#I FEEL LIKE THE COLORS AND DESIGNS SHOULD BE EMBRACED AND NOT POLICED SO STRONGLY

[zukoromantic]

My precure color opinions because why not. Don't read if you think you'll be upset reading different opinions, i just wanna put this out there haha😭:

Summer is white, let her be white (this is the one i'm the most passionate about). I didn't even KNOW there was a debate on this until this year, what in the world. None of that rainbow or pink nonsense. I don't even know why she would be classified as rainbow officially. Especially when the color they TRY to force her into is pink (for example saying today's color is pink before the outro). I heard she was created to be white but i don't know the source of that so that might be wrong

i agree with Finale being golden, she gets to be golden as a treat <3. She is not purple, y'all are just mean, compare her to actual purple cures. A golden theme really suits her in my opinion, it's beautiful and elegant like her. There should be more golden cures that have some some golden accents imo :D

Parfait is green to me with rainbow sub-color, i KNOW it makes no sense and she is just a rainbow cure, but that's what she is in my brain somehow acejcdksvd

Cosmo is blue with rainbow sub-color, but SHOULD have been rainbow. Maybe with blue sub-color bc it Does with the team arrangement (also should have had her cat form in cure form but that's beside the point). I heard they WANTED to make her rainbow but weren't allowed?! Unsure about that too though

i haven't seen hugtto yet but ma cherie literally looks so pink acejcdjd. You're red? Whatever you say, girl, you can be anything you wanna be, who am i to tell you otherwise <3

Milky as green is fine, but i see why people want turquoise to just be its own category. I think her color shouldn't look different though, she looks great

similair for Lillian, except that i've seen some people giving her a wonderful light green and she would look gorgeous!

Nyammy can be a blue cure if she wants <3. Especially next to Lillian, it's obvious how white is their base color and they define themselves via the accents. But also she is literally the whitest cure ever made, let alone the whitest blue cure wcejev

Felice is fine as green cure and she's beautiful

there should be more pink non-leaders like Butterfly

bring back black as cure color. Also brown and grey would be gorgeous <3

i actually prefer when cures look kinda colorful and they AREN'T monotone. The main color is really more about the vibe in my opinion, like with Finale and Nyammy haha!

This is all light-hearted, just thought it would be fun to post these bc everyone has Some precure color opinions xD! 🙌 It's so funny how color discourse is such a serious topic in precure fandom CSJDVEK

If anyone wants to share their own opinions, you can tell but please only if it's in good faith 🙏

[xoruffitup]

BlacKkKlansman: Double Consciousness & Extremist Identities

I saw BlacKkKlansman last night, and I’m still trying to properly breathe around the cold stone it left in my chest. I’ve been thinking about it constantly, and whenever that happens I always feel the need to write some sort of analysis to try to articulate why I’ve reacted so strongly to something. So, here’s my half-baked BlacKkKlansman review.

First things first, I’m white. Of course, that affects the way I view the world and whatever art/media I choose to consume. I fully recognize that my experience and takeaway from this film are likely very different from those of a viewer of color. And sure, I can say that I try to be progressive in how I live my life and I took college courses on race politics and minority marginalization, but at the end of the day, this is a film about black voices and black equality and those are topics I have no right to discourse on. So please, if something I write below seems misguided or uneducated, please let me know so I can self-examine and adjust.

First of all: The simple fact that this movie had such an effect on me as a white viewer. I was in a crowded movie theatre, with an audience of diverse age and race, and never in my life have I felt such a powerful moment of silent, unified shock when the credits started. The ending left every single person speechless. White privilege means that when I read news articles or books about institutionalized racism in our country, I have the option of closing the book, walking away and thinking about something else for a while. Not the case whatsoever with this movie - It didn’t discriminate in its devastating impact. While I’ve read about Black Power ideologies, there’s always an aspect of such movements that are designed not to be fully understood by those outside of it. These are not for me. This seems as intentional as it is justified. Black communities are excluded from so many mainstream ‘white’ narratives or locuses of power, these movements are the sole spaces that belong entirely to them and which they entirely control. They are designed to alienate, the same way these communities are alienated from so much else in society. However, BlacKkKlansman seemed accessible to a multitude of viewpoints and cultural/racial positions. The film does not strive to tell the audience how they should feel, but leaves elements of interpretation up to the viewer by presenting a chorus of voices, rather than a single one; By presenting multifaceted characters experiencing conflicts of identity - Rather than a single protagonist with a single political message. This is certainly not to say that a film is only good if it panders to the understanding of white viewers, but in this case I was impressed by the multiplicity of narratives and perspectives that were portrayed.

