Tues/ Wed, January 5/ 6 Back to Back Interviews

 

News of the Day: 

As Statues Of America's Racist Past Were Removed This Year, So Were Tattoos

The year of large racial justice protests led to an unprecedented number of Confederate symbols being removed around the country.

More than 100 Confederate symbols have been removed from public spaces or renamed since George Floyd was killed, according to a count by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

And in a similar reckoning, tattoo artists around the country say that as protests took off this year, requests to remove or cover up racist tattoos did, too.

Kyle Boykin was 17 when he got a tattoo of the Confederate flag that covered his upper arm. "Growing up in rural, small-town Ohio, that was kind of the cool thing," he says. To him, it was about being proud of his family's history in the South.

But as Boykin got older, he began to understand that as a white man, the same Confederate flag that to him represented pride held dark reminders of slavery and white supremacy for many Black Americans.

Boykin says he was careful to wear sleeves long enough to cover his tattoo at work. He is a safety supervisor for the transit agency in Zanesville, Ohio, where he has lived his entire life.

"I work with everybody, of all races, sexes, everybody, rich to poor," he says. "... I never wanted somebody that I was trying to lend a hand to in the community to, for any reason, feel uncomfortable by anything I had on my body that was never meant for that purpose."

BACK TO BACK INTERVIEWS:

Take a look at the following types of questions 

and especially the samples given. 

 1. Now select an historical figure.  This may be someone in the realm of politics, sports or the arts; however, each has one thing in common: 

each is dead.  

2. Read a minimum of two sources about this individual. In this situation, Wikipedia is acceptable for one. Gather information.  Take a few notes. 

The purpose is to have an understanding of this person's life, much as you would have the understanding of the context of a person or situation prior to conducting any interview. 

 3. Now compose a list of questions asking two of 

each type of question listed below; that's a total of 

twelve questions.

 They should be rich, pithy in depth questions. Your deceased interviewee will not be responding. The goal is in asking insightful  questions, so as to elicit honest, thoughtful responses. 

I

This is due by  midnight Wednesday.

Below is a model of how the questions should be framed.

Note the following questions clearly demonstrate that I have read some background material on James Baldwin.

 As an example,  here is a chronological question I might ask James Baldwin:

Mr. Baldwin, you said that: "Once I found myself on the other side of the ocean, I see where I came from very clearly...I am the grandson of a slave, and I am a writer. I must deal with both." Could you explain to me how your reconciled the legacy of slavery with your writing career?

or a suggestive question:

How might your life have been different if you had not met Richard Wright and voiced strongly opposing opinions on what it was like to be black in America?

or an explanation question:

According the the film maker Raoul Peck, you sexuality was as "complicated as the rest of your life and you never followed the strict dichotomies of love." How did you come to a personal realization that one's sexuality is fluid?

 
 Note the sample styles of questions: basic,

explanation, justification, suggestive, choice and 

chronological.