Black Ice

As soon as I picked this book up from the shelf, I read the title and saw the cover picture. I immediately knew what it was about.

Black Ice, a book written by Lorene Cary, reveals in the cover that the book talks about racism.

I read the prologue, which was named: June 1989. It wasn’t as shocking or touching as I had expected it to be. Even though on page 4 Lorene Cary narrates: “One night, a black boy came to me nearly weeping because a group of white friends had told a racist joke in his presence. He hated himself, he said, because he hadn’t known how to react. It was like I couldn’t move. I couldn’t do anything, he said.” 

Living in that time must have been hard. Waking up each day, knowing that your race was either superior or inferior just doesn’t seem human. Although today racism isn’t seen as much it still exists. People say that “history repeats itself” which makes me scared sometimes.

In that time racism was against black people, what if today there starts being racism against white? How would the world react? Would we receive help, or would we be ignored like so many people were in that time? 

Free Expression

Quotations and punctuation. Simple as it sounds, but somehow the most important part in writing.

Nicholson Baker, in “Survival of the Fittest,” managed to write fifteen pages just talking about how important the nine basic marks of punctuation are. 

“Commas have been around for at least as long as electrons,” Baker states in the first paragraph. How amazing is that? Writing has been the essential part of our history, although we invent other ways to use it, it will remain as long as we live.

They also talk about how the purpose of quotations and the semicolon have changed throughout the years. Now a day, in technology mostly, the semicolon and most forms of punctuation are used to make happy, sad, winky, or other smily faces to talk with people. Not only that, but when we text on our phones or chat through the computer, we tend to forget, or sometimes, jus don’t mind about our punctuation. And if we continue doing this, when we write important texts, we will start forgetting how to punctuate correctly.
 

It is very important to follow a basic set of rules to write. If you put quotations, and punctuation in the wrong place, you might send the wrong message or meaning to the reader.