Propaganda 2011

Propaganda. I have always learned about ways dictators in history have utilized it to try and brainwash people to help carry out some sort of negative plot. When I really think about it, though, propaganda is still alive today and can be found in our everyday lives. Though propaganda certainly is used in a variety of ways, I would like to focus on how it is used when it comes to advertising. Ads in magazines and commercials on television in a way use propaganda. They try to convince someone to buy something by using different tactics, however, they always fail to mention the negative things that can come from their products. I think the perfect example of this is McDonalds. It's well known that McDonalds is extremely unhealthy, but if you ever watch their commercials, they don't speak from a health aspect. Rather, they show children having fun and enjoying their food while playing with little toys that come with their meal saying "I'm lovin' it". Though this advertisement does not lie about anything, it is misleading. I know that when I was a child, before I understood how unhealthy the restaurant chain is, after watching a McDonalds commercial, I wanted to go to McDonalds to get cool toys and have fun like the children in the ad I had seen. I think that feeling that these advertisements sends to people is the modern-day propaganda that exists everywhere, yet is not often recognized.

Black Boy

I think this story is beautifully written. Although the content Wright is writing about, the way he portrays it does not make life seem nearly as horrible as I'm sure it was. I like and dislike the novel because of this. On one hand, many of the books that I have read that were written about a black person in this time period are generally about the injustices they face in life. I'm not saying most books are written like this, I'm just saying of the books I have read. In a way it's interesting to get a sense of the other things going on in Richards life besides being treated poorly--certainly his struggle with his mother when she becomes ill is intriguing. It bothers me to some degree that Richard doesn't focus very much on what is going on around him: blacks treated inferior to whites. In the town where Richard grew up, Natchez, we learned that it was one of the worst places in the country at the time with racism. Even though Richard was young at the time, he did not really tell any stories of black mistreatment other than hearing a few stories about a white man beating a black man. All in all, I really do enjoy this novel, and I hope that as the story progresses and Richard begins to develop a better grasp of what is happening around him he will further explore the issue of racism during his life.