(page 2, "Rap and Race" paragraph one)

The fact that rap had to serve as a stand-in in national politics for real conversations about race shows that rap as resistance is a powerful way to bring important issues to the forefront of the public's -- and hopefully lawmakers' and politicians' -- minds.

My annotations aren't working (!) so I'll post my notes here:

In the excerpt from Tricia Rose's writing, beginning "Black culture, when it functions in distinctly black ways... alienates a good percentage of white people, by definition...."

I think some white people tend to see rap as alienating because they've traditionally had access to all powerful discourses -- they've traditionally called the shots. Now that they can't call the shots about the issues discussed in rap, it gains a more subversive nature in their eyes.

We see a lot of "war on drugs" language in politics today. We attribute drug dependency to the moral or intellectual shortcomings of the poor, saying they're lazy or stupid and that's why they get involved in drug dealing, gangs, and drug cartels. It's difficult to draw a hard line between today's focus on deporting illegal immigrants and today's focus on solving America's drug problem (which we sometimes assume is closely associated with drugs from Mexico). People assume illegal immigrants take our jobs, etc. but they also assume illegal immigrants are disruptive because of their connection to drugs/Mexican cartels. In this way, we might begin to see both the war on drugs and the war on immigrants as wars on the poor. After all, we don't see high-profile people getting arrested or deported.

States like Oklahoma Texas are "right to work" states, meaning public employees such as teachers have the "right to work" without being forced to be in a union. However, using public education as an example, right to work states don't often have the best conditions and their unions have less power. Right now, Oklahoma teachers are on strike, demanding more funding for public education. How might Oklahoma look different if unions were more powerful? How might Oklahoma instate a "balance"?

(My second annotation):

From page 115, "only her daughter, Rosa... breaks away from the rapidly-hardening screen stereotype of the Italian-American woman."

This quotation points out the intersection of racism and sexism -- Italian American women are not only "explosive" and "neurotic" because of their ethnicity, but also because they are women. Women are supposed to be quiet, unassuming, and passive. Italian American women are portrayed by the media as lacking these qualities.

(My laptop is being weird and won't let me annotate so this is one of my annotations):

From the bottom of the first page: "possessing the power to create, reinforce, and modify public images about ethnic groups, including Italian-Americans"

What do modern movies such as Black Panther, I Am Not Your Negro, and Selma do to create, reinforce, and modify public images about African Americans? Has there been positive or negative change in movies regarding this topic?

This relates to our discussion of sartorial display in Unit 1. In this case, gangsters use professional clothing to appear not only distinguished and successful, but also law-abiding and respectable.

Could these "new bureaucratic values" be perversions of original "American values"? As American values such as achievement and success were applied to corporate life, maybe this application caused them to morph into their more sinister forms. This maybe connects to Lupsha's argument about gangsters' perversion of American values by suggesting how this perversion came about.

Maybe this contributes to gangsters' need to use sartorial display? Someone who dresses stylishly and professionally, such as the gangster Rothstein, certainly does not appear foolish. However, Gatsby's overdone clothing may make him an exception to this rule.

1. We can still identify organized crime because institutions and people (suckers) still operate within the official system. We can see the effects of organized crime on suckers and we can see how the government and other institutions attempt to shut down organized crime.
2. The words "wise guys," "sharpies," and "suckers" are not necessarily limited to people who move in the world of organized crime. All groups have these people within them. On a smaller scale, in an office building, the sucker is the person who leaves their lunch in the refrigerator with a nice note on it asking his coworkers not to eat it. The sharpie is the person who, upon seeing his coworker's unguarded lunch, takes it for himself. The wiseguy is the person who, through mastering the art of stealing lunches, never has to pack a lunch ever again. Lupsha applies observations about human behavior to organized crime.
3. From The Great Gatsby, Nick is a sucker. He works hard in his bond business on Wall Street but doesn't achieve success. Gatsby is a sharpie. He manipulates the economic system to accumulate a lot of wealth very quickly. He does this by avoiding ordinary work and not subjecting himself to authority. Meyer Wolfsheim, a gangster who is highly successful and doesn't get caught, is a wiseguy.
4. See above!!
5. From Hamilton, Washington may be a sucker because he is moral through and through. He also advocates for fairness and the absence of partisanship within US politics but does not achieve these things. Hamilton is a sharpie because he uses whatever resources he can to achieve success very quickly. Aaron Burr is a wiseguy because he understands the balancing act that is politics and uses it to his advantage. He knows how to play his cards.
6. Nick Caraway is right about Gatsby's dream being corrupted. The American Dream is susceptible to corruption because it is so limited in regards to who is able to achieve it. In relentless pursuit of the American Dream, people often forego their morals. This means that people must attempt to achieve the American Dream through whatever route they can, due to America's prejudices.

