Teyonna Little

English

Ms. Pahomov

April 6, 2018

Leading By Fear and Cruelty

As a leader, what people say, do, and act upon is what others follow. Rather or not it is good or bad doesn't matter, it’s how ineffective or effective people are at being what they claim to be. Leadership qualities and skills are essential when leading a group of people who fully relies on their leaders and what they teach. In today’s society and in the novel, Lord of the flies written by William Golding, there are specific persons in leadership who controls the citizens under them and scare their opponents with intimidation simply because they have the power to do so. Leaders can be most effective by asserting their authority through fear and cruelty. This ability can help them even get power over other leaders.  

In the novel, a group of young boys are stranded on an island and left to fend for themselves. One of the main characters, Jack is a leader upon a part of the group of boys. Throughout the book,  he takes this responsibility for granted by intimidating his followers and opponents. When all of the boys gathered round for an important meeting talking about the beast, everyone shared their ideas for how to deal with this beast. Jack responds to some ideas in rude ways. For example, “And you shut up! Who are you, anyway? Sitting there telling people what to do… I’m chief! I was chosen!”  The tone of his character is ultimately authoritative, but it is not a take control of the situation, it is a “control” by force situation. He wants to feel rather superior and in doing this he leads through fear. The way he talks to his people is rather scary and this only makes it easier for him to get what he wants. In this particular moment, he uses the phrase “I’m chief” to also remind people who he is. They might already know, but saying this is a demand of remembrance, so they know exactly who to listen to even if other people comes up with ideas or takes the place of a leader for a split second. Leading this way gives him leadway to have controlling power.  

Leading by fear is a common thing among leaders today. After researching examples of leaders who leads through fear, I found the website businessinsider.  This specific article gives 18 influential and well known people who leads by fear and provides specific details of what they had done. Most people that appeared on this website are bosses or someone at a high level of leadership. The one that was surprising the most was Martha Stewart. The report noted,  although she is cheerful, “Martha Stewart can be a very intimidating boss. She’s not great at giving up control either.” Research also shows she “pushed down” 2 CEO’s within a year. Usually in business, when saying “pushed down”, this means making someone want to quit or resign from their position. In this case, 2 other leaders. The connection between Martha Stewart and Jack is clear that they both are very aggressive. They use this to their advantage to get their followers to do what they want how they want it. When it comes to oppressing their opponents, they succeed in getting this fear that their followers have to spread to other leaders.  

Although Jack’s influence is yet effective, his actions can sometimes be intensely unpleasant and cruel. As readers know, Jack as a leader possesses good and bad leadership qualities, one of his worst tactics to rise to power would be cruelty to others. In this case, Jack is attempting to prove his power to the other boys, including Ralph and Piggy, 2 other leaders of the boys. He explicitly shows the transition from just an ordinary school boy in charge of the choir, to an angry boy who lust for power and leadership over everyone and the island. The book reads, “... and the wails of agreement from the hunters drove Jack to violence…  He took a step, and able to last to hit someone, struck his fist into Piggy’s stomach… You would, would you? Fatty! … Jack smacked Piggy’s head.”(71) When leading by fear, there is a strong lust for power, and there are different ways people use to get to that level. Cruelty can be used and expressed for different reasons and different ways. This strategy cannot just be used to put other people down, such as people who do not follow that specific leader, but to gain control over other leaders. And may I remind you, Piggy has the quality of a leader, but is in no shape to be one.

Surely, many should be aware of the presidential election of 2016, and the reputations of the candidates and the series of events leading up to this point. During the campaign, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton go head to head to be president. Everything is out there, when you run for these spots in society. Leading through fear and putting people down can ultimately scare people into being their follower. Research was done to obtain specific details of Trump putting other people down just as Jack belittled Piggy. Here is one example of Donald Trump belittling women indirectly, these were his words, “beauty and elegance, whether in a woman, a building, or a work of art, is not just superficial or something pretty to see.” It is acceptable for a leader to be angry or frustrated, but it is unacceptable when they use this for control. Not only is this cruel treatment, this is cruel treatment to the ones following the leader and the opponents.

There are many tactics that leaders who are not bad, but have bad qualities use to gain control over people and things.  Two of these tactics are to lead by fear and cruelty. These unnecessary, but yet effective skills can help them gain power over other leaders. This is not something people would  want to be acknowledged for, but try to be acknowledged for their good qualities, like confidence and patience. 

