Jasmine Kent's Music Response

My favorite type of music is Hip-hop, R&B, and rap. I listen to a lot of other things like rock and pop but as for the rock and pop genre of music, most of the time I don't know the artists are or the name of the song that I might be singing along to. I guess that's pretty stereotypical of a black person, but its just the music I connect with the most. I like the beats too because I can vibe to it, dance to it, party to it, chill to it, get intimate with it and many other things that I just couldn't do with rock and pop all the time. R&B originate with jazz and blues, so I also love that music along with many oldies. My parents put me onto jazz and they attend many jazz festivals; one going on right now in Florida called the Seabreeze Jazz Festival. We actually know one famous saxophone player, Paul Taylor, who is my mom's old college roommate's husband.



I like how old school hip-hop and rap has evolved to what it is now with all the music technology creating crazy beats! Sometimes the beats are just what I listen to because the lyrics can be crude, drug glorifying, and degrading to woman. I think what rap has evolved to has become a Southern representation of African Americans. People think that what is shown in rap and rap videos is what every black person was raised around and should be like, which isn't true. Most of the time when I listen to rap its so I can party and get hyped up for things like track meets or something that I need to get excited to do. One old school women rap group is Salt n Pepa.




--Jasmine Kent

Jasmine Kent Hometown Response

I'd have to say that my hometown in San Antonio, TX. For the longest I did not want to claim it because I had lived in Ohio, Massachusetts, and Alabama before that. I used to never know where to claim when people would ask me "where are you from?" First I would say Cleveland Ohio because that's where I was born, but then I realized, I don't know anything about the city besides the fact that I was born there. Then, I would start saying I was born in Ohio, but I'm from Massachusetts because that is the first place I actually have a few memories from...but not many. Then I would say I was born in Ohio, lived in Massachusetts for a little, but I'm from Alabama because I had lived there the longest out of any other state that the military has made us move to. Then after a long time of saying that complicated answer and realizing that Alabama is where I wanted to be from, not where I was from, once I moved from Texas, I started claiming it as the place I was truly from. I finally realized that there's a totally different meaning to that question actually. Where you are from is where you were raised, where you grew up, matured, and went through the experiences of life. It's the place that molded you and made you who you are today. I figured that that place could only be San Antonio because as much as I didn't want to be from there, I've made my best friends here, made life changing decisions here, went to elementary, middle, and high school here so I can't act like this place has not had an influence on my life. Here is a map of my current home, after moving around the city a little before.


View 10020 Calley Cir in a larger map


--Jasmine Kent

Parmi Shah Response to Micheal Coz

I find it very interesting how Michael doesn't want to claim the town he grew up in as his hometown, and i find no fault in that. The funny thing is that the environment he grew up in is not of the actual town he grew up, but rather a new environment that is an assimilation of everything from where he was born, to where his parents were born. And that is how i feel people grow up, as an assimilation of there surroundings, and their history. It sounds confusing but just like how in the Native Guard, the girl is describing who she is by describing where she came from, that is how people are. My parents are first generation immigrants, so i did not grow up in the same way as my neighbor even though we both went to the same school. My family history makes my experiences different, in turn making my view of my hometown different than anybody else's.
And that is why growing up in the south doesn't make me like southern music more than someone from the North. I dont like traditional southern food, mainly because my indian history doesn't really include those thing, and this is why i feel its not hometown that helps influence your tastes but your history.

Music - Michael Cox

Music. All the potential that I see in that single word is hard to cover with words. As a musician myself I have a great appreciation for all styles of music. My personal favorites though are Metal, hard rock, and just anything I can jam out to. The style I feel like listening to though is primarily based off of the mood I happen to be in at the time.

Sometimes I really like to listen to classical music. The complexity and pure genius that went into composing some of those pieces is extraordinary. I would say that my favorite classical composer would be Beethoven.

I like listening to cultural music as well. A lot if communicated about a culture through it's music that can't be communicated through ordinary words. It's like food in some ways. You can describe the food all you want but until you eat it you won't be able to appreciate it. Until you listen to the music you won't really be able to fully appreciate where it came from. That's my opinion anyway.

Hometowns Response-Michael Cox

I hate to refer to the place that I was primarily raised in as my hometown, because I never really viewed it as my home and never will.

But the place the I was raised near for the greater portion of my childhood was Verndale, Minnesota. You can already tell from the name that this place is about as hickish as you can find. Population of roughly 600 people. One school which taught K-12. I did not go to that school thankfully. I was home schooled. Which was an education at a level many times greater than that of most of my friends. No exaggeration here, the education system was geared towards the children of farmers, who were expected to become farmers. I knew several people in that area that never completed an education higher than 8th grade, because that was all they needed.

