Tyree Wright Public Feed
Dominican Republic, Wright-Mel
Unseen Beauty
Humanities Portfolio 2011
Tyreé Wright
Iron Stream
6/11/11
Final Portfolio
Art, English, Plays, History, World, Dance, Poetry, Diversity, Religion, News, Change, Revolution, New, Beginning, Corruption, Government, Pain, Torture, Genocide, Survival, Understanding, Slavery, Trial, Judgment, Stereotypes, Hope. These words have created my 10th grade education. I have gone through anything but a normal English and History courses. Many of my friends out side my own school have told me stories of the many tests and papers they have had to write over the year. When I ask them what they remember about the projects they needed to do, or the papers they needed to write they cant remember. When I tell them about my projects and number of pages I have done this year they cry for me. I have had a most unorthodox year with Mr. Block.
I have written a play in History class about librarian Pirates. We started with a few monologues and through over ten pages of revisions and work we submitted them to Philadelphia Young Play Rights. Writing a full play for history class seems like an English assignment, this is not true. We had to research a topic on a present day event and create a story about it first as monologues, then as full plays. This is the first time I have ever been in a class that took such a drastic spin on tradition.
We went far beyond the goal of understanding news and journalism to writing our own Op-Eds. We took interesting real world topics and made them into articles that draw the attention of people and make them think. These topics are things out of the obvious and serious under looked problems. We submitted this assignment to real newspapers. Through email we sent our papers and contacted them as students in hopes that they would be added to a section of the paper, going beyond the call of the everyday standards of an English Class.
Another thing we learned was how to create poetry. We went through all the stages from learning simple rhyme to writing five different poems. Not saying these poems simply had different words for each, which would be easy. The five poems I wrote were five different types of poems all together, they consisted of, Memory, Riff, and I was raised by, a Sonnet and an Ode. Each poem has its own unique them or story about my life. The Riff poem is about my martial arts training, my Ode is expressing my love for my favorite hat, and the Memory poem is about an event that happened in my life. Each poem is detailed and fallows its own individual them.
Many schools don’t take the time to teach the children about religion. We learned the facts and the struggles many people go through. The assignment was to research a religion and make a creative wiki about a point. Mine was the on the oppression of Muslim women. I went into the hardships they are forced to go through, and how they deal with it. I compared this religion to Christianity and went into how they both oppress their women. Throughout both English and History I have learned many different things about my world in such ways that I will never forget any of them. I hope that my projects can be used to help future generations to have a unique education like I have had.
Tyree's Play
Young
Characters:
- Young Liberian girl around 16 years old.
- Pirate Dirty around 45 years old.
- Pirate 1
- Pirate 2
Act 1, Scene 1
Memories
A child in Liberia can only live
[Black girl, long hair, hazel eyes, wealthy family]
i
look at at my family, and i am grate full. we live in a poverty
stricken land, and yet my parents have struggled to make a life for me
and my sisters. the few virtues we have such as an a nock off mp3
player a tv and a small amount of power each day, my parents surprised
me once, they wanted to take my sister and i on a boat trip, the sea
was cold and barren, the unsettling feeling of dark chill came over me.
they attacked the boat, sinister screams fulled the cabin space. they
broke into my room, and kicked the bed room door my sister and i were
sharing, they paused at me, when they saw me. they were pirates, their
faces dirty almost diseased looking, my father ran to us but their were
too many, i watched my father being beaten to death, and my mother
rapped while those bastards just watched and took turns, …......after
they were done they slit her throat …....and threw my mom.... and dad.
over board they turned to me and my sister and i. with a sinister look
on their face. (we can get a good price on the both of them, one man
said snarling). they were going to make us slaves, he referred to our
looks....we were going to be sex slaves. they grabbed us, licking and
screaming, we got down the then a whisper, a man fell. it was a gun the
pirates fought some men and died.
______________________________________________________________________________
Act 1, Scene 2
Ransom
[Dirty modern day pirate, light skinned, face blackened with dirt, dirty but untethered cloths.
2 person scene, little rich girl 16 years, ball Gounod(white) very dirty and torn, dirty and slightly bloody face.]
[same girl from 1st scene]
Braga family, i am Nadav, for
years you have oppressed my people, feeding off their need for
supplies. They work like dogs(spits on ground) children grow ill as
they cry and weep for their mothers warmth, as they lay down on the
floor alone with rats nibbling at their feet, while their mothers and
fathers bleed from the tips of their fingers making all you wealthy and
fat as you eat lean meat and share scraps...you,make clams of money and
freedom but at a cost imposable for them to see, we have seen your
“elegant” Lea oblivious to our pain prance about like a princess on the
backs of my people unknowingly leaching off of our
tournament......(eyes began to water) My son Leo, approached her once
stunned by her beauty....he wrote me once before telling he loved her
and they were going to run away together far from this place.....when
that day came she pretended like she had no idea who he was, one of
your Gard's beat him, my son was only 15, and he wheppted for her as
they were dragged apart.....he fought them....Six men of incredible
size threw him to the ground and beat him half to death. they told
stories how your men pounded his body into the ground, then whipped him
with barbed wire chains...two men held him at his knees then a third
took a shot gun to the back of his head....before the trigger was
pulled his sister ran to his aid, getting there just in time to see her
brother’s brains meet her face, they say you could hear the horror of
her shriek from ships out at sea....So now we are here, the power has
shifted...we what you have out-casted and called pirates now have your
precious jewel your untouched being...if you want her back to your arms
safe you will meet my demands. Otherwise we will send every piece of
her back to you in oil drumbs so you can see the that we will not
hesitate to kill anyone who cross our paths. you have one day to
respond.