Works Cited:

1. Golding, William, Lord of the Flies. New York: Penguin, 2006.

2. Cohen, Claire. “Donald Trump Sexism Tracker: Every Offensive Comment in One Place.” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 4 June 2016, www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/donald-trump-sexism-tracker-every-offensive-comment-in-one-place/. I found this source by researching specific leaders who put other people down. I know this source is credible because it contains evidence of each thing listed and backs it up with explanations and it is a timeline. This influenced ,my thinking by drawing certain connections to the book and my thesis statement.

3. Nisen, Max. “18 Executives Who Lead By Fear.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 12 Sept. 2012, www.businessinsider.com/18-executives-who-lead-by-fear-2012-9#film-and-theater-producer-scott-rudin-7.  I found this source by researching people who leads by fear and how they do. I think this source of credible because it gave several leaders and well-known people and descriptions of what they done to lead by fear.

Never Forget

By: Teyonna Little

Lyric, I keep telling you: Life ain’t fair. You keep comparing yourself to those girls and what they have. You think they're happy? No! They’re insecure. Sure they might have been through some things, some struggles. But I’m sure they have never been through what you’ve been through. There is a reason you are not like them. I wasn’t like them either. Let me tell you something. (she points finger to her daughter’s chest) I was suffering. (she point at her own chest, face slightly frowned). Suffering from a brutal and harsh reality. My reality was waking up and being raped, molested and verbally abused for six got damn years. (she yells) I wasn’t loved, I didn’t get new clothes or new iPhones. Shit! I didn’t even get a birthday cake. Yet each morning, I walked out of a house, a so called “home” everyday covering up my pain and my hurt. And you got the nerve to compla… (pause and takes a deep breath; restraining from getting even more angry) For so long, anger consumed me. Depression. Hell yeah. Stress. Most definitely. But I had to hold on. I had to keep praying. I had to keep fighting. I came to a point in my life where I was mad at the world. Always getting into fights. Face down, ass in the air. Cursing in every sentence I said. I had no respect for myself. I was out of control. (she looks at her daughter innocently) Listen sweetheart, I speak from experience,

I come from a place of suicidal ideation, ignorance, carelessness, low self-esteem. You don’t even have a clue. That was me. (says stronger and more firm) That was me. And babygirl, I know you’ve been through some things as well.  But you have to press. You can’t complain about not being like those girls. You weren’t created to fit in, you were created to stand out. Oh, how I wish you could see it as clear as I do. But you will never be like them, you will always be you and no one else but you.

I want you to look into the mirror everyday and see something that you thought was never there. At your lowest, darkest moments, look at your reflection, at your beautiful face and say “I am beautiful. I am loved. I am worthy. I am intelligent. I am respectful. I will forgive, I will respond to B.S. differently. I will learn self-control. I won’t be depressed. I will succeed. I will stand up for what I believe in. I won’t act on impulse. I won’t curse any more. I will no longer let anger take over me. I will be a changed person.” Because God is just that great. He loves me. And my past will not define me or my future. And don’t let your past define you. Look into your  beautiful big brown eyes, Cry if you need to. I’ll cry with you. Look into your eyes baby, do you see that glow, my daughter, do you see it? Let it show. You are amazing in spite of your flaws, in spite of your pain. Who cares if your mother came from a terrible background? I’m here, aren’t I? You’re taking care of, aren’t you? You’re loved. I love you. God loves you. Understand this: there will be many more struggles and obstacles ahead of you. Life is never going to quit throwing darts at it’s target. But you keep on dodging and dipping like you know how. But most of all, you keep your head up and never forget your worth, my baby. Never forget. (pause and a smile with a tear)

In my middle school years, I had the same teacher for history class, or as they called it then, social studies. My teacher and I had a lot in common, we are the same race, had some of the same interest in music, and the main thing we shared was step, but we did not always see eye to eye. She once told me, she was so hard on me because she knew that I would go places and not lower myself to what the system says. High expectations I guess. Even at such a young age, I always knew that there were going to be situations when I don’t reach people’s expectations. In a moment of my life, a moment of failure, and a moment of disappointment to myself and to someone I thought I could look up to, I am going to share with you this story of how expectations and distractions can lead to judgement and failure.

The day every student in school would get their report cards. We would receive a grade for every class we had and our responses would be unpredictable.  As I walked quietly into my social study teacher’s classroom, she stops the lesson and in an authoritative voice says to me, “Teyonna why are you late to my class?”

