In my self assessment essay, I went over how in my student introduction post on blackboard, I did not describe myself as well as I could have. I could have introduced myself with more details. Because of my instructor’s follow up questions, I elaborated some more!
Ben Simone
Hi class, my name is Ben Simone. I am 20 years old. I was born in Philadelphia, and grew up in NYC since I was three years old. I am beginning my third year at CCNY. I work two jobs that I really like. I work as an after-school counselor in an elementary school. It is the same school that I attended as a kid. I also work as a Jiu Jitsu instructor. I train beginners, adults and children. Outside of academic life and work, I like to see friends, read, and push my body past its physical limits by exercising, biking and training Jiu Jitsu. I like to travel, have been to Greece, Madrid, and Israel, and would like to travel more in the future! I hope to learn interesting social sciences concepts that I can use to interpret the world and sights around me. I’m excited to be back in school! Excited to meet my peers.
Jennifer Buno
Welcome to the class, Ben! I hope your experience returning to campus is a positive one! I’m a multiple job holder myself; what are the two jobs you work?
Ben Simone
I work as an after-school counsoler at an elemntary school on the Upper West Side. My job involves organizing sports games, arts and crafts, outside playtime, and watching the kids during free time. I attended the same elementary school and went to this program each year from kindergarden to Fifth grade. I enjoyed this progam as a kid, and couldn’t wait to apply to work there as a counsoler when I turned 18, which I did. My second job is a Jiu Jitsu instructor. I have been training Jiu Jitsu and other martial arts since I was 16. At 17, I started working as an intern Jiu Jitsu instructor for kids at the same club I trained, and later transitioned to teaching adults for pay. Teaching Jiu Jitsu is fun and seeing my students progress is fulfilling.
Jennifer Buno
What rewarding jobs you hold, Ben! I think it’s really great that you are giving back to the elementary school you attended by working in the after-school program. I bet the kids have a lot of fun with you. I’m sure there would be many people in the class, including me, who would like to hear about your experience training in Jiu Jitsu and then later on becoming an instructor. What inspired you to teach it, and not just continue practicing as a student?
Ben Simone
Hi Ms.Buno, thank you for appreciating what I do. Truth is, in the elementary school, it is at times challenging to work with such young kids, but I enjoy facillitating the fun I used to have. Regarding Jiu Jitsu, I primarily started teaching because it was a way for me to revisit fundamental technique that I am supposed to know. When I teach, I basically refine my own knowledge as far as explaining it in its most simple form. I cannot let my explainations get too complicated because then introductory classses no longer stay introductory. So when I’m with beginners, forcing myself to explain things in the easiest way, clarifies for me what more I need to understand about what I already thought I knew.
Revised Where I’m From Poem
The second blackboard post involved writing a poem about where I was from. I was surprised I didn’t get any comments from peers so I thought maybe my poem wasn’t clear enough for them So I went back, and revised it. I am including here my revised poem.
I am from the upper west side and Central Park.
Where these stomping grounds are what tens of millions of people
around the world,
save for months to have the chance
for a weeks’ visit.
From elevators to apartments on the 19th and 4th floor’s,
my real family name is engraved on a sidewalk thousands of miles away.
I am from a family of entrepreneurs–and academics–
and comparing their life outlook is as polarizing as contemporary political debate.
Really though, I am from my own freedom
found inside these endless streets and structures
disassociated from
the peering eyes who want to guide my future.
Notes for Mini-Ethnography
Here I am including parts of my very rough notes for essay 4, where I collected information from interviews, documentaries and academic sources about the 90s Gangsta rap subculture.
●Notes from Popular Culture a As Oppositional Culture: Rap as Resistance/Theresa Martinez:
Watts riots of 1965 depicted “Inner city residents angry with their living conditions so much so that rioting seemed a necessary means to call attention to their plight.” A so called “second wave of riots seemed an unnerving rerun of the earlier violence in Watts”
Musicians drew on their “own cultures to resist oppression under dominant ideologies and, in turn, influence the dominant culture… Their families, their spirituality, their music, among other cherished aspects of culture, become viable forms of oppositional culture.”
Rappers became hardcore and angry in the world they inhibitted. Songs can illustrate the despair, anger, and futility of life in the ghetto. This was further substantiated by Biggie in his interview..
-oppositional culture, a protest and condemnation of perceived racial formation, institutional discrimination, and urban decay in the inner cities. “These groups will develop an oppositional culture” or “culture of resistance” that embodies “a coherent set of values, beliefs, and practices which mitigates the effects of oppression and reaffirms that which is distinct from the majority culture.”
