phoenixastraea | I need an intervention!! (Reply)

Ok, so I would have started this journal entry about five minutes ago, but I keep interrupting my typing because I can't stop eating Kix.

That's right, my friends: I am a cereal addict. If there are three food items I can't live without, it's (crunch crunch) cheese, fettucine alfredo, and cereal. (crunch crunch). You may think that someone like myself would spend most of my time mooning over sushi or juice or those Michelina meals that are so divine...but no. If you lose me in a grocery store, I'm browsing (yes, browsing) the cereal isle. (crunch crunch)

I remember my old tried and true favorites: Honey Nut Cheerios and Raisin Bran. Then I move on and wonder if I feel like a real good sugar rush in the mornings (crunch crunch); if so, Lucky Charms and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, baby, ALL the way! If I've been feeling like riding the fine middle line with the healthier but still sweetened cereals, you'll find me admiring the simplicity of Crispix, Corn Pops, or my current obsession, Kix. So simple, so pure, and so....irresistable. (crunch crunch)

So, I'm on my third bowl here and I start thinking about communism. Strange how something so heavenly could make you think of something so unsavory but that's just how my brain has chosen to function today. (Oh no! Last bite!! crunch crunch) On my way home from class every day, I pass a trailer park on my left, conspicuous in its placement between two upper-middle class neighborhoods. It got me thinking about all the themes we covered in our class presentations today about poverty, racism, school funding, and the influence of all these "high risk" elements within the context of both the school and community systems. Most of the books written today rail against over-simplification or reduction of any of these concepts, arguing that in doing so, all we do as people is gloss over the complexity of the problem and assign responsibility and urgency to anyone other than ourselves. Just like communism, it shows that homogeneity is insufficient in any socio-political or economic situation. It's just not possible to even the playing field, so to speak or force involved concepts into nice, neat little boxes for us to deal with in really efficient ways (a la the final scene in Raider's of the Lost Ark).

Back to the point of the trailer park, I thought about the types of people that must be in there and our assumptions (as outsiders) regarding their place in society. Also, I thought of how the people in the lovely houses on either side of this ghetto-looking trailer park must feel and what sorts of anxieties are present in their lives. Unless we go in there, however, we have no idea about the types of people who live in the park. Even so, I couldn't help thinking about how the people in the houses must be nuts to be neighbors to that type of living arrangement and that in wishing for something different, they may express their frustrations in terms of indignation against those of lesser economic status having only the means to live in such an eye sore. As I said before, homogeneity is never going to be viable nor should we wish it to be. That being said, conflict naturally stems from heterogeneity. Yes, all of us good, noble Americans understand the evil threat of Communism, but isn't this trailer park made possible through the socio-economic gap present in our own capitalistic society? Our rich are getting even richer and are willing to pay to put their kids into homogenous private schools, which do prove better for them scholastically (because of small class size, more personal instruction, etc) but widen the social gap between them and the rest of the world, which in turn just perpetuates the social problem where the current dominant culture will always be accused of racism and the other subcultures will feel nothing but anger and anxiety for a society that refuses to mix.

This is your brain. This is your brain on Kix. Any questions?