Farming was the primary economic basis for that area. My father decided that he wanted to farm, which is why we ended up there. I was actually born in Atlanta and lived in Acworth for the first half of my life. My Dad was a graduate from Georgia Tech with a Masters in Computer science, had worked for almost 20 years at the Georgia Tech Research Institute, and decided to raise his kids on a farm. Go figure.

In many ways the stereotypes that people commonly think of as "Southern" actually apply across the nation. The hick/redneck lifestyle applies to basically any society or settlement that is based off of an economic system not requiring a higher level of education. It's very clearly seen in MN not just the south.

Music - Matthew Orr's Response

Music has been a big part of my life for several years now. It hadn't really become an integral part until about middle school however, when a lot of my friends introduced me to Hip-Hop/ Rap. Where I come from, a lot of the middle school and high school- aged kids all try to be "gangsta" or "thug-nasty" or a whole list of other words for people that want to be street- tough. With that mindset, a lot of my friends introduced me to Rap because they identified with it a lot through their clothing, attitude, and sometimes lifestyle.

I would have to say my favorite artists are those from Atlanta because they speak about their hometown and bring a lot of attention (good or bad) to this city. Artists like T.I., Ludacris, and Young Jeezy are the most prominent in the area (warning: some content on the hyperlinks may be explicit). A lot of their lyrics talk about Atlanta and the South as being "Dirty" or tough and thick- skinned. Like country music, these rappers take a lot of pride in their hometowns for what they are, even if it means glorifying very illegal acts. I am not proud of the criminal activities that the rappers portray in their lyrics a lot of times, but I do appreciate that they love their city as much as I do.

Below is a video of a classic rap song by Jermaine Dupri, titled "Welcome to Atlanta" featuring Ludacris, both natives of Atlanta.

Music- Danny Sweats Topic

So i hope yall have recovered from writing that paper. So i wanted to ask yall what your favorite type of music is and was it influenced by where you came from?

My favorite kind of music is Country. I love both the oldies like Cash, Hank, and Haggard and the new like Clay Bryant, Alan Jackson, and Tim Mcgraw. As in Bastard out of Carolina, the oldies are about the outlaws and there mistakes with life and love. It touches the soul in a way that no other music can. This is one of my favorite Conway Twitty Song.
The new age Country is about the pride in being southern and the place that you call home. People can appreciate even if they arent from a country town.
This love for Country is because of where im from. I didnt start liking country till i was in 6th grade when my friends started me on it. My parents dont like country and never really have.
so i was just wondering if yalls music taste was the same way.

Matthew Orr's Topic - Hometowns

I hope everyone had a good spring break last week. Unfortunately, it is time to get back to the grind and start a new topic for this week.

I decided that it might be interesting to hear a little about where everyone is from, proivde a little history, and maybe some interesting facts about your town as well. Another thing I want everyone to do is to decide whether or not their hometown evokes a sense of "Southernness" or not, which you may define on your own and provide details as to why or why not it is "Southern."

I was born and raised in a town about 15 miles from downtown Atlanta called Mableton. This small town was named after a Mr. Robert Mable who bought a plot of land and built a plantation on the land that would eventually become the town named after him. A fun fact about my town is that former Governor Roy Barnes was born in Mableton, and actually went to the same elementary school as I did. I would say Mableton has some "Southernness" to it, which I define to be rural, quaint, and Gone With the Wind- type flavor to it. I think it evokes this charm because there are about three or four plantation- style mansions, including the original Mable house that still stand in the town's limits. However, for the most part Mableton has become very suburbanized and has lost a lot of its identity with it.

Parmi Shah response to Matthew Orr

When reading Orr's blog about politics, I remembered something I read somewhere: most states that are so predominately Republican or Democratic that voting as an opposing force might not actually make a difference; However States like Georgia where the it can swing either way year to year because it has varied sections of liberal and republican. This means that in Georgia, my vote wold actually matter. In georgia, the South is, like Orr said very religious and conservative, but also as areas like Metro-Atlanta become to industrialize, and immigration and naturalization of new citizens increase so does the liberal population; however Georgia is still preominatly white; a correlation can be seen with immigration population and level of conservatism. When looking at the map shown here and the map of the one Orr posted, you can see that as the population of only whites decreases so does the level of conservatism.

Southern Politics - Matthew Orr

Politics seem to have been mainly one-sided in the South for the past 20 year or so, siding with the conservative GOP since Regan's administration in the 80's. However, this was not always the case, and in some parts of the South has changed from conservative to more liberal pockets in this region of the United States. A basic understanding of demographics and high school government education makes it easy to decipher why this is so.