Part of African American oppositional culture has been “their own art and music” along with a “critical assessment of the dominant culture.”
“Ultimately rap is the voice of urban African American youth, and that this voice is a form of resistance to and survival within the dominant social order.”
● The intensity of the gangster persona. In an interview, Snoop Dogg said “I was at the forefront of the most violent record label in the world.” Snoop Dogg and Tupac lived under the control of rap’s most violent kingpin, Suge Knight. He demanded loyalty. Snoop Dogg on a radio show said he had a positive relationship with east coast rap stars.
● The Notorious Big (Biggie) and the man that owned the label Biggie was in: Puff Daddy.
● More on gangsta persona: On a flight with Suge Knight and Tupac following this Snoop Dogg interview, they both wanted nothing to do with him. They didn’t let Snoop’s security board and when Snoop walked to the back of the plane he “ grabbed me a knife, and a fork, put a blanket over his nose and rode that way the whole flight…”
●Snoop was desperate to stay safe. But he’d been trapped in a life of violence and fear for years. Howard Stern Show, “at 12 years old you joined a gang.”
●Death Row Chronicles, “if you were a young black guy at that time, drugs and gangs were as much a part of your life as stop lights and street signs.”
●”A lot of the times I was shot at I had a gun in my possession but couldn’t shoot back because I was so scared, concerned for my life”
●Got kicked out of the house at 17 because his mother believed he brought too much drama to the house.When Snoop met Suge, he finally thought he had a way out. Suge was so passionate about his
artists (Snoop says). He was giving us direction and coaching us.
Snoop Dogg got involved in a first degree murder case and turned himself in. Tupac wanted Snoop Dogg to stay gangsta, and not turn himself in but Snoop believed that he should. He said he had a lot to live for, “cuz, i got a baby on the way, I have a lot to live for. Somebody’s life was lost, this is a real situation. So I don’t feel how y’all feel, I got actual remorse, I feel bad.. I don’t want to live this gangster life no more”
●Biggie A&E Documentary, July 28, 2020
Insiders: Biggie himself, Biggie’s friends or work partners, such as Hurbert Samsoula Sam, Lil cease, Junior Mafia members, Puff Daddy, Faith Evans, His mother, Violetta Wallace
“Everybody say my music is so negative but I was just tryin to just, tell people what’s going on. I look at myself as the eyes of the world… I gotta tell my story.
“Bedstuy in the 80s was a jungle, just a concrete jungle.”
“A lot of violence”
“It didn’t feel like anyone was in control.”
“I felt like the environment in the neighborhood, gangsta stuff was in his face so strongly that that world showed you you made money.”
“He was always about that, get money by any means.”
Biggie said with his mom gone all the time he was dipping and dabbling in dangerous things. “Who is somebody to tell me that I shouldn’t hustle… It was inevitable”
“Biggie was a son that every mother would have liked to have but at 13 he became notorious,” his mother said.
● “You wanted the same life that they had because yours was bad.”
“After I got introduced to the drug game the only thing I thought I was going to be in life was a drug dealer.”
“He was caught on the streets hustling but was genuinely a good person.”
“I mean when you in the game, and you say you’re selling drugs, or whatever, you automatically considered a bad person… the worst person in the world, they don’t even understand the situation before I
was selling drugs… I had to do my thing to feed my family.”
● “I know if I wasn’t rapping, I’d be hustling. There’s really no doubt about that because 9-5 ain’t me, I just can’t see that.”
“I just rap about what I know. The Streets I was brought up [in].”
“His label manager Diddy wanted Biggie to be authentic, and he was hardcore rap.”
●Tupac and BIggie had a lot of things in common which strengthened their friendship. Lack of father figure, skilled rappers, both from the streets.
●Biggie on Tupac, “He liked to hang out and get drunk, in his interviews and everything he just seemed so angry but at the same time so charming.”
●”You can rap as hard as you want on an album but make sure you got some joints. Good, friendly records that the girls is going to like, the radio is going to like, it’ll help sell your album.”
●Diddy wanted to make a movie about this kid from Brooklyn who had nothing to lose who was ready to die and that was the mentality that was going on. Coming out of the 80s, out of crack, people losing their family. Not seeing any light on the horizon.
Teacher’s Comments and Annotations
In my self-assessment essay, I noted some of my instructor’s comments on essay 3, that I would alway remember when I write papers in the future. I attach these comments here.
I also attach my annotations on a scholarly source I used in my mini-ethnography paper (the Music and Nature book), and my annotations from the Fieldworking book chapter about interviewing techniques I used for the classmate interview paper.
