#fifth entry

/ kənˈsərn/

For someone snobby such as him, I wondered how he managed not to sneer seeing me buried through a sea of used tissues, eyes all red and watery, nose that rivalled Rudolph’s red nose, and a voice that probably sounded just like those batty old hags.

I wondered how he managed my presence knowing I’m not the best company at the moment. I wondered how the most impatient god managed to coax me to drink my medicine and how he stayed even after I fell asleep on him.

When asked, he would simply reply, “Silly mortal, I’m only concerned for your wellbeing, that is all.”

I was in new jersey. It was dark out and raining. I took the train to get to this bus stop, J. It was supposed to take me to 44th street. While I'm waiting, a small group of ppl come up to me and bully me out of my spot telling me 'we're not supposed to stand over here.' And make me go sit under the other canopy jawn. I never actually sit and the ppl kept messing with me.

Eventually, I leave to go further down my bus route to wait at the next stop. A bus finally comes and I get on and ask the bus driver this goes to 44th street. He says 'no' and I say 'thank you' and he says 'no, thank you.' He had a really eerie smile on his face. He was almost leering. Anyway, I thought I was gonna get off the bus at the next stop but I didnt. I ended up staying on the bus till it reached its destination in the daytime.

We ended up in this little community in like a kind of desert area and it had a giant metal gate that slid open with a loud creek. Inside all the 'houses' were more like shanties made out of scrap metal. The woman that greeted us, me and the other bus passengers.

That woman was evil. Her favorite pass time was torturing people. I somehow became her fave. I tried to get away, to no avail. While I was busy being her fave she had the other people sat on the metal roofs, either cooking in the hot ass sun of burned alive via literal acid rain. For whatever reason it was always day.

Eventually, I stopped trying to get away and I became her pet, her toy. And as I spent more time with her, she torture me less. At some point, it was decided that I be relocated. She gifted me an ornate dagger. In case I ever wanted to return to her... I unsheathed the dagger, pretending to admire it, I quickly took it and drove it under her chin into her head. She was a dumb ass for thinking she could trust me.

I somehow ended up killing all the other fuckers working for her and freeing all the prisoners. We escaped on the very bus we rode in on. I killed that driver, too.

Oh, during one of my escape attempts, there was a woman across from the makeshift river, she was sitting at a small, pretty, white table and a white chair to match. She was wearing a white flowy sundress and drinking red wine. I had gotten a random subliminal glimpse of her in the beginning of the dream. She was kinda ethereal. I didn't have time to really think about her in dream bc I was tryna gtfo.

---

Had a dream about this party my ain't was having and everyone was there. We all had to wear these back face paint in various markings but I didnt commit them to memory.

The adults and kids split off, it was supposed to be temporary but I never finished the dream. As I was about to join the adults there was a gate closed in front of me and the kids weren't allowed back downstairs until it was open again. I wasn't allowed past the gate and I'm not sure if that was deliberate or bc I had a rando ass bb in my arms.

I saw my cousin Rell and we kept trying to have a conversation but we kept getting interrupted. I even went into the bathroom and my siblings were in there.

One of my younger siblings caught my attention. She was sitting in the filled tub on her laptop,the water was kinda murky. Her bf was sitting behind the tub but his feet were in the water. Outta nowhere the water started rising like crazy. I called for my sister but she couldn't hear me. I yelled at her bf bc I somehow figured it was his fault. He only said soothing about being too busy to do anything. By the time I'd finally got her attention, the water had encased her well above the tub but nothing spilled.

I’m on the bus on the way to our hotel in Krakow from Auschwitz.

The thing that most stands out is how big it is. Birkenau, the second Auschwitz camp, where the gas chambers were, stretches on forever. When we arrived early in the morning (we woke up at six), there was a thick fog that hung very low in the sky. We walked on the train track leading into Birkenau for a few minutes, and since I fall down a lot, I was looking at my feet, as usual. This is how I always walk: two beats with my eyes on the ground, one with my eyes ahead.

Unless.

I’m at home and I know the area.

Unless.

There’s someone calling my name in fromt of me.

Unless.

The Birkenau entrance gate suddenly materalises in the fog.

We all gathered around Rabbi H and he talked about…I don’t remember his exact words. I guess it was only seven hours ago, but it feels kind of like five minutes ago and also like a year ago.