Great, all eyes on me, I thought to myself.

“I stopped by the dean’s office on the way up. I have a note.” I handed her the note and took my seat. She continued the lesson. About 10 minutes later, I raised my hand.

“Can I use the bathroom,” I said.

“You have 2 minutes,” She said to me.

Her classroom was always just across the hall from the girls bathroom, so if she was to look out of the doorway, she could see and hear everything that was going on. I did my business in the bathroom and walked out. Then I got distracted. The dean’s office was one of the most popular places to be on the 4th floor near the first stairwell, also in looking distance of my social studies teacher’s classroom. I made my way towards the dean and the people sitting near her desk and suddenly I heard a distant shout. It was my teacher. “Teyonna get in this classroom” she said. I turned right back around and went into the doorway, but she pulled me aside. This won’t be good, I thought.

“If you continue to worry about what’s going on in the halls instead of my classroom, then you won’t like what you’re grade will be or what I have to say at the report card conference ”, she said to me in a calm, but stern tone. I just walked away.

Report-card conference time came and my aunt and I went through each floor where we talked to different teachers and discussed my behavior and grades in their classroom. Everything went  well until we got to my social studies teacher. She was the last teacher we were seeing that day, with the worst grade on the report card. We walked and she was sitting there with the biggest fakest smile I had ever seen. She greeted us, then we greeted her. My aunt looked at my report card and straightforward she said, “why do you have a D-minus?”, looking at me. Then at my teacher, “why does she have a D-minus?” My teacher went through the whole nine yards of why she failed me. One of the main reasons was because I was letting people influence me with the wrong decisions and my interests was always somewhere else when it came to her class. I admit to being distracted, but I also believe in second chances and not failure as a lesson. In order for me to have gotten that grade back up, I was assigned 3 packets of work.

There was always something about my teacher that bothered us, I say “us” because it wasn’t just me who she bothered. There were other students and other parents, including mine. My  teacher is a young black woman who was great until she tried to teach me a lesson. I promise, my intentions were not to disrespect or put down her or any other teacher that may find themselves with the same bothering personality, I am just simply sharing a small piece of my life. The reason I am sharing this story is because, there would be times when a distraction comes and there will be times when you may miss a few lessons that was supposed to be learned, but there should never be a time where an intentional failure comes because someone else believed that you needed to learn a life lesson.

In blog post #1, the issue of the effect on children with an incarcerated parent or parents was discussed. In the first blog post, we learned that a child with an incarcerated parent tend to have behavioral issues, and cannot cope or be around other people and kids that have normal families. The effects are wrecking, and can sometimes last a lifetime, but some are temporary. Their behavior, social life, education, health, and daily life periods are affected in some type of way. Since the first blog, my research has expanded and more information has been collected. Important information like the effect of behavioral issues to why the gender of the parent matters has been deeply investigated. Proper original research was handled and taken into consideration. Here are more details about parental incarceration and the effect it has on children and teens.

To get a deeper understanding, I chose to do an interview. This interview specifically targeted a  child or teenager who have or had a parent going through incarceration. I wanted to also interview someone who was more mature and comfortable talking about their issues. In that,  I asked my sister Nashay McCord if she could take part in my project and complete the interview. She said yes and created a movie/video answering the interview questions. From this original research and source, I learned that incarceration affects everyone differently and there are different responses to some of the same situations.

Annotated Bibliography

There are many reasons why I chose the symbol that I chose. One being because it symbolizes royalty. It is a crown for a king, but also a crown for a queen. Most words that I used in my brainstorming described what a king and a queen is. Royalty, smart, nice, proper, intelligent, etc.

The assignments given throughout this unit helped me to better understand what negative and positive is. I had problems with the difference between the two, and the pictures just looked completely confusing when I was first introduced to negative and positive space.  When we actually cut out images and put them into positive and negative space, I understood it completely.

Positive and negative space to me means erasing all detail and identifying the picture when it is outlined(negative) or colored in solid(positive). When viewing positive and negative space, you are supposed to look at the subject from different perspectives. Take the vase and the two faces for example. Some people see a vase, and others see two faces. It’s all in your perspective.