For the most part, yes, the South is a very red section of the United States. A lot of factors contribute to this, but the main reasons are Protestant religious standpoints in the South and rural populations in most states in the South. However, after analyzing a map of county- by- county results of the 2008 Presidential Election from USA Today, it is easy to see that not ALL parts of the South are red, and the reasons why are easier than one may think.

At first glance, it may seem like the distribution of blue pockets across the South are disorganized and random. However, upon careful inspection, these pockets of Blue counties (voted for Obama in 2008) were very urban counties with major Southern cities. Areas like Charlotte, Atlanta, New Orleans, Miami, Columbia, SC, and Montgomery are all major urban cities in the South, and have very legitimate reasons to want to vote for Liberal presidential candidates. Urban areas are major hubs for minority groups and demand federal funding for many city projects. Thus, Major urban cities favor progressive candidates who can promote minority rights and improve urban areas through federal government interaction, something the Republican Party believes should not be allowed (the federal government should be minimized).

Another area of interest are the lines in Southern Georgia, Alabama, and along the Mississippi and Rio Grande Rivers. These areas have high percentages of minorities that favor progressive candidates who promote minority rights.

For a history of the South's transformation from Democratic to Republican ideals, check out this History Channel article

PARMI SHAH FOOD resonse

I think we can all agree on one thing, food is AWESOME! however of al the things you listed, most of it sounded very southern. I think that is because you have a very southern culture. From the potatoes to everything, your food represents many of the items associated with deep south culture. I find that interesting because that is how culture works. Where you are, impacts who you are. Your tastes are influenced, sometimes even manipulate by where you grow up. However, environment is not the only influence. I am indian, so i tend to love spicy dishes with an ethnic feel to it. But being a southerner, born and raised in Georgia, i love it fried. In fact, i truly believe the saying "everything tastes better fried" now thats the southerner in me!

Topic-Politics in the South-Jasmine Kent

Dear Blog Group,

My topic for this week is different from the food, sports, and southern stereotypes we have been talking about. My interest is now about Politics in the South. I'm from Texas, which is always and will always be a Red state, but how is the rest of the South when it comes to politics?

In the 2008 election, most of the South was Red. So for this blog, I want you to do a little research and explain why the south is so republican, whether its accredited to early immigration, pre-Civil War times, or certain cultural thinking, explain why this is so. Maybe particular attention could be brought to the swing states and what persuaded them one way or the other.

Just a post to get you thinking.

Jasmine Kent

Jasmine Kent's food response

Heyyy what a coincidence! I think I love food just as much as you do! Surprising, I thought it wasn't possible ;). My favorite foods have always been the traditional Thanksgiving food--honey baked ham, stuffing, cranberry sauce, macaroni and cheese, and of course, collard greens. My favorite home cooked meal by my mom though is bacon wrapped steak with twice baked potatoes and collard greens. Steak has always been around, but I think wrapping it in bacon was a little twist we added ourselves! Collard greens originated in Africa and were brought over here by the trans-atlantic slave trade. They were a cheap, but abundant source of vitamin C, fiber, and other vitamins that contained anti-cancer characteristics.

Yet, I'd have to say that the twice baked potatoes were an invention of my mom. She would cut open the potato, scoop out all the potato from the skin, put it in a bowl and mix it with cheese, sour cream, bacon, and Season-All, cook it in the oven, then place it back in the skin to serve it. Mmm mmm mmm, I could never get enough!

Here is a video of a lady making twice baked potatoes, yet I think that the portions are not needed, we always eyeball the ingredients.

Danny Sweat's Favorite Food response

This topic makes me extremely hungry. I love all foods, but my favorite is classic southern food. There is a great place about 3 minutes off campus on Ponce De Leon called Mary Mac's Tea Room. Warning, if you go to this website you will become very hungry. It is an amazing collection of food, fun, and southern hospitality.
Mary Mac's was created in 1945 and has changed owners only 3 times. A few of the employees have been there for quite a while including a lovely old lady by the name Jo Carter. Jo has actually been retired for a while now but she comes in everyday to greet costumers and give the best back rubs in all of Atlanta.
Everyone should go to Mary Mac's at least once in their life because it is not just food, it is an experience.

Good ole' Chicken! - Matthew Orr's Response to Favorite Foods

My family always jokes about my taste in food, because I always get chicken, french fries, and a Coke wherever we eat. However, I must say my most favorite versions of chicken have to be hot wings from Three Dollar Cafe and Williamson Brothers BBQ chicken.

