Tim Wise

This week I decided to do my self reflection on Tim Wise. I thought this would be an appropriate blog since we just watched a film over him in class tonight. To be honest, I was somewhat offended by the video. I felt that the whole time he was making his speech he was completely trash talking white people. Being a white female, I took offense to it. I tried to be open minded and see where he was coming from on some of his remarks, but for most of his "facts" that he told, he had NO supporting evidence, no source from where he got the information, so it made it hard to even listen because of that. For instance, when he spoke about the war in Iraq he said that majority of blacks did not want to go to Iraq and kept saying that we should not go over there and that 2/3 of whites wanted to go there. Where did he get these stats??? If you are going to make that bold of a statement then you definitely need to note where you got those numbers from. And if no blacks wanted to go over there, then how come we have brave black soldiers fighting over there as we speak? They are just as worthy of our praise and respect as the white soldiers are. He also went on to talk about Hurricane Katrina. I honestly had kind of tuned him out a little bit at this point because I was getting very offended but he said something about how the blacks received a lot of blame but for the most part it was the white man who had something to do with the levees funds or something to that sorts fault and that the whites should have received a lot more blame for it. SAYS WHO?? How can you blame something like that on a race? I know this blog sounds like I am ranting and raving about the video, but I really did try to listen to him and take in what he had to say. I know that he was just trying to prove some good points, but for the most part I was offended.

http://www.nebraskansunited.org/images/Wise408.jpg

Superbowl Commercials

For my first self reflection blog I decided to write about a Superbowl ad that dealt with race. The first one that came to my mind was the one from E-Trade that had the Caucasian baby and the African American baby. There really was not anything bad about the commercial, and I actually think those commercials are pretty comical, but just the fact that they had the white and African American baby was pretty comical to me. It was like they had to incorporate both races so that they would not be scrutinized for only having white babies. However, they might have been trying to show that E-trade is for all races, and that anyone can apply, regardless of race. However, I did find it weird that they did not have a female baby. I kind of wonder why they chose two male babies, and not a male and female baby? Also, the white male baby seemed to be the intelligent, serious one while the African American baby was singing and trying to make the situation a little more light hearted.
Another commercial that caught my attention in regards to gender was the Pepsi Cola commercial that had all of these different clips of men getting hurt really badly, for example, having a bowling ball dropped on their head, having a piece of wood go flying through the air and hit their back. Yet, all of them said "I'm fine" after having all of these horrible things happen to them. Then at the end of the commercial it says "Men can take anything except the taste of diet cola." So i saw this as a weird thing because first of all, they did not show women at all, so are they saying women cannot take anything? Second of all, this was a DIET cola commercial, and most of the time you would think of a woman drinking a diet cola. However, this one is "Diet Pepsi Max, the first diet drink for men." I find this kind of confusing because are men not supposed to drink other diet sodas? And are they implying that women can't drink this diet drink since it's "for men?"
Overall, I was not too impressed with the Superbowl commercials this year in terms of comical ones, but for the most part they were okay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeK9Jacsq2Y

For the baby commercial fast forward to 5:21
For the diet Pepsi Max commercial fast forward to 6:21

Kelsey's Self Bio

My name is Kelsey Roxanne Pennell and I was born in California but raised in Oklahoma. I have one older brother, Nicholas, who is 25 and lives in Breckenridge Colorado. I am currently a broadcast journalism major and am taking 13 hours this semester. I decided to take this class because it was an elective that was offered for my major and I have heard good things about it so I figured I would take it. My favorite homework assignment was a history paper I had to write about a member of my family. I really enjoyed it because I learned so much about my grandma that I never knew before. My least favorite homework assignment was a translating a focus group interview because it was extremely long and took a lengthy amount of time. I don't mind working in groups but I would rather work on my own for the most part. I don't exactly have a favorite type of music because I love all music, so it is extremely hard for me to have a favorite song. But if I had to pick one song it would probably be "Call the Man" by Celine Dion. It is an old song of hers but it is a gorgeous song with great lyrics and I think she has one of the best voices of all time. The last movie I saw was Defiance. It was a true story about WWII and it was amazing, I definitely recommend it. The secretary of state is Hillary Rodham Clinton, and yes embarassingly enough I did google it...so sad. I don't really mind public speaking, but I am not really fond of it. I have never posted/written a blog but I am actually looking forward to this! The three biggest issues facing the United States in 2009 in my opinion would be our economy, the war in Iraq, and foreign affairs. My philosophy for life is to try to always take a step back and realize how short of a time we have here on earth. Take nothing for granted, and don't regret anything. Everyone makes mistakes, but its the only and best way to learn. I get stressed out very very easily so I'm trying to work on that this year. I am a member of Kappa Alpha Theta on campus and I participate in things through my sorority. I also have two jobs this semester. I work at Shoetopia, which is a shoe store on Campus Corner, and I have an internship with Universal Studios as a movie rep on campus. Joe Foote is the dean of the college of Journalism, David Craig is the associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Director of Graduate Studies. Buddy Wiedemann is the IT director for the Gaylord College of journalism and Cat Bark is the librarian at Gaylord. My favorite thing about OU is football season. It is such a fun time of year, and we have an amazing team.