Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Dear Mr. President - Pink ft. Indigo Girls

Dear Mr. President,
Come take a walk with me.
Let's pretend we're just two people and
You're not better than me.
I'd like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly.

What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street?
Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep?
What do you feel when you look in the mirror?
Are you proud?

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry?
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye?
How do you walk with your head held high?
Can you even look me in the eye
And tell me why?

Dear Mr. President,
Were you a lonely boy?
Are you a lonely boy?
Are you a lonely boy?
How can you say
No child is left behind?
We're not dumb and we're not blind.
They're all sitting in your cells
While you pave the road to hell.

What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away?
And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay?
I can only imagine what the first lady has to say
You've come a long way from whiskey and cocaine.

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry?
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye?
How do you walk with your head held high?
Can you even look me in the eye?

Let me tell you 'bout hard work
Minimum wage with a baby on the way
Let me tell you 'bout hard work
Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away
Let me tell you 'bout hard work
Building a bed out of a cardboard box
Let me tell you 'bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
You don't know nothing 'bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
Oh

How do you sleep at night?
How do you walk with your head held high?
Dear Mr. President,
You'd never take a walk with me.
Would you?


I think this song is pretty self-explanatory as to why I chose it, however I'll do my best explaining it. This song is exactly the opposite about what we do. "Let's pretend we're just two people and you're not better than me" The Charter says that everyone is equal no matter what. Doesn't matter if you're the prime minister, a teacher, a CEO of an important company, or just an average person on the street. Everyone is equal no matter their race, religion, age, etc. We all have the freedom to think whatever we want and freedom of speech. This goes with the line "I'd like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly". We have the freedom of speech. We can say what we want no matter where we are. Something that often we take for granted. This song hit me in a number of different ways, everything from working hard with just a minimum wage and a baby on the way, to building homes when they've been bombed. But the one thing that hit me the most was the last line in the song: "You'd never take a walk with me, would you?" Everyone always thinks they're better than everybody else, when really we're all the same. We're all equal with the same rights as everyone else. We don't see that though, we just see someone who has something that we don't have ... an accent, a different hair colour, different skin colour, we can't see past that. It's almost as if there's a glass in front of you and that person. You can see in them, see how nice they are, the good things they want to do, but you can't get past that glass of color, or accent, etc. We have the power to change so many things, but we always get shut down. By "we" I mean students, teenagers, whatever you want to call us. They say that we're not discriminated because of age, but yet we're not allowed to go into certain stores because there's "too many of us". Isn't everyone supposed to be treated the same? I think instead of teaching us about equality rights, they should teach adults, 'cause quite frankly, they have more learn than we do. At least we're not discriminating people around us for no reason. Still, this song was for me what the Charter is about. Or, theoretically, the Charter is the opposite of what the song says.

"Be unique. The last time someone tried to make everyone the same, eleven million people died." - Anonymous

Friday, September 12, 2008

Anti-Bullying in Nova Scotia




http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia/story/2008/09/11/pink-day.html
In this article, it talked about how in Nova Scotia, more than 1200 students wore pink to school yesterday to show their support for anit-bullying. The whole thing started last year when a kid in Annapolis Valley was bullied for wearing a pink shirt on his first day of school. Two students saw this happen, and decided to act against it. Since then, more people have decided to wear pink to school on a designated day against bullying. In fact, Nova Scotia premier has made it a provincial day, on the second Thursday of school.

I think this is something that should be happening in more than just the one province. Bullying is something that effects pretty much everyone, and well quite frankly, it's completely unecessary. Being bullied for being different, or in the case of the student, a guy wearing a pink shirt, is stupid. Isn't Canada all about being free? Isn't that all we talk about? That we have free will and free choice. We're a free country and we can do pretty much whatever we want, and yet we still bully people for being different. I think it's something that the government of every province/territory should take a stand against in. It's not fair to be punished for being different. Many people come to Canada from countries trying to escape that, and yet it seems to follow them everywhere they go. That's not fair. Not only to the person in question, but also to the reputation of Canada. Who's to say that a person being bullying from another country will not tell any relitives they may have that everything they've heard about Canada is wrong. That could impact so many people into their decision to come here and they'll start a chain reaction, giving Canada a bad reputation. Do we really want that to be what Canada's known for? Being hypocritical for something that everyone knows us as? I personally don't want that happening. I think if enough people take a stand against it, it will be stopped. It goes with the whole law thing. If enough people want it changed, then it will be changed. Granted it will probably be hard, but whoever said that life was easy. I'd take a stand against it with enough people. I think if people want something to happen, they have to find a way to make it happen. There's no point in saying you wish something would happen if you're not going to do anything about it.

First Blog =)

This is my Social Studies 11 Blog. Apparently it's mandatory so I can't do much about it. Oh well. That's life for you =P