With the powerful presentation in class and our notes on hate crimes i've learned that the world we live in can in fact be a horrible place and bad things do happen. There's so much hate and now rightfully so we have hate crimes to try and stop the hate thanks to President Obama and the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. hate crime laws. Hate crimes are "traditional" offenses like murder, arson, or vandalism with an added element of bias. People go out of there way to commit a crime based on someone's race, religion, disability, ethnic origin, and sexual orientation. In Matthew Shepard's case it was because he was homosexual and the two boys who murdered him took advantage of that and committed the crime out of hate. Matthew Shepard was a innocent boy who was taken advantage of and killed because he was "different " from what these boys thought was the norm and didn't like the idea of a homosexual kid which is when you see that the world we live in is messed up at times. In James Byrd Jr's case he was killed because he was black. The men who killed him were extreme racist and said to have been active members in the KKK which is one of the main things i think of when i think of hate. There's no other group that demonstrates more hate and hate crimes then the KKK. Knowing the KKK is still active reassures me that once again the world we live in can be a bad place.
Another presentation i really enjoyed this past week was A Wolf At The Table by Augusten Burroughs. Augusten is an amazing writer and his ability express his pain and leave the reader with an image is remarkable. The reader always feels bad for Augusten and i've never even read one of his books. The book is all about Augusten's relationship with his father and how much of a struggle his childhood was at times. Augusten grew up with un-stable parents especially his father who was a messed up man. I couldn't imagine growing up in his scenario and most people feel the same way and thats why people are so fascinated with his books. Learning about Augusten has taught me a lot about being able to move on and be yourself. Augusten is able to persevere so can we. He overcomes his mentally un-stable and abusive father and pursue his writing career even though he wasn't so sure about writing as a profession. Augusten and his book can teach us a lot and i really enjoyed the presentation in class and learning more about such an amazing man's story.
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