Collateral Murder Reaction

 

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The Collateral Murder video was meant to demonstrate the problems of war and the inaccuracies that lead to catastrophic death. The video started by telling the viewers a little bit about some of the victims and their career, one of whom was Namir Noor-Eldeen who was an acclaimed Iraq war photographer. 

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His and some of his colleagues were going out to shoot some shoots for the day when they were spotted by a Military drone. You can hear in the video that the officers are discussing the best force of action to attack the people on the ground. They finally say that they are carrying guns however, it is actually a camera. After they rain down gun shots effectively killing everyone on the street they notice Namir Noor-Eldeen trying to escape however, he is shot and fatally killed. 

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Once Officers touch down on the scene they noice that there are two children in the back of the failed resume van. The children are injured and taken to a hospital. This video was extremely difficult to watch because of the things that are taking place in the video. However, what makes it worse is the way that the military officers are talking about the deceased in question. Even though they think they just killed “Military Insurgent’s” it still doesn’t give  seem right to be laughing about having taken a life. Though this video is hard to watch it brings light to many harsh realities and flaws within the military community. 

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The main one being the fact that our military need to make sure that their intel is rock solid. The video equipment they are using doesn’t have very high resolution so for the officers to repeatedly say that they were carrying assault rifles is just impossible to tell. Additionally the way that the drone shots were doing out it wasn’t controlled at all there were shots going everywhere which opens up the door for many innocent people to be killed which we saw happen. This video was extremely eye opening and It helps start important conversations about the future.

EOTO #4 : Barbra Ehrenreich

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Barbra Ehrenreich is considered to be a trailblazer in the Journalism Community. She was born in Montana in 1941 she moved around a lot due to financial issues. She would later go on to attend Reed Collage In Portland. There she would go on to change her major about three times until she finally got a degree in biology.

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She later became a mother and that was when she really discovered her passion for writing as well as her concern with women’s health. So she decided to quit her job that she had at the time as a teacher and peruse her writing career full time. This caused her to face financial hardship however, she got her first big break when she wrote a piece for Ms. Magazine. Her piece was on the myth that the feminism movement was the root cause  of  women’s health issues. Their was the beginning  of her reputation for myth busting.

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Though she is a renowned essayist and Journalist she is known for her bestsellers. Specifically her Book titled ‘Nickel and Dimmed’ her goal was to expose the problems with the minimum wage and the way that it created a huge pay gap in America. In order to prove this she went undercover and applied for certain minimum wage paying jobs. She did this by creating a normal resume without all of her accreditations, then once she go the job she lived her life as though she was a  low income worker. For example, she worked as a waitress, and lived financially as best she could as a waitress and only used the money form that job to pay her bills. Additionally, she worked as a nursing home aid, Walmart Employee, and finally as a maid. 

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This is how she got her title as a veteran Muckrucker, she is known for her passions for social injustice. As well as her passions for equal rights and equal opportunities and social issues such as ‘Toxic Positivity’. Since then she has written and been punished in many newspapers. A few of the most notable being The Guardian,  The New York Times, as well as The Nation. She has gone down in the list of some of the most influential Journalist of all times. To this day she continues to make an impact.

                                                                

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Extra Post: What a Girl Desires in the Beginning

 

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What does a girl desire? What inspires her?  These are straightforward questions. Yet, since I personally am a girl you would think it would be quite simple for me to answer. However, it took me some time to really think back to what I truly wanted out of life. Not just now but from the beginning; what did I want, who did I want to be and what did I want to become. After some intensive research which consisted of some light soul searching and asking my best friend her opinion, I narrowed down a few basic things that every girl wants from the very beginning of life that have remained consistent up until this point. Those being acceptance, self-worth, a purpose and last but not least, love. Though the last one is painstakingly cliche, it is nonetheless true.

Out of all these desires I would say “acceptance” is one of the hardest things to battle with when you are a young girl. It feels like everyone is against you and you feel like you cannot trust yourself all at the same time. Being a young girl comes with a territory of its own. For starters, you have all these dreams and aspirations, some change and evolve over the years while others are not quite as easy to shake. Although, along with your own passions you have the expectations of family, friends, and the world around you. For some girls it is the world and the desire to be liked and accepted by everyone. For others it is the ones they love and those that are closest to them; personally, I struggle with both of these notions.

When I was younger, I relied heavily on what my family thought of me and what they wanted from me and for me. As I got older, I became obsessed with what people at school would think if I did this or that or what I was wearing. And heaven forbid if a boy looked in my direction because that could provoke a mental rabbit hole of its own. I used to struggle with wanting to be accepted for my makeup and my fashion trends, but never for who I was as a person. I think every girl can relate to trying a winged liner for the first time and feeling your eye burn from wiping it off for the fifth time in a row. Hoping maybe, just maybe, no one will notice that one is crooked and the other has a different shape. Or sweating and being out of breath in the Forever 21 dressing room after trying to get into or get out of your first pair of skinny jeans. Trying so hard to have the Beyonce body and faking the Michelle Obama confidence has been a struggle of its own.

The one thing that all these situations were missing was my own personal self-worth. It’s not that I didn't think I had value, I just did not yet respect myself enough to be honest about what I wanted or who I was. At times it feels as if people are against you but, you must be true to who you are above all else and just forget what the rest of the world has to say about it. Being free like this and feeling completely empowered in this way made it a lot easier for me to find out who I was as a person as well as my passions in life.

