Public Backlash mounted until team owners in May declared that all team personnel on the field during the anthem must “stand and show respect for the flag and the Anthem.” If any team personnel on the field knelt, the team would be fined. Punishing offending staff was put into the teams hands to decide. After this has all happened Kaepernick  has still not played in the NFL, partially because of his declining skill level but mostly because of the statement that he has made.

 

If you don’t know who Colin Kaepernick is, you have a little bit more of an excuse but then again he was all over the news this past year. He started to get some attention when he set several college football records in the University of Nevada. One of the records he set was to be the first in history of Division 1 FBS to pass for more than 10,000 yards and to rush for more than 4,000 yards. He still had a flaw in his game and it was the fact that he had issues with his throwing accuracy. He was then drafted by in 2011 by the San Francisco 49ers where he became the starting quarter back in his second year after Alex Smith got a concussion. In the NFL he broke a record when he rushed for 181 yards in a game which is the most for a quarterback. He then led the team to Super Bowl XLVII, where he lost to the Baltimore Ravens in New Orleans.

Colin Kaepernick became larger than football after he refused to stand during the National Anthem before NFL games were started. He did this because he wanted to fight against police brutality and racial injustice. He said “To me, this is something that has to change,” and also that he could not “show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.” He first sat during the anthem but he later decided to kneel instead “to show more respect for men and women who fight for the country”. It was suggested for him to change by former NFL player and Green Beret Nate Boyer. This sparked a whole movement as other players were inspired to do it as well such as his teammates Eric Reid, Eli Harold, Jaquiski Tartt and Rashard Robinson. People all over the NFL started doing this from Jeremy Lane in Seattle, to Malcom Jenkins on the Philadelphia Eagles who actually raised his fist with some other people in the NFL. More people started doing it the year after in 2017. Michael Bennett of the Seattle Seahawks told reporters he couldn’t stand for the National Anthem until he saw equality and freedom. Browns tight end Seth DeValve was noticed as teh first white NFL player to kneel. The NFL stated that players were encouraged to stand but did not have to. After this happened Kaepernick became a free agent and no NFL team offered him a contract. Because of that he filed a grievance against the league, accusing team owners of colluding to keep him from being signed. Kaepernicks attorney said those who protest peacefully “should not be punished,” in a statement. Players continued to kneel. Public Backlash mounted until team owners in May declared that all team personnel on the field during the anthem must “stand and show respect for the flag and the Anthem.” If any team personnel on the field knelt, the team would be fined. Punishing offending staff was put into the teams hands to decide. After this has all happened Kaepernick  has still not played in the NFL, partially because of his declining skill level but mostly because of the statement that he has made.

 

That explained the more important similarities between these two atheletes. The fact that they were willing to risk everything to fight for what they believed in. They were true warriors when it came to Social Justice, and in a way they are also heroes, although Ali has a more positive reputation, as not many football fans like Kaepernick. Proof of that is when he was in a Nike ad, and almost immidieatly after people started burning their Nike apparel, people also burned their Kaepernick jerseys after his statement. They will now go down in history as atheletes who stood up for the greater good. To show this I made a photo essay, which if you didn’t know is a series of photos put together to purposely make you feel certain emotions.

This photo essay shows 3 pictures of each athlete in the same position.  The first photo is an introduction into who they are as the photo is taken of them when they are in a position they are most commonly in.  The second photo shows that they were involved the civil rights movement and the third shows them celebrating, to represent the impact that they made on the civil rights movement.

MPOL Again

Another year, another MPOL. As per usual I am going to review what I have done over the beginning of this year, and what I think I have done will and what I have not, as there is always a mix. I have been reflecting a lot lately about what I have done over the past couple of months as this year is different than most as I am now in grade 11 and this year is a lot more intense than others as I have found the homework is a lot harder and there is more of it. Another thing that has made this year different is the fact that I only have three PLP classes and two of them are humanities.

