I AM SO FRUSTRATED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In our last class, we discussed how John Neihardt was adding to Black Elk's testimony in order to bring justice to the Native Americans. At the time, this seemed like an okay thing to do because more information regarding the Native Americans can only be beneficial when most people do not know enough about their history and culture. However, when Neihardt starts adding in entire paragraphs, in what seems like every other page, I think it begins to harm the legitimacy of Black Elk's story. By adding in paragraphs and quotes that Black Elk never brought up, but relates to the history of the Native Americans, I think it takes away from the personal story Black Elk is trying to tell. I think it is frustrating Neihardt thinks it is okay to add to Black Elk's story when some of the things he brings up are not relevant to Black Elk. Even more, there are most likely going to be people who read this book and not read the footnotes. Therefore believing that everything Black Elk, or other Native Americans, say as being true.

Another thing that is frustrating me is the amount of people who do not know who Dan Rather is. Even more, there are people who do not know who Walter Cronkite, Tom Brokaw, or Brian Williams are. I am frustrated by people who do not know who these men are because they are some of the most influential journalists of the 20th and 21st century.

Black Elk Speaks

I thought an interesting part of Black Elk's vision was when the morning star was brought up, "Then the day break star was rising, and a Voice said: 'It shall be a relative to them; and who shall see it, shall see much more, for thence comes wisdom; and those who do not see it shall be dark.' And all the people raised their faces to the east, and the star's light fell upon them..." I think this quote represents the goodness in the Native Americans and the evil in the white people because the white people were too focused on moving westward. In their attempts to push westward, their faces would not have the light of the morning star upon their faces.Thus hinting that the white people where more corrupt than the Native Americans because they were in the dark. This can also relate to how the Native Americans considered themselves one with nature. Obviously the white people in this time period did not consider themselves to be one with nature because they exploited it and destroyed it for their own personal gains.

The Railroads are BAD

In Ronald Takaki's A Different Mirror, he presents evidence on America's progress in the West. This includes details regarding the mistreatment of the Native Americans by the white settlers. One of the major factors that allowed the "civilized" Americans to settle the West, was the development of the railroad. "Senator Henry Dawes recounted an experience he had while traveling by train on a recently completed railroad track across five hundred miles of Indian territory. The potential of the terrain impressed Dawes. 'The land I passed through was as fine a wheat growing country as it could be.'" When looking at progress in the West by white settlers from a Native American's perspective, the railroad is a bad thing. It opened up and exposed the West to Americans. It fostered greed in Americans because they wanted to reap the benefits of the West at the cost of the Native Americans. Americans became willing to remove the Native Americans from their homes, convert them to the "correct" way of living, and even in some cases kill them.

We are so great at understanding nature

In Henry David Thoreau's Walden, he states, "I was in haste to buy it, before the proprietor finished getting out some rocks, cutting down the hallow apple trees, and grubbing up some young birches which had sprung up in the pasture, or in short, had made any more improvements." This passage lead me to think of how Americans today are never satisfied with what they have and often feel the incessant urge to correct the things they view as dysfunctional. To Thoreau, nature was where one could find himself/herself and determine if they were actually living. Today, I feel like most people do not view nature with the same sense that Thoreau did. Now, people view nature as conservationism or the place you go to for a quick summer camping trip. We no longer appreciate nature because we are the modern proprietors and we outweigh the modern Thoreaus'. We do not retreat into nature to reestablish our lives. We are too busy making improvements in nature by destroying it in order to make money. 

Billy Collins, cigarettes are bad.

The Best Cigarette by Billy Collins

There are many that I miss
having sent my last one out a car window
sparking along the road one night, years ago.

The heralded one, of course:
after sex, the two glowing tips
now the lights of a single ship;
at the end of a long dinner
with more wine to come
and a smoke ring coasting into the chandelier;
or on a white beach,
holding one with fingers still wet from a swim.

How bittersweet these punctuations
of flame and gesture;
but the best were on those mornings
when I would have a little something going
in the typewriter,
the sun bright in the windows,
maybe some Berlioz on in the background.
I would go into the kitchen for coffee
and on the way back to the page,
curled in its roller,
I would light one up and feel
its dry rush mix with the dark taste of coffee.

Then I would be my own locomotive,
trailing behind me as I returned to work
little puffs of smoke,
indicators of progress,
signs of industry and thought,
the signal that told the nineteenth century
it was moving forward.
That was the best cigarette,
when I would steam into the study
full of vaporous hope
and stand there,
the big headlamp of my face
pointed down at all the words in parallel lines. 

 

In this poem, I feel Billy Collins is using his cigarette as a metaphor for a train. After reading various articles about trains and the perceptions people had towards them, the success of the cigarette industry is comparable to that of the train industry, due its popularity and influence amongst Americans.

However in the articles there was one negative perception of the train. Like a cigarette, the train seems harmless at first, but over time it because evident that there are negative effects. For cigarette, obvious health problems will arise, but for trains there are problems of exploitation and the underdevelopment of cities, all of which can have negative effects on a person's well being. 

From an environmental perspective, the negative effects of the train can be seen when Collins says, "little puffs of smoke/ indicators of progress". In the 19th century, people did not take the environment as seriously as people do today. The more people utilized the train, they were more likely to get ahead. However, they were not thinking in the long run because with every puff of smoke a train made, they were damaging the environment. Also, the smoke emitted by the trains can be related to the corruption within the train industry. In one if the articles it said that the owners of the various train companies had a strong influence in politics. When smoke/pollution is emitted into the environment, it never fully goes away. The smoke from a train is often black, and with the more corruption of a train industry, the cloud of black smoke over the train is going to keep growing until it completely kills the environment.