Every time I come back home to visit, we always go to either of these two restaurants for their great food. Three Dollar Cafe has the best wings in Atlanta, no questions asked. They are not made with typical bar - quality wing sauce like every other wing joint in the city. While the origins of the hot wing are not from the South, they are still one of my favorite foods to eat when visiting home. Unfortunately, Three Dollar Cafe closed the two stores closest to my home, one in Marietta and another in Kennesaw, so we must take a special trip on weekends to Sandy Springs to obtain this prized commodity.

The only other food that competes with Three Dollar Cafe hot wings would have to be Williamson Brothers BBQ in Marietta, Georgia. Truly southern cuisine at its finest, Williamson Brothers has probably the regions best BBQ outside of the Meccas of BBQ: Memphis, Texas, North Carolina, and Kansas City. Not only is the BBQ chicken great, but the coleslaw and baked beans that accompany it are fantastic as well.

The weird thing about it is I used to hate going to these restaurants when I was younger. I suppose my tastes have changed over the years, because I love these foods now and cant wait to go back home so I can eat at these restaurants. I do not come from a family that was big into Southern food, but we do love our BBQ. My father takes his students from IBM to Williamson Brothers every time he has new classes with foreign students so they experience the wonderful BBQ that the establishment has to offer. While my family originated in Pennsylvania and my love for hot wings goes through the roof, I still love Southern BBQ.

Here is a video about a BBQ restaurant in Memphis, TN.

Favorite Foods-Michael Cox

Hello fellow bloggers,

For this blog post today I decided that I'm sick of talking about stereotypes, racism, and all that jazz. Right now I want to talk about food. I love food. I always have loved food and I have a sneaking suspicion that I will always love food.

I want you to tell me what your favorite foods are and where they originated.

Personally my favorite foods were mostly my Mom's. She was an amazing cook! She was raised in the south and cooked like it. However there were quite a few things that she made that did not originate in the south. I think the two main meals that I remember the most fondly were her Enchilada's, and her Lasagna. There was something about the way she made those two meals that made your mouth come alive on a level that you either didn't know was possible, or were dying to experience as soon as you could convince her to make them again.

Thankfully she passed a lot of her knowledge and experience both at the stove and with the oven on to her children before she passed away three years ago.

There is a particular song that says more about a particular dessert that she made than I would ever try to put into words myself so instead of talking about it myself, I'll let you listen to the song. Right Here!

Jasmine Kent--Response to Daniel Sweat's Topic

I think many comedians have made their careers by using stereotypes as comical humor. Especially many black comedians that I know always have a part of that in their performance. Off the top of my head, I can think of Monique, Lil Duval, Mike Epps, and Kevin Hart.

Yet, when I think of how stereotypes making people famous, I think of the show called The Boondocks. It is a show on BET that exploits the many black stereotypes through a means of humor, but the aim is not just comedy, the aim is to also show the ridiculousness of such stereotypes. If taken correctly, a viewer will laugh and enjoy themselves while also realizing, the ways in which the characters of the cartoon live and behave are not the ideal ways to represent oneself in reality.

In the clip below, we have Tom, a lawyer often thought of as a "white-black guy" because of the way he talks and acts. His soul was taken over by the soul of Stinkmeaner, a deceased elderly man, whose ignorance and "nigger-ish acts" characterized him. To get revenge upon Riley and Huey's grandpa, Stinkmeaners soul acts as a parasite to Tom's soul and only reveals itself in "nigger-moments". Also, beware of profanity.

As you can see, the clip is hilarious, but the stereotypes that come out are a black mans anger, language, temper, and violence. If people were to take this as humor and nothing realistic, they would enjoy it but not imitate it. If people were to take it as a true stereotypical show, then they would laugh and imitate it expecting everyone to find it funny, no matter what race they are. That's not true though, if a white person was to reenact this scene to a black person, it wouldn't be so pretty. See the thing is, many people do imitate and repeat the things that they see on TV. And if a mature audience isn't the only audience viewing these shows, then these things will be taken incorrectly; to me, this is how ignorance spreads. Even though we show whatever we show on television, its the families jobs at home to make sure their children and relatives are raised right so as not to be prejudiced or purely stereotypical in everything they do.

Jasmine Kent

Stereotypes: Jasmine Kent

Parmi's blog topic intrigued me because of how stereotypes are forms and the truths or antiquated truths behind them. Stereotypes are used locally, nationally, and even globally, but we can't depend on anyone to distinguish between the realities of a certain race or people if they haven't experienced it for themselves. Therefore, we need to realize the message we are sending out each day when it comes to our vernacular, our behavior, and mass communication like movies, radio shows, books, television, and etc. Like Akshay Saxena said in his presentation, the only things he knew about the south was what he saw in movies and on TV. When he came here he saw that it was something totally different than portrayed via the media.