We weren’t the only ones there. Our biggest recent tragedy is a very popular tourist attraction. The goyim walked around us, laughing and talking amongst themselves in languages my family used to speak but made damn sure I would never understand, and when they spotted us, eyes only just starting to drip the large amounts of tears we all shed today, wrapped in our Israeli flags, hands clutching each other as if we too were going to be ripped away from our loved ones, oh, their eyes lit up. They nearly lost their minds over us. They all whipped out their phones and cameras and took pictures. No shame, no asking, only excited chattering in foreign languages, and people with paler faces and lighter eyes and sharper noses and thinner hair walk forward, nearly in our circle, and start taking pictures. Sometimes they did it from farther away, but not out of decency. Just to get all of us in the shot.

Rabbi H warned us they would. He said to them, we’re part of the story. They come to the camp where over a million Jews were famously murdered and then they see eighty young women, tears staining their cheeks, singing in a language that sounds sharper than theirs, but in breaking voices, and donned in blue and white, representing freedom, and they love it. And they’re jealous. And they’re awed. Some of my friends think that it’s nice, how excited they get. I don’t like it. I’m tied to the Shoah forever, but not for goyische entertainment. I don’t care if it inspires you. Mine is a people defined by rising and falling and rising and falling and rising again, and we don’t do it for you.

So a few yards after the gate is the Ramp. It’s not actually a ramp. The train stopped there, Jews, Roma, Sinti, and some others sometimes, would get off, leave their things, and the Selection would begin. That area is huge. I can easily fit my whole neighbourhood in some three times. Maybe more.

The gas chambers have all been destroyed. We didn’t visit.

There are so many bunks. I didn’t realise how many until we left Birkenau, and I saw how far it stretched–well, I didn’t. It disappeared into the fog. I could see about a dozen, in one direction, but I know there were even more.

I’m in 12-2. The teacher for 12-3 said that all of Europe is bathed in the blood of Jewish people, which I get and everything, but Auschwitz is different. Every where you step, a Jewish person was murdered. Every single place.

We left Birkenau and rode our bus to Auschwitz I, where the Arbeit Macht Frei sign is. The b in Arbeit is upside down, so that the big bubble, which is normally on the bottom, is on top, and the little bubble is on the bottom. Rabbi H told us that the Jewish prisoner who made the sign did it to warn other Jews that it was a lie. Auschwitz I is built like fancy government offices, because that is what it was in WWI. The Polish army built it for their officers.

Most of the higher-class prisoners worked and lived in Auschwitz I because of this. But the Jews who worked there didn’t suffer any less than the Jews who worked in Auschwitz-Birkenau or Auschwitz-Monowitz or any of the other, smaller daughter-camps of Auschwitz. (Daughter-camps, not sister-camps.)

The things we saw today were so terrible. But we did get a lovely gift from two girls in the grade. They contacted our parents and got pictures of our families, and they printed them on a plaque with the blessing for hadlakat nerot Shabbat, Shabbat candle-lighting, on the back. They gave this to us in front of one of of Mengele’s buildings, were he and his team of doctors performed experiments on Jewish women to try and see how exactly one becomes barren.

Standing there, in front of that cursed building, and looking down at a picture of our (largely big; no girl in my grade is an only child, and only one has only one sibling) families, with a blessing on the back that symbolises family, traditionally said alongside a prayer that Jewish women and girls have said for thousands of years for their parents and siblings and children…I cried. And then I cried some more. And then a lot more.

So much has happened today. But what I think is most important is what those goyim who irked me so know: we’re miracles. The fifty girls with me from my school, the thirty from the other school, my twenty-something cousins, all of us. And we should know that there are people who would kill us and torture us and laugh and we should know that they have not and never will.

I remember know what Rabbi H said to us. He quoted another rabbi, a survivor from the camps, who said to tell us, all of us, “kommemmiyut!”.

Kommemmiyut is a word in Hebrew meaning, like, the act of rising up, but the spirit rising up. Except it has a sort of connotation of the spirit always being up, and now it’s just going higher.

I always walk with my back very straight and when people ask me why, I joke that I’m the daughter of a King. That’s a term of endearment for Jewish girls. But you know what? It’s not a joke. My existence might not prove God for everyone, but everyone is surprised. Taken aback. You know the reaction–widening eyes, jaws dropping, and then in total disbelief, “you’re Jewish?”.

They know how rare I am. How special. Seventy years ago, one-ninth of my population worldwide was slaughtered. That’s more than ten percent. One-third in Europe.

Every second I spend on this earth doesn’t even make sense. If my great-great-grandmother was slaughtered in Belzec, and her husband’s own place of death isn’t even known (not Drancy-Auschwitz as I previously though), then how am I alive?

