Demonization

In “The Ritual Process,” Victor Turner employs the term “liminoid” to define modern rites that transport individuals out of the ordinary realm and into a realm of “anti-structure” where they are “betwixt and between” societal statuses. (94) New Age practices are liminoid in the sense that they are thought of as doorways to sacred transitioning, during which energy is ordered and self-actualization takes place. In the realm of the liminoid, the self is liberated, “de-identification is…

Evil is a subject the world cannot avoid with its constant corruption. Almost everything in the world today seems to revolve around the concept of evil; whether it comes from music, movies, literature, and society in general. Although British literature stories mainly have the concept of good vs. evil, they shed the most light on the evil aspect of people. The stories include the motives and reasons that go with the intentions of evil that will be carried out in the story. Most of the stories…

However, since the article by Dr. Bray was posted, the scientific community sought to find the truth as to whether high fructose corn syrup could really be responsible for this dramatic spike in obesity. Dr. John White is a leading opponent of Brady's hypothesis linking HFCS with obesity. Since the HFCS-obesity hypothesis was introduced by Dr. Bray in 2004, as White (2008) put it: ...it quickly took on a life of its own. This once mundane ingredient [high fructose corn syrup] became vilified in…

In February 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, a decision that led to the internment of people of Japanese heritage in identified areas across the United States. Several factors, including concerns about national security threats, social and racial attitudes about Japanese and Japanese Americans, and economic issues such as land and business ownership influenced this controversial action. The internment of people of Japanese heritage in the United States is still…

being how the British officials were also involved in this demonization.…

The demonization of Islam in the news and in popular culture is reinforzada by events such as the September 11, attacks by Al Qaeda and ISIS and representation of Arabs in movies such as Taken and American Sniper. It is true that terrorism exists as a result of political and violent situation in the Middle East, but terrorism is not synonymous with religion, culture or geography. The downside of the media do believe that the Islamic world is a threat, when in fact extremely small groups using…

Ryan Coogler was also concerned with creating a multidimensional character when he crafted Fruitvale Station. The film tells the last day in the life of Oscar Grant, a young unarmed black man who was murdered by police on New Years in 2009 at a BART station in Oakland, California. The event struck Coogler hard. He was still in college when it happened, and the shooting took place in the community he grew up in. Much like the rest of the directors, Coogler’s personal relations to the material is…

A mouse or rat, drawn to heavily resemble the racist stereotypes of Japanese appearance, is trapped and presumably killed by a mousetrap labeled “Material Conservation”, with the caption of the poster being “Jap Trap”. The message is simple; if Americans wish to put a stop to the “yellow peril” after Pearl Harbor, then they should conserve more of their goods and be less wasteful. This War War II propaganda poster was created by the United States Information service, and was probably put into…

When I Cast Your Shadow is the kind of delightfully eerie book that is perfect for a gloomy fall afternoon that will quickly turn into evening. About a year ago, yours truly read another Sarah Porter book, Vassa in the Night, and reviewed it for Culturess, so this is not my first rodeo. And like Vassa, When I Cast Your Shadow (sent to yours truly by Tor Teen) goes to New York City and injects a dose of weirdness; in When I Cast Your Shadow, it's the idea of the dead getting the chance to walk…

In what seemed to be a miraculous coincidence, I got to attend the “Black Lives Matter and Racial Policing” presentation at the Constitution Day conference. I was really hoping to attend this particular presentation because as a minority, I was somewhat familiar with the topics and concepts. I knew the speakers would deepen my understanding and talk about situations that would hit home. Unfortunately, it was scheduled for the exact time frame as a class I couldn’t miss, but my teacher called in…