Author Archives: vln22

Pruitt-Igoe: A Failed Project

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I attended the viewing of “The Pruitt-Igoe Myth” and it brought new perspectives for me on racial division and government intervention. In order to get rid of slums in St. Louis, Missouri, the government decided to pour massive amounts of money into public housing and erected the Pruitt-Igoe project. This complex was a group of 33 buildings, which stood at 11-stories. For a few years, the buildings had enough renters to pay for maintenance and other necessities, but as people began to move to the suburbs, people began to leave and maintenance essentially stopped for the buildings. The people were living in horrible conditions and rents kept increasing.

When the project was torn down, people on the outside of the complex blamed the people within for their own issues, for the failed project. However, most of the people were merely reacting to the way they were being treated. They lived in horrible conditions, with minimal security. People who didn’t even live in Pruitt-Igoe would go into the buildings to steal, hurt, r*pe the vulnerable that lived there, it was so easy to get into the buildings. The police didn’t respond to calls from the Pruitt-Igoe area after a while. The welfare department made stupid rules for the people, like an able man couldn’t reside in the same house as a woman on welfare for dependent children. Fathers would have to hide if they wanted to stay with their families and were arrested if found. 

This is another system that failed because the people weren’t really given the tools they needed to survive. People have basic needs that need to be met and the buildings essentially just became the slums that the government was trying to get rid of. The people were prisoners in a way and they were oppressed by the government and people outside of the complex. There was such a stigma that came with living in Pruitt-Igoe that was definitely undeserved, as the conditions there were a result of the system. Now the entire 55 acre complex is just an empty plot, like the project never existed at all, but it’s an example of issues with society and its real effects on blameless people.

Independence and Dependence (Queen’s Gambit)

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I attended the screening of episode 5 of “The Queen’s Gambit” and it aligned with the book in a much more lighthearted way. In the book, after Mrs. Wheatley’s death, Beth goes on a bender. She drinks heavily and becomes reliant on drinking to get her through her difficult time. In this episode, we don’t really see much of that, but we know that Beth is still taking the tranquilizers. So in the book, she doesn’t really take on her newfound independence well, but she does in the show. She appears to even judge a woman she used to go to school with for drinking while taking care of a baby (which is probably fair considering the potential consequences) and so I feel that in the show she is shown as more wise and in control of herself.

Something else that I thought about was how socially stunted Beth sort of was in her life and how this has caused her to not really connect with people properly. This was clear with Beltik in the show, as he seemed to try to have some sort of a relationship with her but she wasn’t really conveying her thoughts and feelings in an open way. I think that he does help her become more open and he definitely helped her get through some of the loneliness and grief she was feeling after the passing of Mrs. Wheatley.

Exposing the Royal Family

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I attended the Table Talk about Meghan and Harry, and all of the controversy going on with the Royal Family recently. One of the biggest takeaways that I had during this conversation was how the media has such power over the family as well as how people perceive what’s going on. One of the discussions was about how odd it was that the royal family has to still “kiss up” to the media to stay in good standing all the time. Since they’re royal it would be logical that the media is somewhat obedient and respectful to royals. However, it’s my personal opinion that the royal family doesn’t really have much influence over the country besides their image so it makes sense that they need to keep their image up all the time. Once the interview with Oprah came out, it became so apparent that the media was extremely one sided in how they consistently kept Meghan in a negative light and people with no other side of the story believed the media. 

Another thing that we talked about was how Harry is split between two sides: his family and his family. Harry had to watch his mother suffer through something similar to Meghan and this is definitely his way of being more proactive and protective when he couldn’t back then. I would hope that if I were ever in a similar situation where my race was under scrutiny from my partner’s family that my partner would be as supportive as Harry has been publicly for Meghan. 

Climate Change and Social Inequality

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I attended the LWYL Cafe: Climate (IN)Justice: The Quest for Equity in a Changing Climate and it was a really informative, eye-opening talk for me. I am a firm believer in climate change and global warming. I believe the world will be in serious jeopardy if we don’t do anything to live more green right now. Of course, people think about things such as increase in temperature, melting glaciers, and rising sea levels, but the domino effect of climate change impacts society much deeper.

For example, in the United States, certain groups of people are more likely to live in poor areas with substandard housing. In the future, as the effects of climate change become more severe, we will begin to see people living in housing that no longer is able to protect them from these effects, whether it be an increase in temperature, extreme weather, flooding, etc. Something like a flood should be equalizing in that it affects everyone in the same way. However, we see that because of wealth disparity, richer people are going to be able to land on their feet much more quickly after a disaster like that then poorer people.

Similarly, something like a pandemic should have been equalizing but we can see that it has not been. Especially when it comes to work, we saw that some people were able to keep their jobs and work from home while others lost their jobs and had to file for unemployment or rely on stimulus checks. This is due to the disparity in ability to do remote work in a time where remote work is prevalent and deeming what is “essential”. 