And not just surviving. Living. Thriving. I’m healthy and if I’m sick, my government will pay for my medication. I and millions of other girls where I live are required by law to go to school and study and anyone who denies us that right faces time in prison. The sun shines on my face every day and my brown hair and brown eyes and brown skin shine in its light, with a backdrop of the bluest sky and strongest mountains in the world.

I mourn everyone we lost. But I have to recognise all the good there is right now and I have to know how good it is and how lucky I am.

I guess this is getting kind of ramble-y. I’ve been doing this for over an hour, and it’s still so hard to get all my thoughts in one place.

Every Friday night, when I light candles, I have this personal tradition where I thank God for the good in my life. I don’t ask for anything, just a thank you. I’m so excited to do that today.

I ran back out to Shaemoor as soon as Commander Thackeray told me to meet Lieutenant Francis.  The good lieutenant seemed to have heard of me from earlier.  He even called me the “Hero of Shaemoor”.  I always thought a title like that would be better for, you know, an actual Seraph, but hey, if people are already giving me a cool title, might as well wear it, right?

Lieutenant Francis told me that the medical supplies had been stolen, but Andrew would get first dibs on it if I returned them.  He directed me to the bandits’ hideout.

Caves.  How original.  Especially with shoddy scaffolding for people to walk around on.  

Wait, Petra!?

She tells me she’s here too for Andrew, but also to look out for me.  How sweet.  

The bandits weren’t hard to take down.  It brought me back to when Petra and I used to pretend we were knights as kids.  Only this time, we were actually kicking ass and taking names.  And when the name you take is “Hero of Shaemoor”, I think you’re on the right track.

What the hell?  Twitchy Jake!?

I thought Commander Serentine arrested him back at the bar.  Oh well.  I kicked his ass once, I’ll do it again.

Or, we’ll do it.  Petra had my back.  I’m impressed that she can do all that with just a wooden club and a dress.  I’m in full armor with a greatsword, and now I look bad.

Petra and I took the medicine and ran back to Andrew.  He’s all better now, so that’s good.  

Commander Thackeray gave me some nice scaled gauntlets.  It’s nice to finally have gauntlets, let alone some really nice ones like these.

Oh, who’s this?

Commander Thackeray had this finely-dressed woman with him, she’s called Countess Anise.  I’ve never met a countess before.

By the Six, did I really say that?  

I wanted to call her “my lady”, but my tongue slipped and I ended up calling her “muhhh lady” or “m’lady” or something like that.  Ugh, I probably sounded like some pretentious man child with a fancy hat fetish.

Anyway, Countess Anise seems to think pretty highly of me, probably because of Thackeray.  I swear, that guy must be my #1 fan or something.  Now I have to meet them at Thackeray’s office.

I did just that.  The Countess and Thackeray told me to go and spy on the bandits, since they wouldn’t know my face.  Though...wouldn’t they know my face since I’ve defeated all their guys before?

Oh well.  I won’t question a Seraph.  Off to the bandit camp.

                                                                                                  May 22, 1929

I want to be appreciated for who I am. I know that I am a beautiful African American women. And, the rest of the world should see my beauty as well; they should be ashamed of the fact that they are choosing to see me as a lesser human being (“I, Too,” Hughes 16-17). I’m sick and tired of it all. I shouldn’t be treated poorly just because of my skin color. I am a unique individual. I should not be discriminated against. I am a citizen of America; I deserved to be treated with respect because I too help America progress with my contributions to society (“I, Too,” Hughes 18).

Ugh, I had a ranting start. I’m angry as you can see. It’s just been a hard day. A hard day plus the constant discrimination equals a pretty crappy day. I don’t want to go into much detail about what happened to me. But, let’s just say that my family’s white neighbors are the most despicable people. (Black families have the right to own any home they want! Even if that home is in a white community!)

I’m just tired of it all. I just want to move on. I want society to get on board too… However, society’s thoughts don’t really matter. I guess, the standards of society are alway irrelevant… 

But, for me, I want to move on and ignore racial discrimination through discovering my identity. I’ve learned to love myself, but I’m not going to lie. Learning to love myself want a long and tortuous journey. And, I can only imagine the process of getting to know myself. I guess the best way to do that is to start with the small truths and work up to the big ones. Now, I shall embark on my journey to discovery!

Before I learned to love who I am, I always tried to search for my answers concerning my identity through taking others’ advice; I now know that the only person that knows the true answers to my questions is me (Ellison 1). Others may think that my answers or my thoughts are wrong, but I’m going to disregard them. I’m my own person and I need to break the barriers of conformity; I’m not going to conform to the ideals of my society- I’m going to be me.