______________________________________________________________________________
Act 1, Scene 3
Poems of a Pirate
[Poem from a song, pause before each line and show emotion]
I see the children in the rain like the rain before the pain,
I see the love i see the hate i see this world that we can make,
I see the life i see the sky give it all to see you fly,
Yes we wave this flag of hatred but your the ones who made it,
Watch the beauty of all our lives passing right before my eyes,
I hear the hate in all your words..all your words to make us hate,
We get sick o so sick we never wanted all this,
Medication for the kids with no reason to live,
So we march to the drum as the damned as we come,
Watch it burn in the sun we are numb.
-young
______________________________________________________________________________
Act 1, Scene 4
Poems of a Pirate
[Poem from a song, pause before each line and show emotion]
As we walk among these shadows in these streets these fields of battle,
taken up we wear the medal raise your hands with burning candles,
hear us whisper in the dark in the rain u see the spark,
feel the beatings of our hearts, Fielding hope as we depart,
all together walk alone against all we have ever known,
All we ever really wanted was a place to call our home,
you take all we are, the innocence of our hearts,
made to kneel before the alter as you tear us apart,
So we march to the drum as the damned as we come,
watch it burn in the sun we are young.
-Young
______________________________________________________________________________
Act 1, Scene 5
Its
freezing in here, where the fuck are they taking me? it so damp in here
i can see black mold growing between the floor boards. It smells so bad
i want to puke(makes the stink/throw up face) if i do it will just sit
in here with me, making me sicker. i have no shoes to bare the weight
of this cold, the black mold between my toes feels disgusting. I cant
take this!.....(breath of relief) My sister, i hope she is ok.
file:///Users/twright/Desktop/Movie%20on%202011-04-11%20at%2009.20.mov
Tyre's Play
Double Standards Of Self Defense
Op Ed
In today’s world the standard for
protection is completely laid upon the police. Police are supposed to serve and
protect so that people don’t take any matters into their own hands. As a
result, civilians are not expected to engage in any violent behavior. A person will be arrested and
prosecuted for harming another person even though they may not have been the
aggressor. However, the law states that anyone can use non-lethal non-deadly
force to defend him self or her self when another person tries to unlawfully
harm him or her, deadly force if needed. This should mean that any person who
is in danger should have the right to kill if needed. However there is a strong
double standard.
There was a case in England when a
martial artist killed two men and seriously wounded a third. The three men
broke into the victim’s house and threatened his family with knives. The victim
defended him self and the two women killing two men and putting one in the
hospital. The law says this act
should have defended this man’s rights, but because he was a martial artist he
“should have” used non-deadly force to defend his family as the police say- Even
though the attackers threatened to rape and kill the two women if he did not
tell them where the money was.
The act of this prosecution is very
wrong. How can you hold someone responsible for defending people he cares fore?
The 28-year-old Asian was arrested for deadly force even though very hurt. It
is very understandable that he would be taken in for his actions as should all
people if they kill, it is for the purpose of investigation. However, once the
police found out what really happened he should have been set free by law, but
since he was a martial artist a few charges were brought up against him. This is
because he simply knew what he was doing more than someone who has not
practiced a form of self-defense. The press didn’t help the situation by saying
“The butchery worthy of a Quentin Tarantino film”.
In a similar story, a woman in
Maryland shot and killed her husband in an act of self-defense. Even though the man was shot and killed
the women was arrested but never charged. The police said it appears to be an
act of self-defense. Witnesses say that the man was always in a bad mood. From
the report it sounds like the women was right to defend her self, if she felt
like her life was in danger. She was released from custody a few hours later.
She went home and continued to live her life.
I fail to see a major difference
in the situation the two were in. One man protected two women and him self. One
woman defended her self because she felt like her life was in danger. The man
was charged with using excessive and unneeded force. Even though the threat to
his life was clear and other victims said that they were about to be killed, the
martial artist was still arrested and charged. The women, on the other hand had,
no witnesses in the room with her. Therefore no one could fully verify her
story. The police only had her voice and the people who knew the man’s opinion
to go on. This double standard needs to stop it is highly unfair to all martial
artiest. Just because someone is more skilled than another, does not mean they
should be treated any different.
