Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Alice Walker response
The theme of our first essay is displacement -- how different (or not) college life is compared to your pre-college days. Read Alice Walker's "The Place Where I Was Born" and post a comment in which you imagine how displaced Barack Obama and his family will feel on their first night in the White House.
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when is this essay due?
ReplyDeletePresident Obama will experience that the White House for the first night will be very different. Just like the part where, "I sit here on a swing on the deck of my house...how the fog has turned the valley below into a lake." (paragraph 1, line 2). Well President Obama will be in the White House tonight and be blinded by the fog blocking the challenges he faces. The economy, the war and other issues that need to be fixed. He will be in the house tonight and hopefully tomorrow he will wake up and the fog clears and then he sees the ways to help us. Then where she says, "it is beautiful where I live". (paragraph 2, line 1) Obama and his family will think that tonight in the White House. With all these great things today Obama and his family know this will not be like living back in Illinois. Living in a new city with a million lights. It is going to feel different. They will feel a little bit displaced. Well I hope he and his family get comfortable and he gets right down to business tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteI feel that Obama and his family will feel, out of place the first night at the white house. He will be thinking a lot about the decission he'll have to make, and the challanges he's going to face being the first african american president in the white house. Coming from Illinios to the big city of washington DC is going to be a major change as well for Obama and his family, just as Alice Walker was coming from Georgia then going to Northern California, I have a feeling he will be up all night thinking.
ReplyDeletePresident Obama's first night living in the white house will be like no other night. The president and his family will feel so out of place, now having there whole world changes. These changes will be as drastic as having a valley changed to a lake right in from of your own eyes, this is an experience that has been expressed by Alice Walked as she was sitting on her back deck just watching the fog in the valley below her at her house in North Carolina. The change can be seen in many ways, some being admirable and exciting and others overwhelming and stressful. This feeling of displacement will last a long time and will be remembered for a life time. As was the tree that Alice Walker was so emotionally connected to. But as the days go on the feelings of displacement will subside and they will start to settle in to there no home and their new place in the world. They will settle in to there new home just like Alice Walker did in her new home in North Carolina. Them they will start making changes that will effect the whole world.
ReplyDeleteI have found an Error on the blog. I don't know if this counts but the time is set wrong. The time is set as pacific and eastern.
ReplyDeletePresident Obama`s first night in the whie house will be very displaced for him and his family because for him he will be the first African American person to not only be president but also to be livng in the white hose. Obama is going to be so over whelmed with everything that is going on his head will head will be going in a millin directions. He will have a lot of challenges ahead for himself. I am sure itis gong to be harder for the family from leaving Illinios and coming to Washinton. I do not believe he is going to sleep at all tonight or for the next couple of nights.
ReplyDeleteMy spelling is bad. Please excuse the double words in my previous post. Thank You
ReplyDeletefirst off. any person, male or female black or white is going to feel displaced in the white house on their first night. not because of who they are but because of WHAT they are. the leader of the free world is not a title to be taken lightly. in the case of the kids, i think it will be a wonderful experience in the aspect that they are living in a museum for the next 4 years of their lives. for the first few weeks the family will feel displaced. mostly the kids though because they will be in a new school with new ppl and new teachers and having to find there way around with secret service following every move they make and every thing they do. the president (don't like saying it) Mr.Obama will be to busy to notice a "change" in his life. let alone a "change" in the country.the family dog will be the happiest dog on earth with all those lawns and at the end of the presidents (yuck) 4 years he will have to leave those wonderfully maintained lawns and have to go back to a "normal" life. haha yeah right normal. im willing to bet that the Obamas have a beautiful house loaded with every thing known to man kind and awsome lawns as well.
ReplyDelete"i looked up at it frequently and felt reassured by its age, its generosity despite its years of brutalization...when it was struck by lighting and killed, and then was cut down and made into firewood, i grieved as if it had been a person."
this passage is what can be said in my view about the country and how the many ppl like me see this new president and what we think is going to happen. im not worried about how the president is going to adjust to being displaced, im worried about the rest of the americans that have same fears as me. i can only hope that i can find my place after being displaced in 2009.
I believe Barack and Michelle Obama will be very humble and exhilarated at the same time when they go to bed tonight. There will be questions running through their minds. Barack will finally feel vindicated for all African Americans but at the same time feel the weight of his new position square on his shoulders. In hopes of feeling more like home he is pushing for community service from the whole country. He has a need to feel a part of his new community. Michelle will wonder how she can maintain some kind of home atmosphere that the girls will feel comfortable in. She will wonder how she will keep their lives normal. The Shasha and Malia will be a little frightened to go to sleep in that great big house. Especially with their parents not home at bedtime. They will long for their old friends and the security of their own bedrooms back home in Chicago.
ReplyDeleteI believe that wither you are moving to the white house or not, that any move is a difficult transition. I feel that Barack and Michelle not only have to worry about their first night at the white house, they also have to worry about their two girls and how they are going to feel. They will have to ajust to new schooling, and new friends. I also believe that just like any other family, they have to adapt to their surroundings, which to me seems pretty cool that they get to do that in the white house, but like I said before, although they are moving into the white house, they still have to go through the same process as any other family that has to move to a new place.
ReplyDeleteSo yes, I believe that the Obama family will feel displaced on the first night in the white house, but eventually they will be able to call that once strange place, HOME.