Personally, what came to my mind when I thought of stereotypes was athletics. My school was for the majority, white, but when it came to our track team and the 7 people that made it to state every year, they were black. When we would go out to track meets and win, many people got to know us as their prime competition. When returning back to campus, all the non-black people were like, "I'm glad we have black people at our school or else our track team wouldn't be fast". Other people would say to me "Man I wish i had a black butt like you, then i could run and jump fast". They were my friend and always joking around, so I was passive to the comments and would laugh with them; no need to act astute when I knew they weren't trying to be rude right? Yet I didn't know this stereotype was so embedded in them.

This string of thoughts lead me to a conversation on facebook I had with my cousin about a white man starting an all white basketball league. Don Lewis, the commissioner of the all white basketball league, claims that he wants to, "create a league that focuses on "fundamental basketball" instead of "street-ball" played by "people of color.". Lewis says that the "street-ball" played by "people of color" is one that involves players flicking off other players or grabbing their crotch. He states that they want to stress, "a more fundamental basketball, which blatantly fits white players better." Here is the interview where he explains how and why it is not racist to have an all white basketball league. Here are a few excerpts from the interview posted on the web, you can also listen to it on this mp3 file. Here is also a video that has Charles Barkeley's opinion and some of the rules for the AABA as construed by Don Lewis.

Jones challenged the commissioner, asking, "why do you think it blatantly fits white players better?"

Lewis: "Well, because the facts speak for themselves. Look at the NBA, which is a very athletic-oriented style of play. Would you agree with that?"

Jones: "There are definitely good athletes in the league, but it's hard to get to the NBA if your fundamentals aren't strong."

Later on in the interview, Jones pressed Lewis on the issue of racism and segregation.

Jones: "How in the world is it not racist if you don't allow anybody to play but white Americans? It's segregated."

Lewis: "It's the same as a private club."

Jones: "But that would be segregated also."

Lewis: "The league is not segregated because we allow ownership of anyone, know matter what their color is."

Lewis: "But you won't let anybody play but white people.... If you say that only white people can play, I have no idea how that's not segregated."

Lewis: "I'll agree in a sense, yes it is segregated."

The radio host referenced a line that Lewis said earlier in the week, a claim that the AABA is "a league for white players to play fundamental basketball, which they like."

Jones: "What makes you think white people like fundamental basketball?"

Lewis: "I ran a league, and they like that fundamental style of basketball."

Lewis continued, expressing interest in a white-vs.-black game called "Snowball vs. Bro Ball." His exact quote:

"In the past 72 hours, I've been approached by two different parties to not only televise what we're doing, but to turn this into a reality show from the time we start all the way through, and at the end, have our white all-stars play a group of all-star black players, with the series called Snowball vs. Bro Ball.

This really disturbs me. Are white people so intimidated by the athletic ability of black people that we must be patronized and segregated just so that the white man can feel better about himself? That's terrible. When I looked up the Racial Composition of the NBA, NFL, and MLB I found that 79% of the NBA is black, 65% of the NFL is black, and 18% of the MLB is black. While we might be dominant in the NFL and NBA, but that doesn't mean we are the sole ethnicity dictating the leagues. Whites, mexicans, europeans, etc all are very talented and represent themselves in the NBA, if not overseas or in other sports. Races besides African American are not to be put down athletically just because of their representation in 3 different sports.

So the question is, are black people blessed with more acute athletic prowess than other races? By the statistics and other personal experiences, this stereotype could be true, but discriminating in outlandish ways like the AABA or simply acting like black people are doing white people a disservice naturally, is where the stereotype has gone too far.

Jasmine Kent

Parmi Shah-Response to Jasmine's topic

It's interesting that you bring this up, because there was a video on youtube I saw just recently about racism in the elevator. Basically its a girl getting in the elevator and subconsciously clutching her purse tighter. Its a comedic approach but it stil makes a point. I feel that the stereotypes presented in all these children cartoons and mainstream media have made an impact on the people who watch it, and than their children. Even though the videos are simply meant to be funny, portraying racist stereotypes is affective enough to be considered crossing the lines. Another thing i've seen is that a lot of TV shows use racist stereotypes in a saterical format that is actually advocating against racism rather than for it. however children and evne some people who watch the show miss the satire and take it for face value. This makes using racism as a mode of entertainment very sensitive.

Here is the video I was talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRfjLfyXYlA

warning: profanity!