A girl finding her purpose in life and love somewhat go hand-in-hand; at least for me both do. Personally, I am someone that plans and thinks, and at times overthink everything… and I mean everything. Especially when I was younger, I would play with my dolls and fantasize about being a teacher, having a family, a huge house, and living a fairytale life. To be truly honest, I am still that way but now I can see the reality past all the imaginary harp music, clouds, and rainbows. However, the more I embraced the person that I truly am I was able to realize my passion and purpose in life.

I was inspired by Oprah Winfrey to pursue a career in writing and journalism. I remember watching her show every day after school. There was one particular episode that aired where Miss. Winfrey empowered me to finally decide on becoming a Journalist. In that episode she went to a town that had not had a Black resident in years due to racism. She knew the risks and how it could possibly be dangerous since she was a Black woman herself, yet she still went because she cared about the conversation it could start. I had never seen someone who was so famous do something so fearless at the time and it motivated me to have the same mentality in my own life. It is hard being a young girl in a society that does not look at you or your dreams as being worthy of attention. Most of my friends, and myself included, have already in some way worked so hard to be heard and seen as not just an equal but simply for who we are. Fearless and bold young women.

Every girl longs for a purpose and when you find it, it is not easy to fulfill it. When I finally realized that I wanted to be a writer it took a lot of hard work and dedication. I still have so much learning to do but I love it, so I owe it to myself to see it through to its fullest extent.

As I said earlier, I know it sounds cliche but every young girl at some point in time desires to fall in love. But love does not necessarily require being poisoned by an apple or falling into a comatose state, contrary to some of the books we all read. Love can be just that, love. Every young woman reaches a point in her life where she truly learns to love herself as well as fully appreciate the ones around her. I love myself and the person that I am becoming, but I could have never done it without first being that little girl who wanted everything.

The women around me like my mother, and my sister, encouraged me to be strong and fearless because they, too, know what it is like to feel powerless and that certainly is no way to live. My mom always taught me that I should always speak up for myself and fight to be heard, even when I did not want to. So, when you feel like you cannot do something or you think you are asking too much of yourself or the world, just think back to that little girl you used to be. Because through her eyes there was nothing she could not imagine doing.

Extra Post: In the Silence

                                                         

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I have always been a self-dependent person. I tend to handle matters personally and I’m not too proud to admit that at times I overestimate my own limits. With that in mind my relationship with God has been one of give and take, and at times it has felt like a game of tug of war. I give just a little bit away to him but not too much that I can’t take it all back if it gets too uncomfortable, too vulnerable. 

To make matters worse, I hadn’t even realized that I was in this never-ending battle. That’s the thing about being in darkness, eventually your eyes adjust, and you forget that at once, it was hard to see. I have always suffered from anxiety. It is hard being a person who prefers to be in control and yet I am at times a slave to my own body. Growing up I came from a strong Baptist family of confident people who were always so sure and secure in their faith. I wasn’t supposed to struggle with my faith and with surrendering to God. 

I felt hopeless that I would never feel normal or see a way out. It wasn’t until I was having Bible study with a co-worker that a whole life’s worth of confusion finally clicked for me. I was telling my co-worker about struggles I was having with my faith, and I kept repeating the same phrases, “I’m working on it,” “I haven’t overcome that sin yet, but I’m working on it,” “I haven’t softened my heart to this person yet, but I’m working on it.” 

Finally, he interrupted me and said something I will never forget. He said “ Kamryan, I hear you saying you’ll work on it a lot, but have you ever thought about letting God work on it for you?” That sentence stopped me dead in my tracks. Before then, I had always thought of growth with God as an offering or a gift basket. For example, you recognize your problem, work on it intrinsically, and then give it all to God in a neat little bow for approval. Never to be dealt with again, from that point on you would be freed in him. Not once had I thought of arriving at his feet a complete and utter mess.

 That talk propelled my faith immensely. That same week I prayed for the Lord to break me. It was a scary prayer, but I felt like it was necessary, because I wanted to see personal growth within my spirit.  I asked him to simply use me and take me anywhere, because anything was better than dealing with all my stress and anxiety, all the weight of my salvation on my shoulders alone. I proceeded to have the worst week of my life. Everything became out of my control, and I still reached for the reigns of my own life even after I had surrendered to God. 

One night, I turned to scripture, and I found the verses Matthew 11:28-30 which says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yolk is easy and my burden is light.” I immediately broke down and cried the happiest tears, that verse spoke so deeply to me that I knew I was meant to read it at that moment. I felt like I could exhale for the first time in my life because I knew God would always be there to catch me. 

Since then, life has changed so much for me. I moved to college where I now live with people, I had no clue existed this time last year but have become very near to my heart. I will admit in the beginning it was difficult, I had never had to be around people who didn’t think and believe everything I did. 

After my first month here at High Point I was walking around campus just getting my thoughts together. I wanted to call someone and try to distract myself and shake this feeling I was having; however, I knew I just needed to sit and rest in it. As I walked down the promenade, I realized that I was standing outside the chapel. I thought the doors would be locked, so I didn’t attempt going in. Instead, I just sat outside on a bench. It was midnight, and I was alone with nothing but my thoughts. The fountains had just shut off leaving only the light sound of nearby crickets. It was in that silence that I felt God. 

I closed my eyes, and I just spoke to him. I let him know that I was scared and that I couldn’t promise perfection in the coming months as I navigated this new life, even though I knew he would never ask that of me. I prayed that I would always try, and that he would grant me strength.

Whenever I have felt broken God has always been there to comfort me. No matter how far away I strayed he would always be waiting there with loving arms. It is his boundless love that will always pull me out of darkness. Whenever I am feeling lost or if ever, I forget what his voice sounds like, I try to think back to those moments. In the silence, where it was just me and him and it always lets my heart know that everything will be okay.