This quarter, I came to class with the intent to learn and not focus so much on my grades. Not only did it make school more enjoyable, but it also made me appreciate the value of having an education from a UC. In the beginning of the quarter, I was quite terrified of this class, as I mentioned in the first week’s self-assessment. To me, 39C was daunting because I struggle with argument and research, particularly organization and trying to make my ideas coherent. To deal with this fear, I immediately dove into all the classwork and tried my best to keep up with all the readings. After syllabus week, I immersed myself in The New Jim Crow, carefully analyzing all the fundamental ideas Michelle Alexander has to offer about the American criminal justice system. I underlined key concepts and recorded my reactions to the chapters we were assigned, as you can see in the video below.

I tried not to think of the book as just some kind of requirement we needed for class, but as an artifact that I could learn from to make me a well-rounded, educated individual. In turn, this helped me get high scores on the quizzes and also allowed me to engage during lectures. Usually I refrain from speaking in class because I’m very shy and introverted, but because I knew what you were talking about it gave me the confidence to participate in discussions. When my shyness got the best of me and I chose not to participate, I would write down my answers instead. Once you gave your explanations, I found that my input was actually very similar, and this further motivated me to keep tackling the readings and do all the work we were assigned.

As a Criminology major, social justice is obviously something I’m very passionate about, and learning about mass incarceration through Michelle Alexander’s work finally helped me to put an academic context behind the headlining stories of police brutality that has surfaced in mainstream media in recent years. On top of that, this book also helped me to see hip-hop from a different perspective. As a music enthusiast, I love the art of politically conscious rap because it can be such a powerful platform for rappers who actually have something important to say about African American culture. In reading The New Jim Crow, I could very well see the connections between certain songs I’ve listened to and concepts found in the book. For example, there’s a song by artist J. Cole called “Caged Bird” that came out earlier this year. Inspired by Maya Angelou’s autobiography, the song is about the trials he experiences as an African American male in modern America, particularly the struggle of being trapped in the institution that is mass incarceration. You can listen to the song below and view the lyrics here, but viewer discretion is advised because the song contains profanity. Here are some of my favorite lines from his verse anyways:

Figure 2 - The “caged bird” of the hook is a metaphor for the many black men imprisoned in the U.S. who make up the majority of the incarcerated population as we learned in NJC. Every caged bird just wishes to be free, but when it seems like your whole race is in jail, can you really ever have freedom? (Genius)

Figure 3 - This references how the  American criminal justice system imprisons many black males each year for petty drug crimes, and the needless harsh penalties are causing overcrowding in prisons, as Alexander discusses in her phenomenal work (Genius).

After this course, everything around me finally began to make sense. There were other times throughout the quarter that I would see things we learned in class, outside of class. One of my favorite TV shows is a comedy that airs on The CW called Jane the Virgin. While we reading Atlantic articles by Ta-Nehisi Coates for our HCP’s, there was an episode that directly made a reference to him that same week. To give a brief background of the show, there’s a telenovela star named Rogelio who’s in a casual relationship with his screenwriter Dina. He’s a narcissistic, shallow celebrity, while she’s an ambitious, independent creative in the film business. Upon discovering that he wasn’t invited to her birthday party, confused, Rogelio approached Dina, to which she responded that he just wouldn’t get along with her friends. Here’s a screencap of the moment below:

Figure 4 shows a screencap of “Chapter Forty-Two” in Jane the Virgin.
(Disclaimer: I’m not at fault for the improper use of the word “there” in image 3, that’s how the episode CC’d it.)

Hilarious right!? I know it may seem very trivial, but had it not been for 39C, I probably wouldn’t have caught the reference. I had this sort of a light bulb moment and was proud that I understood the exchange. Throughout the course, I began linking everything I learned to things in popular culture like songs and TV shows. It felt rewarding to feel like I was somewhat a part of the academic conversation because I could finally see the “bigger picture” in it all.

On a more serious note however, an important lesson I learned from this class is that research takes time. The library module assigned at the beginning of the course was actually a great start to help me understand how to research properly, in terms of what kind of phrases I should look up and on which search engines. In order to compose a well-organized essay, I realized that you have to set aside time to carefully read your sources and simply see what the scholars have to say.

Figure 4 shows some screenshots of the scholarly articles I researched for my projects. This only touches upon the surface, but I just wanted to show a visual example of how much I interacted with my sources.
 

Once I read enough, I could properly synthesize what I learned and come up with my own ideas. Before 39C, my writing process was the other way around like we learned in high school. It was about making an initial argument and then finding the supporting evidence to back up that idea. I discovered that in order to make an effective argument, you have to cultivate an understanding of something first and develop a certain vocabulary for it, not just spew out fancy bullshit. Often times, I always try to make my writing sound smart with pretty rhetoric and academic language, but this class taught me that it’s really not about sounding smart. It’s about being clear and concise, and trying to get the point across effectively because there’s no point in trying to sound smart if you don’t even know what you’re saying. Ultimately, 39C taught me not to be a know-it-all, and more importantly, it taught me how to learn.

Throughout the entire quarter, I was extremely uncomfortable, constantly thinking about the assignments for this course. Every single week, each deadline was in the back of my head. On weekends when I’d be out having fun with my friends, I’d suddenly remember that thing I have to do for 39C (whatever it was), and it would hit me like a ton of bricks. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that discomfort is the number one indicator of growth. By the end of the course, my hard work definitely paid off when I got an “A” on the Advocacy Project because I realized that you have to face your fears head on. It felt so rewarding to get your feedback on my final submission for the AP.
 

Figure 5 shows your comments and my grade for the Advocacy Project.

For the longest time I thought I could just “wing it” but that’s not how it works in this class, college, or life in general. Feeling uncomfortable really sucks, but you have to work hard and be willing to tackle the things that scare you because that is what helps your grow. To me, finishing this class was a huge accomplishment because I didn’t know I had it in me. The most important lesson I learned from 39C is that we have to do the things we don’t want to do in order to succeed, and the ones who know this are usually the ones who rise to the top.