I believe that I’m free to explore any part of myself; anyone who tries to stand in the way of my self-discovery will be crush (Steinbeck 131). No one has the right to dismiss me or my ideas. I think the only reason someone would try to stop me on my endeavor would be because they don’t agree with my non-conformist views. But, that’s too bad for them. They are going to have to deal with it.

Although I don’t care about the collective ideals of modern society, I believe that society’s ideal standards are backwards. If anything, I believe that my views in areas such as race, gender and sexuality are more progressive than society’s. (All races are equal! All genders are equal! And, everyone has the right to express their sexual orientation!) Many Americans’ with the ‘backwards’ mindset believe that people that don’t conform to specific traits of the American culture don’t represent the true American identity. All Americans are a part of the American identity (“Theme for English B,” Hughes 34). It’s time that everyone accepted that fact.

It seems that I’m only writing about my beliefs. And, that’s okay. Like I wrote earlier, you got to start with the small truths to work your way up to the big ones. I made a few little ones. And, I know there will be still a lot more discoveries to come because I am the one that makes the choices in my life (Steinbeck 301). I get to control my live and live my own standards that I set myself. It may not be the perfect life. But, it’s definitely the life I want for myself.

Cheers,

Societies naturally need to institute a set of rules to live in harmony and peace and therefore must as well establish some behaviors that are unacceptable and immoral. These values actually vary from culture to culture because of the different conditions and perceptions of the in-group individuals. What is illicit within one culture might result ordinary and expected for societies. All human groups are capable of developing conventional codes of ethical and unethical norms and standards and to determine which behaviors are moral or not in regard of their ethic frameworks. In this sense Gannon (2008)  identifies the concepts of relativism and universalism, analyzed from the perspective of individualist and collectivist societies.

Ethical Universalism: When rules always apply to all members of a society because laws are defined in a standardized and systematic code compulsory to everybody. There is more focus on rules than on relationships so that regulations subordinate every member of the society equally, no matter of his economic or political status. In Universalist societies institutions are objective and thus individuals trust their honesty and respect them.  Individualist cultures tend to follow principles and whoever is right according to the law, wins the dispute and arguments.

Ethical Relativism: According to the circumstances, a situation can be either ethical or unethical. Everything can be handled in a different way because laws are applicable depending on the situation and the relationships of the parties involved and their ‘contacts’, triggering conflict with legal systems. In Particularistic societies, individuals place more trust on personal relationships such as family networks and kinship groups rather than on institutions, since they see them with suspicion and do not trust their honesty or objectiveness.

“It is very difficult to transact global business in an environment in which situational standards dominate [such as Colombia, even if the shift toward individualism is intensifying]: One party may terminate a contract unilaterally without being penalized, there is widespread acceptance of outrageous bribes, both citizens and visitors disregard patents and copyrights, and counterfeit products are sold openly.” (Gannon, 2008, pág. 102)

“A strong universalistic approach in business might not always be advantageous […]. When a company has a conflict with one of its customers, insisting on its rights might uphold the principles of the company-buyer agreement but destroy their relationship resulting in the client switching to another company.” (Broda) 

Taking into account the four generic cultures related by Fiske (1991) –community sharing, authority ranking, equally matching and market pricing. What can one expect from each and how to identify when one visits one?

Community sharing: Cultures where members of the community receive exclusive protection whereas out-group visitors remain unprotected or ignored. In-group members share privileges while provide unfair treatment to outsiders and restrict their performance.

Authority Ranking: Individuals accept hierarchical status among their community and higher-status members receive differential treatment and disproportionate privileges that are unquestionable by in-group members. Several Asian groups belong to this category and as  Echavarría  (2015) appointed about China, obedience to upper-level members is expected and no question to his decisions is acceptable.

Equally Matching: Different from the latter categories, this is the one category where egalitarianism is pursued. All are intended to be treated equally and therefore there is no individual assessment.

Market Pricing: In this category, individuals are measured by their economic power and contributions to the society. Only those who economically contribute to the society well-being receive the privileges.

Where would you place your home country?

Bibliography 

Broda, S. (n.d.). TNE. Retrieved April 3, 2015, from Homepage of Stefan Broda: http://www.gaoshan.de/kmchina/thesis.php?show=36

Echavarría, P. (2015). Confucianismo, Cultura y Etiqueta en China. Medellin: PowerPoint Presentation.

Gannon, M. J. (2008). Paradoxes of Culture and Globalization. London: Sage.

Stanford University. (n.d.). Stanford University. Retrieved April 3, 2015, from http://web.stanford.edu/group/scie/Career/Wisdom/univ_par.htm