Julia's Justifications

  Since quarantine started, I have been on TikTok a lot. I probably spend at least two to three hours a day on the app alone, because I am that bored. Something I have noticed is that “cancel culture” is very prevalent and lots of “creators” or just normal people like you and me, can get “canceled.” Cancel culture in itself should be a good thing; holding others accountable for their actions, in hope that they will educate themselves and change. However, this is almost never the case. Most of the time, people care more about bashing and “canceling” the person than the actual issue at hand. For example, some creators on TikTok have been canceled for lip-syncing the n-word. Now, that is a terrible thing, and they must be held accountable for their mistake, but I have seen first-hand that there are people who care more about canceling that person than the community that was affected. Not to mention there were people in the comments who were not Black trying the excuse the person’s beh...

  When trying to find an episode of the American Life, I wanted to find a story that was not at the top which would have probably been already picked, so I chose the Trail of Tears. In the episode, two Cherokee sisters Sarah and Amy Vowell recount their experience of driving through the Trail of Tears. Another reason I chose this particular episode is that Native American and Indigenous history overall greatly interests me and have not been educated on the Trail of Tears all that much. I can say without hesitation that the American school system has failed me in the way that I learn more about my country’s history in my AP English class than history at all. I also believe that I should not have to wait until college to hear the real, raw story—the story that Sarah and Amy know all too well. One thing that I learned from this episode is the horrific events that Sarah and Amy’s ancestors had to experience has resulted in generational trauma, yet they are conflicted. They feel a nee...

While trying to find an image to put in my blog, I ended up stumbling upon Edvard Munch's famous painting, The Scream , which universally symbolizes anxiety. I can connect this piece with myself not only because I have a diagnosed anxiety disorder, but the painting represents perfectly how I have been feeling during this pandemic. Munch was a painter during the expressionist movement, when artists expressed their inner emotions through art. Munch was famous for his passionate artworks depicting life and death, which can be seen in The Scream. During this time, I felt extremely unsure of my future and the world around me, which I tied to the man’s emotions in the painting. The background behind him is topsy-turvy and all over the place, which is where I am at mentally. The sky behind him also looks like a fire, and could represent how during times of crisis, our minds are in flames. To be perfectly frank, that is what my mind would probably look like right now, with everything rangi...