This shows that gangsters perhaps had more loyalty toward their fellow gang members (or members of their own community, ethnicity, etc.) than toward America. It might be easy to alienate yourself from the mainstream society if it continues to call you a criminal or an unwanted immigrant.

1. Some key terms that are important in O'Kane's argument are "newcomers," "immigrants," "ethnic," "assimilation," and "nativism."
2. O'Kane's argument is that the process of assimilation (or lack thereof) undergone by immigrant groups is much more complicated than theories illustrated by Horatio Alger and others, which suggest that for immigrants, climbing in to the higher ranks of society is a peaceful and simple process.
3. Ethnic immigrants tried to participate in the cultural narrative of the American Dream by looking to examples of people from their own ethnicities who achieved success; however, success stories such as these were rare. Immigrants' efforts to work hard to achieve their American Dream were seen as threatening by natural-born Americans, who feared how different immigrants were.
4. Immigrants were prevented from participating in the cultural narrative of the American Dream by natural-born Americans, who responded to immigrants with violence, prejudice, and harmful legislation.
5. Some ethnic immigrants resorted to pursing the American Dream through organized crime. This was because America denied them fair means of achieving wealth and status. One fictional gangster who took this path is Gatsby. Determined to rise into the upper class from his youth, the fastest and most effective way to do this was through organized crime because of America's prejudices toward working-class people. Other gangsters (fictional and real) such as Meyer Wolfsheim, who is an ethnic gangster, likely experienced this to an even greater degree because they were not white.

Is "selection" really fair?

This was perhaps because lower-class, native-born Americans had more to lose with the influx of immigrants. Because unskilled immigrants could work alongside them -- presumably taking their jobs -- and achieve their status without a great deal of time or effort, they may have feared for their own security. This reminds me of poor whites in the South during slavery and just after the emancipation of slaves. Because they lived as an (admittedly unequally) oppressed population in society, these people asserted their superiority over Southern blacks in the only way they could -- their race. Lower-classes asserted their superiority over immigrants in the only way they could -- their native status.

Because of their status as "newcomers," these people seem to have had to work a lot harder than members of the mainstream to achieve success. Perhaps a natural-born citizen did not have to live such a perfect life to achieve the same level of success.

This reminds me of Gatsby, with his schedule that shows the ways in which he aims to better himself daily. Fitzgerald perhaps drew from Horatio Alger's material for inspiration for some of Gatsby's traits. These might include Gatsby's unadulterated belief that he can achieve what he wants to achieve and relive the past with Daisy.

Conflicting opinions on cruelty, especially cruelty that is self-serving: to succeed is to make others fail, so every success comes with some measure of guilt

The gangster personifies the modern world, which is "dangerous" and "sad" but most importantly unknown. The gangster figure questions changes in society in the '20s and today. He is a response to the new age of consumerism and modernization.

In the context of this statement, it's interesting that Fitzgerald himself was a white writer.

Fitzgerald taps into this through his descriptions of Meyer Wolfsheim, who is a Jewish gangster. Fitzgerald makes no attempt to portray ethnic gangsters in a positive light. They are greasy, unattractive, and innately criminal.

In this paragraph, I think it's important to remember the author is writing primarily about the middle-class, not the working-class (where Gatsby came from, and where the depression was arguably felt the worst)

The major claim that governs Pauly's overall argument is his assertion that despite Gatsby's characterization as a "dandy" figure, Gatsby accurately represents the newly affluent class of criminals characteristic of the turbulent 1920s.

Some important words or phrases in Pauly's argument may include "manipulative," "believably unbelievable," "dandy," and "status."

Gangsters reveal that they do not naturally belong in the world of the wealthy because they lack proper taste. This distinguishes them as people who were not born into wealth and also suggests that gangsters come from some of the least prestigious populations in society, such as immigrant or minority populations. Similarly, Fitzgerald's grotesque depiction of Wolfsheim (the eyes, the cufflinks, etc.) shows that popular opinion of these groups during the time of his writing was rather prejudiced.

Gatsby's background is, however, one of the reasons he will never rise to the status of Daisy and Tom. As much as Gatsby tries to hide his past, the gaudiness of his possessions as well as his flagrant display of his newfound lifestyle ensures that he will always be associated with "new" money -- lacking the prestige and sophistication of those with inherited wealth.

Braudy likens celebrities to ordinary people, which may help explain the public's fascination with celebrities. Ordinary people like to know that important people aren't completely different from them, after all.