Mississippi Burning

"Mississippi Burning" is a movie that very well depicts the scene of racism towards the blacks by the whites. It also displays the thinking of 'white supremacy', which was common amongst the people in South America at that time, around the 1980s. My feelings for the movie is neutral as I did not like some of the scenes, especially the disturbing ones. However, I did like the fact that I got to learn more about how the whites discriminated and marginalised the blacks, despite the only difference being their skin colours. Racism is a seriously weird business. Just come to think of it. Imagine you being just an ordinary Chinese man sitting in your room minding your own business. Suddenly, a gang of Japanese people come, pillage your house, and take you along with them. You are puzzled. However, you know your fate soon as you can see some of the Japanese holding rifles pointed at you. Would you like that? I mean, you're just minding your own business, not bothering them in any way. And they suddenly come and kill you just because of the fact that you are Chinese! How would you like that, seriously. Unless you're one of those who go 'lynching rocks!' everyday. :)

An ex-classmate...

Last year, we had a classmate who is not here now with us year to share our joy and happiness. His name is Lin Xin Cheng, and he was just like one of us in the beginning of the year, except doing a little bit worse than average. He was normal, no matter from what perspective you see him from. However, around midway through term two, one of our classmates introduced him to the extremely popular game which most of us play, DotA. At first, he was only slightly amused by the game. But shortly after, he started playing it. From a few games a day to a few hours. His results, of course, suffered a tremendous impact. In fact, he would not do his homework just to play DotA which resulted in him getting reprimanded by the teacher the next day. This continued on and on, until our form teacher, Mdm Lim, talked to him and counselled him. Only did she realise that Xin Cheng's results suffered due to his computer addiction. Apart from having his results deteriorating, Xin Cheng was so into his world of DotA that he even acted as one of the characters. For example, he would, at a random point of time, say,"I cast you a sleep spell!" At first, I thought he was just trying to be funny, but after some time, I realised that he was clearly addicted to DotA and that he really needed some help. I began talking to him, treating him as a friend. Most of my classmates treated him like a retard and continuously poked fun at him. I tried several times to get them to stop, but they would not heed me. In the end, Xin Cheng became extremely marginalised, with only a few true friends like Shao Xuan, Hao Yu and me. Finally, at the end of July, he decided to give up secondary one and repeat it this year. I feel that our classmates should not have made fun of him last year. Instead, we should have all encouraged him to quit his gaming and focus on his schoolwork. Making fun of him was wrong, but everyone loved it. This was an act of prejudice by my class last year, one which should have been stopped before consequences became too dire...