User:Ksembly2/sandbox

Caucasia Update 04.18.19: Peer Editing on Google Doc

Link for Caucasia edits: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12RyTvy9wl1f1mUBiDBzNW0iNjd4hgbLLKof0Z9j6lE4/edit?usp=sharing

Link for Sarah Phillips edits (by me): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E-qopTuzcUI3r4wusHwKSkIRcN50_MvefqdTEOtVllU/edit?usp=sharing

Link for I Am Not Sidney Poitier edits (by me): https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Pfb55/sandbox&action=edit&section=2

- My email edits/suggesttions for I Am Not Sidney Poitier: Great job! You're entry is really clear-cut, and an easy-read. You might think about incorporating those movies listed at the end of your Chapter Two section into a sentence or two within the Lead Section. The reader, especially young ones, might not be aware that Everette's book is a spin-off of the real-life Sidney Poitier. This might be a perfect opportunity to weave that in. Hope this helps!

Caucasia Update 04.04.19: Part I

It is 1975 and eight-year-old Birdie Lee lives with her family in Roxbury, Massachusetts. She and her older sister, Cole converse in their room using their made-up language, Elemeno. The pair can hear their white mother, Sandy and black father, Deck arguing downstairs. Sandy often spends hours in the family basement engaged in meetings that Birdie and Cole are prohibited from hearing.

Deck, alongside his good friend Ronnie Parkman, takes the girls to say goodbye to his sister, their Aunt Dot, who is leaving for India. During the going-away party, Birdie weaves her way throughout Dot’s house and stumbles upon a room with many men congregated around something. A man named Redbone, who recognizes her as Deck’s daughter, lifts her up to see what they are peering at -- a gun. Deck barges in suddenly, facing off against Redbone. Once back at home, Deck and Sandy have a falling out that results in the girls’ father moving out for good.

Sandy tells the girls how she met their father, Deck. Fresh out of a private high school, she often visited her father, a university professor, to talk about her future. One evening while her father was sitting in a cafe talking to some of his students regarding their projects, Sandy waited patiently while reading Camus’ diary. Deck asked her a question that she later realized was a direct quote from her reading.

Back in the present, Sandy tells the girls that they will attend a public school, instead of Nkrumah, the private Black Power School in Boston. They are assigned to two different school districts, “in the interest of dahversetty,' the woman explained ..." [7] Birdie is sent to a predominantly black school in Dorchester; Cole is sent to a south Boston Irish school. Sandy dismisses this decision and the girls are sent to the black power school. [expand]

At Nkrumah, Birdie is questioned by the other students wanting to know what race she is; they ask if she's Puerto Rican and demand "What you doin' in this school? You white?" [7] With Cole's sisterly protection, in addition to changing her hair, dress and speech patterns to fit in with the other black students, Birdie successfully passes as black. Birdie begins to find kinship amongst her peers. She meets Maria, a schoolgirl who invites her to go steady with a certain boy; she agrees. Through this connection, Birdie becomes close friends with a group of girls and her popularity flourishes.

Birdie is said to resemble Luce Rivera, a murdered girl whose mutilated body was found in the school’s neighborhood. Sandy warns Birdie, but not Cole, to be vigilant of perverts who seek out girls like her.

Birdie gets invited over Maria’s house. She’s impressed with the house, Maria’s clothes, and the abundance of food in the kitchen. [expand]

Near the end of the school year, Birdie's parents finally divorce and Cole visits their father alone. Amid a snowstorm, the girls are kept apart for a week. Over the phone, Cole relays the news that their father has a new girlfriend, Carmen. Meanwhile, Birdie and her mother watch a newsreel about a police car bombing in Berkeley; Sandy professes that some actions like those are necessary.

When the snow clears, the girls go with their father and Carmen to Deck’s favorite restaurant. Carmen acts cooly towards Birdie, and avoids eye-contact with her for the rest of the time. [expand]

After Deck drives them back home, he announces that he is moving to Brazil with Carmen, taking Cole with him. A traumatized Birdie is left with her grieving mother, Sandy. The following morning, [expand] Sandy fears she is wanted by the FBI (COINTELPRO) for terrorism activities and so the two of them take off.

Birdie rummages through a box her father left her labeled “Negrobilia”. It contains an Egyptian necklace he had bought her a while back, a black Barbie doll head, a James Brown tape, and a hair pick with a fist-shaped handle. Meanwhile, Sandy explains how they will need to change their hair color and identities to evade capture. Birdie becomes Jesse, a girl with Jewish ancestry. [expand]

Theme: Invisibility & Disappearance

There are several instances of Birdie confronting her invisibility and disappearance in various social spheres: with Carmen, the students at Nkrumah, Nicholas, students at the local public school in New Hampshire, and most proximately, with her own mother and father [insert footnote, #s 3, 4] The first line of the novel, “A long time ago I disappeared...” [7] foreshadows this element. Usually, this disappearing is accompanied by some kind of contrasting reappearance, as is the case when Birdie and her mother disappear from their home in Boston after Sandy speculates they are being pursued by the FBI, and reappear in New Hampshire as the Jewish mother-daughter duo, Jesse (Jess) Goldman and Sheila Goldman, respectively. Other characters also experience this phenomenon, such as when Aunt Dot disappears to India and reappears some years later slightly changed. Or when Birdie’s father and sister disappear to Brazil and reappear in San Francisco.

Birdie also faces instances of invisibility-- particularly in her relationship with her father who seems to prefer her older and darker sister, Cole. Deck’s girlfriend, Carmen, also demonstrates this preferability upon meeting Birdie for the first time at dinner. [expand]

Caucasia gameplan

- improve historical context/background portion

- add more themes

Bibliography for "Baltimore Ravens" Wiki, "logo controversy" section

- Starting with the 1999 season, the Ravens began using a new logo for their franchise due to a copyright violation lawsuit with the logo's originator, Frederick Bouchat.