Overall, I think that it is important to consider how different groups of people in society will be affected by inevitable changes in the future. Equity is always something that people aim for in general but when it comes down to it, there are some people who are not motivated to share their wealth or change their lifestyle for the betterment of others.

Climate Change and Disease

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I attended the Table Talk about One Health and Zoonotic Disease. This was a pretty interesting discussion because there are a lot of factors that can contribute to a pandemic or even the spread of disease that most people maybe didn’t consider before COVID-19. One of the ones I didn’t know about was how climate change could affect new spreads of diseases. As temperatures in places that were historically colder become warm, mosquitoes from around the equator could migrate towards the poles and bring malaria and other diseases with them. When we hear about climate change, we hear about the glaciers melting and things like that, but climate change will affect every part of our lives, not just the sea level. I think that it’s important to prepare for what could happen in the future as climate change continues to press forward. 

We weren’t prepared for the pandemic and the world suffered greatly. When life goes back to “normal” it’ll definitely be a new normal where people are more cautious about being in crowds and monitor their own health more. I hope that when people travel in the future, people are tested for viruses so that they don’t transmit new diseases to countries where the disease is not present.

Natural Lands – Fellow Interview

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I attended the Fellow Interview with Todd Bittner and Andrew Zepp where they talked about natural areas that people have been increasingly visiting since the start of COVID. I’ve never visited the Cornell Botanic Gardens even though I’m in my third year so I really want to make a point of it one of these days before classes end in May. Something that was discussed was if people would continue visiting parks once the pandemic is completely over. I definitely think that people in general will have a new appreciation for the outdoors once it’s safe to travel again. Overall, I think that since people will be free to do other things, the amount of people visiting parks will be less than pandemic times, but more than pre-pandemic times. Hopefully due to this, people will start taking better care of the Earth, as a lot of environmental issues are still on the rise.

I recently saw this video in one of my engineering ethics classes about how a Senator brought snow into a meeting and used it as evidence that global warming was a hoax as it was “clearly cold outside”. I thought this ridiculous and reminded me of the people who believe COVID is a hoax. This is sort of unrelated to the fellow interview, but either way, I feel that in general people who think COVID is fake are the same kinds of people who think global warming is fake and don’t protect our natural parks.

Fellow Interview and Leadership Takeaways

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I attended the Fellow Interview this week with Mary Opperman and Angela Cornell. I really appreciated hearing about their experiences throughout their careers. The brief discussion about leadership really resonated with me because I hope to use my degree to eventually obtain a position in management. They said that you learn the most from people who are the most different from you, which is true now that I think about it. People normally want to gravitate towards those who are similar, because conversation will be easy and you share the same views. This is why diversity in all things (even diversity in thought), is important for creating teams that can solve problems and enact change. I feel like employers who interview and hire people should really take this into consideration, that they learn the most from those who are different. However, it does make sense that sometimes the best interviews happen with those that you can “vibe” with the best.

Queen’s Gambit: Book v. Show

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This was my first time watching “The Queen’s Gambit”. I wanted to read the book before watching the show, but that didn’t happen. After watching during the event, I started reading the book and, of course, there are differences between the book and what the show portrays. I will try not to get into too much detail because the book is quite explicit, but Beth endures much more than is shown in the show. Jolene plays a much more sinister role in the book. She is a significant cause of suffering for Beth as she s*xually assaults and bullies her. I think that the show chose to omit this part of the storyline because it is a huge trigger (and rightfully, unfortunately so) for several people (Jolene and Beth become friends again a bit after, but a child can never forget a scarring experience like that). However, in the book, it is one of the pushes that causes Beth to become who she becomes. Chess is her escape from all the tension she feels in her life. 

This sort of makes me wonder about people who are truly remarkable, like Beth. Sometimes, people are born remarkable. Others are forced into it through their experiences, positive or negative, like how villains are born. I haven’t watched or read enough of The Queen’s Gambit to know if Beth’s experiences cause her to take a dark, evil turn (besides her substance addictions). As I continue to discover more of the storyline, I’m curious to see how Beth’s life will continue to shape her relationship with chess and her character. 

Bridgerton and Society Today

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I really enjoyed this event because when I watched the series I didn’t necessarily pay the closest attention to what was happening. It was more of a show that I put on in the background while I unpacked all of my clothes in my dorm room. One of my takeaways from this talk was how the show portrayed how little women knew about sexuality and sexual intercourse. Women were kept “pure” in every way that they could while men had pretty much free rein over their lives. While everything seemed really blown out of proportion in the show, I feel that it was probably accurate because women today can still feel the effects of the past. 

Even though we are moving towards women fully taking back sexuality, there is sometimes still a(n unnecessary) stigma when women are outwardly in touch with their sexuality. Several of my female friends have told me how their parents won’t allow them to go in their male friends’ bedrooms because of the negative message it would send, while the same parents have little to no restrictions on their sons. A bit of a double standard still, but nowhere near as bad as it was for women in the 1800s and I’m very thankful for that.