Thursday, September 25, 2014

       Hello everyone and welcome to my blog! My name is Oscar Bermejo and I'm currently a student who is currently enrolled at LaGuardia Community College. This semester one of the class I currently enrolled in is Violence in American Art and Culture or better known at the college as ENN195, who is currently being taught by the professor Dr. Justin Rogers-Cooper this semester. In this class the themes we will be looking into are violence that happen through American History and the changes that took place when these sorts of act of violence occurred during history.

       For this week reading we had to complete "The Railroad Riot of 1877" which talked about the rioters that were targeting the railroad company all around the country such as in place in West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania which could of been caused of the unfair wages and the terrible working conditions that the workers had been through.A possible reason of why the strikes turned into big sparks of riots across the country could be the fail negotiation with the railroad company and the unions.In this reading and in the class discussion we realize that  the author Headley kept contradicting himself varies of times through the reading and the other reading of "Flour riot of 1877".In the previous reading he said that violence is justified when the people were suffering and the government wasn't there to help while the majority suffered. While in this reading , the people were suffering because the pay was to low, lot of people lost their jobs, without their jobs they couldn't feed their family, and the companies were just getting rid of people just to fill the spot with other person that was desperate to work to take care of their starving family for low wage.But when they went on a riot, their actions weren't justified because they were committing a big crime against them but the railroad company was also committing a crime but it wasn't as big as the one the rioter were committing.The rioter crimes were put on the spotlight while the companies crimes committed were treated as lesser crime or not even view as a crime. Do you think that economic status of a person played a role when viewing the crimes were being committed or was their even crimes committed by the companies? Should of the rioters have waited until the railroad company's and the workers came to an agreement or was the rioting justifiable because they believed if they didn't act there wouldn't be any changes?



Friday, September 19, 2014

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog! My name is Oscar Bermejo and I'm currently a student who is currently enrolled at LaGuardia Community College. This semester one of the class I currently enrolled in is Violence in American Art and Culture or better known at the college as ENN195, who is currently being taught by the professor Dr. Justin Rogers-Cooper this semester. In this class the themes we will be looking into are violence that happen through American History and the changes that took place when these sorts of act of violence occurred. 

      The other day in class we had a discussion about when is Violence ever justified or is the answer? I think that the only time that violence is the answer or is justified is when their is millions of people that are in the same conditions as you are and the government are just not doing anything about it to solve the problem or trying to ease it.Some of these conditions could be not having work, watching your family starving to point were they unable to move or slowly moving toward their deaths, or even when the elites are taking advantage of the lower class. Also if the government are turning their backs away toward the people that need the help the most and are summoning police,militia, private police or even the army to push these people away, to hurt them or even killing them in order to keep "control" of the situation , there differently need to be a change of government and this the time I think that violence is the answer if everything has failed and the people that are suffering have tried peacefully to solve the problem but haven't got anything from the government except neglected, the people have the right to riot.When do you think that riot suddenly becomes the last resort in your mind that you have to participate in order to see change for a better life in society? When people form a riot , do you think everyone is on the same page or are there mis-communication in what they are rioting for?