Harlem Field trip (#3)

Yesterdays field trip was such a great learning experience. The tour through harlem showed us many historical landmarks that are present in harlem. Out tour guide was a good spirited, harlem born and raised, native. He taught us all we needed to know about harlem. The changes of harlem that he was telling the class really caught my attention. Harlem has changed both for good and for bad. For instance Harlem has grown to be a safer place to live. I remember him saying,  "there has been a 60 percent crime decrease in Harlem". That is a huge decrease in crime! Not only did violent crimes and death decrease but also the drug dealing and the prostitution had slowed down. The mosque, Masjid Malcolm Shabazz, in which we visited had also explained to us this change in violence. One of the preachers at the mosque told us that they don't lock or gate their building. This is because they trust the people of Harlem, and trust that no one would ruin this sacred and holy historical place. But along with the good transformation of Harlem came the bad. Neal Shoemaker, our wonderful tour guide, was telling us the uprising of the wealthy people. Some of Harlem is becoming too expensive for some people to live and this might cause trouble. For instance, one of the newly constructed buildings in Harlem, was bought by Jay-Z and Beyonce for millions of dollars. This is causing trouble because many Harlem citizens can't even afford certain houses. This is called the process of gentrification. During the gentrification process A certain place is flooded with money and good investments. This causes the place to raise to an upper class of wealth. In the article, What is gentrification,  it explains the causes and reasons for gentrification. In addition to that, I notice that the new buildings architecture relates nothing to the old architecture. This might not seem like a big influence but I believe it changes the environment of Harlem. These modern buildings have a totally different style then what is already in Harlem. I think the old buildings style and designed contributes to make Harlem what it is today. It gives it more of a historical feel. Another interesting aspect in our field trip to Harlem was the Apollo theater. First off, our tour guide for the Apollo theater, Billy, was amazing. He had such energy and was able to convey the huge significance of this theater. It was amazing to know I was able to go on stage where so many famous African American people were born into stardom. Harlem has come along way from what I read in Malcolms autobiography. It is so fascinated to see how fast Harlem has changed over a short period of time. At this rate I wonder how Harlem will be for the next generation of children.

Essential education (#2)

Malcolm's incarceration, I believe, had a huge positive influence on his life. Chapter eleven's title, "saved" really describes what education had done for him. With all of Malcolm's free time he was able to educate himself and improve his writing skills. Malcolm's old life before he went to jail included drug selling and stealing, with minimum knowledge about life. In jail he was able to learn abundance of new vocabulary by rewriting the dictionary. "I saw that the best thing i could do was get hold of a dictionary-to study, to learn some words. I was lucky enough to reason also that i should try to improve my penmanship. it was sad. I couldn't even write in a straight line." (Haley 175). As i continued to read Malcolm X, it dawned on me that his life had changed from reading and learning. He went from a drug-selling, unarticulated person, to a well spoken person. This awaken me to the power of education. Knowledge is a powerful tool that can make your life successful in so many aspects. In life, there are so many success stories of well educated people exceeding their expectations due to their overwhelming knowledge but i did not know that knowledge could lead to a longer life. In a new york times article  "A Surprising Secret to a Long Life: Stay in School - New York Times" (www.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/health/03aging.html)i learned that education is not only for a successful life but for a longer life. " The one social factor that researchers agree is consistently linked to longer lives in every country where it has been studied is education. It it more important that race; it obliterates any effects of income" (Kolata 1) What makes this article even more interesting to me is that education plays a bigger part than race or money.