The beginning of the year for me was a pretty average, I didn’t do anything that was super outstanding to the point where anybody would be impressed or disappointed. However, slowly things started changing, as we got into reading the Crucible, I don’t think that I did very well on the assignments surrounding the crucible. All of them were just mediocre and not some of my best work, and I am regretting not putting more effort into them. After that once we started working on the exhibition the quality of my work picked up and I think that I was some of my best work as I was constantly working and making sure things got done, I really didn’t focus too much on individual tasks as I more just worked on everything that I found, as soon as something needed to be done I started working on it to get it done as I knew there was a tight schedule. Lately I feel that I have been struggling as I have been having trouble keeping my Personal Growth Plan on track which is kind of ironic as it is all about prioritizing and planning ahead. I have been behind all because I procrastinated over winter break.

To fix this I want to to change my attitude, as I feel that is my biggest problem. A good example is how I procrastinated doing my PGP work, as it is very overwhelming having to try and catch up, but I think that if I figure follow my PGP book then I should be able to get everything straightened out. Another thing that will help with this is time blocking which I havent been very good at doing as I have not put much effort into it. I think that as soon as I do give it more effort then I should do a lot better.

The basics of it is that they I need to be more diligent with time blocking and planning ahead for my future tasks, becuase that way I will be able to keep on task and getting everything done while working around my schedule.

Blue Sky… Again

As you can see in the title, we had another Blue Sky exhibition. Normally we would just do the same old thing, but this time it was completely different. Instead of making our own project by ourselves and making something that will have prototypes and all that, we decided to make a play/walk through that is sort of interactive. It’s hard to exactly explain what we actually did becuase it was a massive production with many different moving parts. The only way we could do this is by working together in one big group, so our whole class of 18 people got together to complete this massive task.

Our teachers told us very little but the main thing we had to focus on was by linking a book that we read the Crucible, which is about the Salem which trials, we linked that to the 1950’s and how communism was effecting the world, to today. It seems like a lot, and it is, but I thought we could handle it. We started brainstorming all of the basic things, which was our story. We had to think what were going to be the most effective ways of getting across all of the information we wanted to. We thought that the guides touring everybody around should be communist spy’s, without the touring group knowing. The first scene was a Eisenhower speech, as it represented and explained what the state of the U.S. was in. They then would move on to a typical family home, to reinforce the time period and also add extra information that was needed. The third scene was a communism rally where two people are trying to get the crowd to become communists. Right after that they would move on to my scene. This scene showed two people in the army walking up to a house where they knocked on the door and informed an army WWII veteran that he was going to have to go back to war. He would eventually give in but then the guide would try and prevent this from happening and that would start a heated arguement with many acccusations. The scene after mine was a play in Hollywood where they talked about the McCarthy trials and how many stars were being accused of being a communist. A police officer barges into the scene and arrests the guide. That leads to the next scene where  Joseph McCarthy has the guide on the trial and he talks about all of the things that guide did that made him look like a communist.

That was the basis of what we were doing. We then listened everything that we had to do including: building everything for sets, writing a detailed script for each scene, and making costumes. I was tasked on being a part of set design. I was happy to be working there as I felt I fit better there rather than anywhere else. We first had to figure out how big the gym was so we used a massive measuring tape. We then thought about all of the materials we were going to need for the basic props, the most commonly said thing was “bring cardboard”. Forgot to say this earlier but the teachers are doing almost nothing at this point except for reminding us of certain objectives and checking in on our ideas. Once we got the materials we started building everything. A lot of it was just painting, and I a lot of it, I actually still have paint on a pair of shoes, a shirt and a couple pairs of pants. It took a long time and I started to get worried we weren’t going to be able finish everything.

Finally came the day of the Exhibiton, we started building right after school. Almost as soon as we started building something went wrong, one of the few things we needed desperately wasn’t working. It was a movable wall that would seperate the gym in half perfectly. It was not moving at all, so we decided that we would take some curtains and jerry rig them across the whole gym. That was very stressful and I was freaking out while trying to fix a massive problem. In the end I think it looked better than the wall would. Everything was set up fine after that but then I had to get dressed, this was the worst part of the night. Everything was to small in every area, I was wearing boots that were 3 sizes too small. The pants were tight and so was everything else. I was in so much pain with every movement I made especially walking.

That was really all that happened that night, and it was a lot more fun and less stressful than I thought it was going to be. I learned a lot in this expierience. Normally I have a hard time retaining all of the information. This was different I think because of the way we learned, I think that helped me learn everything in a new way, and it is a way that made it so I won’t forget the important facts and information I learned. It was definitely one of the best learning expierences I have ever had, and here is our production.