The legacy of Omar's name

The name Omar originates from both Arabic and Hebrew and means Long-lived as well as eloquent. the name Omar to certain extent portrays my personality in an unusual fashion; in certain aspects I do seem to fit the description of being long-lived since many of my classmates or at least my calculus classmates used to call me “grandpa” due to the extreme thought and patience i portrayed when solving mathematical equations. I also possess a wisdom and a manner of reasoning that is unprecedented ; this is evident when one considers the extensive philosophical research that I created. I, for some reason,  sound very profound when I speak or rather my speech possesses a tone that states " Lo my words are of a great wisdom that cannot be comprehended by ye". The other definition of my name, being eloquent, does not describe me whatsoever since when one hears me speak the last thing they would ever think of would be eloquent. I have a hard time of thinking and speaking at the same time, that is why I would rather represent my thoughts through methods of writing.

The name Omar signifies my personality and represents me as an individual as well as being part of a family or communal organization. My first name possess a peculiar connotation that changed throughout time for example when I was in middle school when people heard my name they usually thought "so is this one the school’s top nerds; he is a bit awkward". In high school however after I started joining clubs and playing more sports I became pretty well known and I formed more complex social relationships with other humans; from there on the legacy of the name Omar was used to represent me as an individual. The name Omar also represents me as a part of a family unit since in the Levant culture it is common to call an adult in relation to the name of their eldest child , so for example my father is called " Father of Omar" by all others who share the same culture , so my name is also associated with what other people view our family as.

Of the situations where I was aware of being both an individual and a part of a whole, the most bewildering one was when I got into an argument with an AP ignoramus who was slandering the great integrity of the IB program and dismissing the program  as a whole  as a farce that was trying to brainwash students. In that situation the Student was stating that the IB program limits one's academic choices and therefore lowers the potential points one can earn in high school as opposed to taking AP classes which promote intellectual thought and critical research; after stating this the student then condemned me as an ignorant and arrogant IB zombie and that due to those qualities I would never understand reason. This situation, when contemplated upon, revealed that at that moment I was in a state of confusion since the student assumed that my counter argument would be based upon a stereotypical IB student response and that I possessed the infamous IB qualities of possessing a patronizing demeanor and great arrogance yet, I possessed a totally different argument that was reflective of my personal ideologies and convictions rather than that of the  stereotypical IB student.

Being associated with a group or community is significantly different from being thought of as an individual since one is assumed to possess certain qualities that are prominent within a group. An example of this is when people look at me as a high school student and state since  i am young of age that I still do not possess any convictions or thoughts on what I would like to do with my life as a grown up. This example shows how i am sometimes dismissed by people based on their assumptions of the qualities of the stereotypical high school student, and that since i fit into the category of being a high school student i obviously must possess the qualities defined by their preconceived notions; although possessing such an impaired syllogism those who possess this view helped me realize how confusing it can be when one is both an individual as well as a part of a larger whole.     

The Anomaly of Asian Stereotypes

                                     

We are the Other - 38th Street & Nicollet Avenue, Minneapolis, MN, by Wing Young Huie, May 28th, 2012

Denotation:

 

When one first stares at the image above, it becomes instantaneously obvious that the chicken wing restaurant seems somewhat dilapidated and that the areas infrastructure is also poor. Upon further examination one notices the image of male that is wearing a straw hat; it is blatantly obvious that the man’s overall image derives from south east-east Asia, thus it is probably of a Chinese or Vietnamese origin. Secondly the mans dental condition can be considered a form of visual pollution, and since he only possess one tooth, his image can be usually associated with stupidity. There is also a broken down sign behind the window of the store, which might have been from the time that the restaurant was still operational. There is a store on the other side of the street that states Urban Outlet, and another that can be perceived as a typical twentieth century parlor that was probably used for giving haircuts. The restaurant's windows seem to be laden with graffiti; there seems to be a lack of pedestrians and residents in the area.

Connotations:

When one thoroughly analyses the image above, it becomes obvious that the restaurant's depiction of the East-Asian man supports certain stereotypes of the Asian-Oriental populace. The most prominent stereotype depicted is that Asian peoples, mainly Chinese, posses a yellow tinted skin, and that they are mostly uneducated farmers, thus the picture portrays the man as having a straw hat, indicating that he is a farmer, and a single tooth along with his mouth open to represent the lack of education he possess. These depictions connotate the late nineteenth century American and western view of the Asian peoples as being a backward and barbaric people. These stereotypes have been reinforced by the American government through the enactment of certain laws against Chinese immigration as well as the establishment of internment camps for the Japanese in 1942. These actions together shaped the American views of the East-Asian world. After much of the despise aimed against East-Asians was subtly declining, such restaurants were probably abandoned due to lack of business because of racial insensitivity or due to being forcibly moved to internment camps; this, above all, may have ultimately lead to the decline of consumers at this restaurant and at the surrounding stores. In terms of the economic stability of this area, this can be determined by the income of the stores which , given the stores outer appearance, seems to some extent humble; thus it is of no surprise that this area is in such an appalling state.

"Othering" in Wing Young Huei's work and Margaret Atwood's work:

Wing Young Huie represents the concept of "othering" in this image by, portraying the color of the restaurant's logo as well as its embedded image. Huie's style of photography clearly focuses on certain aspects and objects of an area, and makes them easily distinguishable from the rest of the image. He displays "othering" by showing a brightly yellow colored logo on a restaurant from an angle that clearly and completely captures most if not all of the physical features of the wings restaurant, and is in some fashion biased, due to the depicting of the the other building from an unfavorable point of view.

Margaret Atwood represents "othering" in The Handmaid's Tale, in a manner that is strikingly similar to that Huie , since she uses certain physical objects as well as colors to distinguish between people and in terms of the duties made obligatory on them by Gileadean society and to determine their social class. This can be shown by the prescribed colors of the clothes of the women in Gilead, in which the wives were forced to wear blue cloth, while the handmaids red cloth, and the Marthas Green cloth. This was done by the Gileadean government so that the classification of women would be simple and somewhat stereotypical. "Othering" in The Handmaid's Tale extends to many aspects other than the color of clothing; it can be extended to serve as a descriptor of certain actions and of the certain people who commit such actions. An example of such treatment is that of those who took up the job of being a prostitute and an abortion doctor, in which they are first deemed as inferior for their "rebellious" actions against the government and then are executed. Other examples of "othering" can be expounded to the point were if one fails to perform an actions such a as giving birth as a handmaid, they are sent to the colonies and are permanently grouped among with all those who live in such a place, thus they are ultimately being stereotyped against as being a part of the lower class.

Ultimately, the concept of "othering" in the works of Huie and Atwood, are somewhat similar but are mostly different due to the fact that Huie's work depicts "othering" in a manner that distinguishes people based on their ethnicity, and race while Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale depicts "othering" in a multitude of manners that include the distinguishing of people based on their supposed jobs and also based on their actions.