I feel that when Alice Walker talkes about the tree she was so attached to that she eventually grew acustom to not having around, and when she talkes about moving to North Carolina. I fell that both reflect in many ways how the Obama family is going to have to leave their home in Chicago, and move to a very strange place that they are not used to, but eventually just like Alice, they will get used to their new surroundings.
ReplyDeleteps: does anyone know when this essay is due ??
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAs the Obama family settles into the White House I can only imagine how overwhelmed the family feels. Many things need to be adjusted such as the two young girls attending a new school. It could also be a very dignified moment for the family. As we all know there has never been an african-american family living in the white house and the Obama family should be able to go to bed at night with observant knowledge that this country has very high hopes for the future with Barack in office. It's possibly a very emotional time for the family and I hope their stay at the White House is as comfortable as their last home.
ReplyDeleteFeb 5th is 1st paper
ReplyDeleteI do believe they will be so overwhelmed that they will have so many feelings,excited, nervous, and scared. I think it will be a very hard adjustment for the kids mainly. Leaving their old friends,school, and many more memories as Akice Walker had left behind. The children will not see their dad as much as they use too.There will be many changes that the whole family will have to adjust to.
ReplyDeletedo I have this correct the first paper is due Feb.5th and has to be 1000 words.
ReplyDeleteWhen your familiar with what you are going to do each day you feel safe knowing that nothing is going to change. This isn’t true for everyone for instance Obama has changed his daily routine for himself and his family. For him to change from being a “normal American citizen to a powerful man must have its downfalls. Such as his first night in office because, he knows that he is a target for unlucky things and now he has brought his family into the picture. With this being said I could imagine it to be very difficult for the family to not be concerned with what could happen in the next four years.
ReplyDeleteAs a person who has moved around a lot in his life. I can't say I know what it is to be displaced like all of these people. I have had some degree of displacement in my life and it was hard so I can imagine, that a African American moving in to a house that was built by slaves has some sort of accomplishment to it. I do believe that there first night there will be hard. Moving to a new place is hard but moving into the white house has got to be a very hard thing to do.
ReplyDeleteOmaba will has some relief there though his mother in-law is helping look after the kids so no one can say he isn't getting help at all.
Thoes kids have huge shoes to fill what will happen to them and there family in the next four years? it is a great time in our nation now and we need to give it a chance.
At the risk of sounding redundant, it is obvious the amount of displacement Mr. Obama and his family will feel in the early days at the White House; but really who wouldn't? However, in my opinion the feeling of displacement won't necessarily be with Obama because he is somewhat used to living a poltical life (although entering the White House is slightly more dramatic). The ones who will feel the most overwhelemed by it all would definetly be his wife and most of all his children. It obviously is not easy for anyone to change schools during their life and have to change friends but when the reason for changing all that is because your father is now the President, how could you not feel a huge amount of displacement.
ReplyDeletePresident Obama's first night in the White House will obviously be way different then living in Chicago. Obama and his wife Michelle were out dancing and addressing the crowds at 10 or so balls around Washington DC. I don't think that his two little girls were happy to spend part of the first night in the White House without their parents. Transitioning from a slightly smaller city like Chicago, I think that Obama and his family will feel very Displaced on their first nights or even months in the White House.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, I feel that Barack Obama and his family will feel like they are a little out of place on their first couple nights in the white house. Barack is probably feeling so overwhelmed to be the first African American president, and has so much on his mind of what he wants to do, and what he wants to change. When anybody moves to a new place, it can take a while for them to transition. I think that the young girls are going to have a hard time transitioning to a new school and meeting new people. I think that it is going to take time for them to get used to living in the white house, but eventually they will start to love it.
ReplyDeleteBarack I think will feel more displaced than any other president before him. I would like to say race wouldn't have anything to do with it, but it certainly does. He has to live up to his hype now and because he is the first black president people are kinda holding him to different/higher standards because there are the people out there waiting for him to fail. So he has to be feeling very out of sorts in the white house, to be the first of something always makes higher expectations. I hope him and his family make adjustments and settle in quickly, because he deserves to enjoy his new house.
ReplyDeleteI think that on Obama family's first night in the white house, they willl all feel very displaced. It is a completely new environment for them, and anyone who is put in that situation would feel the same way. I couldn't even imagine going from living in the house that I have now...to living in one of the most well-known houses in the world. Of course they are going to feel out of place, but it will be exciting to them at the same time...their whole way of life as they know it is going to change. I am not exactly sure who will be able to make adjusts to their knew home better, Obama and his wife or this daughters.....
ReplyDeletei believe that the Obamas first night in the White House is going to be a quiet but obnioxous night. Its going to be quite the transition for the family just as it would for any other family. But, in this case they have to deal with the issuse of race as well as being the new president. I think they will adjust fine and quickly due to the amount of people that will be there to help them get situated. Obama i think is going to have a rough night, its his last night as a regular man and his first night as the first black president of the US. I dont think hes going to be getting much sleep..
ReplyDeleteObama's first night was a big step for him as well as for his family. Moving his family away from their home town in Illinois to Washington must be a real big struggle at first. Now not only does he have to worry about the decisions made for our country he also has to worry about how his family is going to react by this big change. Its like Alice walker moving from her home town in Georgia to California. the changes are unimaginable at that point and could lead to good or bad things.
ReplyDelete