My name is Teyonna Little. I am a ninth grade student at Science Leadership Academy. For the fourth quarter project at SLA, the ninth grade class are researching and studying issues in the world that affects them personally or that they are deeply interested in. This project is called You and The World. After seeking multiple topics about youth and issues concerning North Philadelphia specifically, I came up with an idea that affects me personally and young children and teens all over the world. I chose to focus on “Children with Incarcerated Parents or a parent.” While doing this topic, my goal is to learn more about the way children respond to their parent being imprisoned and they everyday behavior concerning their social life and different environments. I am really interested in learning more about this topic because I currently go through the same issue, with my biological father being incarcerated for a long period of time. These behaviors and responses in this specific group of children matters today because it affects their future, their behaviors, and what they would be like, or who they would be throughout the rest of their lives. It is important to know this so that others who don’t struggle with the same issue will know how to respond to certain reactions and completely understand why someone is acting the way they are acting.

Children with a parent or parents in jail or in prison has a common symptom or sign that they are going through something specifically dealing with their behavioral health. You can see this in their social lifestyle; rather someone else is bringing up their missing parent at a school event or they are really withdrawn when other adults talk about it. They tend to become antisocial, and isn’t so comfortable around certain things and certain people. They are emotional and can struggle in school or just simply having a hard time being around other children. Research shows that children and teenagers with incarcerated parents or parent have 8 of 16 mental and physical health issues.  

As I am continuing with my research concerning this issue, my understanding becomes more open and more clear of behaviors I have experienced with myself in my past and in my present. There is so much more to be opened and shared, and I am determined to get others more aware of these children and their behaviors. As of now, I am wondering and more open to know about how these behaviors are dealt with, how the parent that is incarcerated feel, and how life and opportunities can be made easier and less stressful regarding a strong relationship with the wired fence between children and their parent.

Written by Daniel P. Mears and Sonja E. Siennick from Florida State University, they reflect on adult children and how having an incarcerated parent affects their future.

Annotated Bibliography

Printmaking is the art of of making pictures and images and printing them from blocks or plates with some type of design or decoration. Printmaking originated in China, and shown up in Europe mainly on decorating cloths. It was also used to spread religions.  The invention of printmaking is very important. Printmaking basically made life a whole lot easier when it came down to some type of art or design, printmaking allowed the production of printed books.

A type of printmaking that really fascinates me is monoprinting. Monoprinting based on water color, water based inks, and can only be made one time.

I notice: that there is a lot of detail and emotion within this painting. Every little line of the sky and every dark shade of the trees were painted with feeling and real interest.

I wonder: what the painter was feeling when he/she painted this?

What if: the picture had some other type of color to it? It just wouldn’t be the same.

Las clases que tenemos son inglés, historia, álgebra, español, ingeniería, tecnología, drama, art y bioquímica. Angelyque, Jayden y yo tenemos tienen diferentes temas favoritos. Mi clases favorita es inglés y español. La clase favorita de Angelyque es drama.  La clase favorita de Jayden es ingeniería. Angelyque favorita clase es drama. Mi favorita clase es álgebra.

Nombre tres: Hola me llamo Angelyque, buenos noches todo el mundo en espanol clase la strt. Hernández es la pizarra nos sobre la familia.Espanol es muy bien clase además usted puede hacer videos en clase y ponerlo en youtube para que todos puedan ver, Es importante para prestar atención en todas sus clases en SLA. Mis amigos encanta espanol , ingeniería , arte y drama.

SLA es muy diversa y educativa. Me gusta el tamaño de las clases. Me gusta eso porque hay espacio para que todos aprendan algo nuevo. Mi grupo y yo podemos estar de acuerdo que el almuerzo es el mejor porque nos dan una hora y 5 minutos. Otras palabras para describir es basado en la universidad, divertido, y muy creativo. SLA es muy bien con ayuda de estudiantes con trabajamos y con otros.  

When I was presenting my first slide, I learned that not a lot of things was supposed to be going on. I also learned that one thing had to be the center of attention and it could be simple but catchy. I made the choice not to include pictures because the main focus was the letter i, and if people’s attention was going to be focused on a picture, it would be taking away the purpose of the letter. I also chose to put a frame around the phrase because that was my way of trying to get my point across. I also chose to say “I can’t fit into one slide” because my life is too complex and it’s so much going on that one slide is not enough room to define who I really am. Research is so important when beginning a project. It sets a foundation and gives ideas for the direction you want to go in. There are tips and advice that can be given to you and you could actually learn from it. I suggest doing research before beginning a project so that you have a clear idea and foundation on what you want to do and what you’re supposed to be doing.