The Powerful Mind

As my responsibility in the world, my role of thinking, questioning, and forming a critical analysis helps me better understand the wrong doings going on in this world. As Arendt talks about the nazi party coming to rise as a political power, their views on Jewish treatment was outrageous, and for her to educate herself and to to be an active thinker gave her the voice that she needed to speak up, to say that what is going on is wrong. Arendt says, “thinking became a tool with which people can bring new awareness into their actions” (4), being a free thinker gave individuals a voice to be heard into the world, and let people know that it is unjustifiable for what these nazi’s are doing. This can correlate to how my responsibility is in the world because there are many unjust things going on that needs to be said. Just a week ago, a famous rapper by the name of Nipsey Hussle was shot and killed before a meeting with the chief of police. People say it was a government set up, in that Nipsey was trying to be silenced. If you haven’t heard, Nipsey is one of the few rappers that give back to his community. When he became famous, he stayed in his neighborhood of Crenshaw in Los Angeles to try to build the community up. He build supermarkets, clothing stores, and a barber shop to give back to his community and to create job opportunities. Before he was shot, he set up an arrangement with the chief of police to talk about how to lessen crime in the gang related neighborhood, but he was shot. Sources say the government wanted to silence Nipsey because they want to contain the black community and live under poverty. For me that, inspired me to be a man of action, and to emphasize what is going on in our own country, to solve the problems.

At this point in my life, I have to be responsible with whatever that I do that puts me out in the world. This refers to Arendts philosophical thinking that she talks about. “However, even good people fear making judgments, often feeling that judging will make them seem arrogant and over-confident. To this, Arendt’s poignant response is: “If you say to yourself in such matters: who am I to judge? — you are already lost” This quote resonated to me because, I do tend to judge others a lot more than I want to. Being responsible with what I say to others and how I put myself out to them is important for myself because it leaves an imprint of how I will leave my impression on them. To myself however, I want that respect that I need from others, and by doing that, acting in a philosophical way will allow myself to grow as a person and also become more self aware with my community.

There is one moment I felt where my community partners felt vulnerable, which was when I asked them what they are going to eat for dinner. They seemed very hesitant about telling me, but they proceeded to let me know that since their parents are working at night, they were just going to make ramen noodles and chips for dinner. This shows that they are still vulnerable about how they feel in their day to day lives. Butler says, “Mourning, fear, anxiety, rage. In the United States, we have been surrounded with violence, having perpetrated it and perpetrating it still, having suffered it, living in fear of it…” (28). This quote talks about how these children are used to being judged living in the United States, their self consciences wants to tell them that they are different from everybody.