What’s so thought-provoking to me about the film was the decision to tell the story from the position of the undecided and conflicted center. By following Ron and Flip’s investigation, we watch each character grapple with the opposite sides of extremism. While Flip has to ingratiate himself with the Klan members who would revile his Jewish heritage, Ron has to spy on his own community at Black Student Union events as they call for war against the police. Both characters must play roles in order to pretend to fit into the groups they look like they should belong to. In Flip’s case, feeling threatened and despised by the Klan’s ideals makes him re-evaluate the meaning of the Jewish identity he never thought much about. For Ron, he feels torn between his loyalty to his people, and to his own hard-sought and prized work as a policeman (an institution equally reviled by Patrice and Klan members). Ron and Flip both wear masks, and their feelings of separation from “their” respective communities makes them each consider the conflicting identities within themselves.

Aptly, Patrice speaks to Ron in one scene about double consciousness. She questions whether it is possible to be both a black woman and American citizen. To her, putting her country first would be a betrayal to her black identity. In juxtaposition, the Klan members dress up their intolerance behind the values of “America first” (I can barely describe the chills that went through me when the Klan members all started chanting it.) Ron’s struggle throughout the film is exactly this - His determination to be both a black man and a police officer. He and Patrice disagree on whether it’s possible to change a corrupt system from within, and the movie leaves ambiguous how much Ron succeeds in this front. It’s crushingly infuriating when, towards the end of the film, Ron is himself detained and beaten by policemen who don’t believe he’s an undercover cop. But shortly thereafter, he enjoys a triumphant entry into the police station where all his white colleagues congratulate his work and embrace him. The scene when he calls David Duke to reveal his identity with his three colleagues giggling on either side of him is downright charming in its camaraderie and gaiety. It looks like acceptance; But tempered by the fact that all his hard work on the investigation was ultimately scrapped in the end. 

These themes of double consciousness and ambiguity permeate the film, and lend to its impactful success. Split-screen parallels are presented between Klan and Black Power movement meetings - Certainly not to equate the two, but to show in stark, unmistakable terms that these are the polar opposite, yet intimately interrelated effects of racism. This is how distantly racism divides our country - And how it leads to beliefs on either side that people will kill for. Towards the climax, a Black Student Union meeting listens to the horrific history of a young black man being brutally lynched, while the Klan members cheer and applaud a scene in Birth Of A Nation depicting the hanging of a black man. Neither side exists without the other to perceive it as a threat - And both stand firm in their respective beliefs that their hatred of the other side is justified. 

Yet, the film wasn’t the story of the Klan, nor of the Black liberation movement - It was the story of the two men caught in the middle, looking for footing on quickly-shrinking ground between the two sides, as their mutual hatred brings the two warring sides to an inevitable conflict. It is the same story of many modern viewers, wondering how in hell we’ve come to the present moment with “Black Lives Matter” on one side and Trump proclaiming “America First” on the other - with not an inch of common ground or even common perception between the two. 

Although I hope most viewers would intuit which side is truly more justified in their grievances, a strength of the film was its balanced, rather than caricatured depiction of the Klan members; Who believe that yes, they live in a racist country - “An anti-white racist country.” The chilling brilliance in the depiction of David Duke was how harmlessly normal he first seems - Cheerfully spouting off phrases like “you’re darn tootin’“ on the phone to Ron and ending the conversation with a chipper “God bless white America!” This is exactly how ideologies of hate become disguised as civilized, mild-mannered “values.” David Duke has given up the flashy title of “Grand Dragon” for the more innocuous “National Director” (or something to that end). The first time he goes undercover, Flip is quickly admonished never to call the Klan “The Klan,” but rather “The Organization.” In a conversation between Ron and one of his superiors at the police station, it’s even discussed how a high-ranking Klansman might have the long-term goal of placing “one of their own” in the White House, after they’ve disguised their intolerance and bigotry under the empirical rationales of policy. It’s one of the most painful moments of the entire film. 

Yet, while Flip has to endure the Klan members’ talk of killing black people, and Ron hears Kwame Ture speak about race wars with inevitability, another stroke of the film’s thoughtful genius is the choice of individual who actually enacts violence - Felix’s utterly apple pie looking housewife. She looks like the plump, harmless woman you wouldn’t want to be in line behind at the grocery store because she’s likely to have fifteen coupons. She is the last person you would expect on sight to leave a bomb at the house of a young black woman. And yet, this is another powerful message: How the vulnerable and susceptible can so easily become radicalized. I certainly don’t have sympathy for her because she’s an adult who made her own decisions; But I’m also aware of the way her Klansman husband manipulated her into becoming what she was, and it’s an extra layer of nuance I appreciated. 

Finally, I’ll wrap this up on a personal, perhaps silly, note. There were multiple layers of this film that really disturbed me, and it’s taken me a good 24 hours to put my finger on this last one: I’m not sure I enjoyed Adam Driver as Flip. Don’t get me wrong here, I’m all over that shoulder gun holster look and he looked 500% finer in flannel than any man has a right to. Also, I’m not sure I would feel this same discomfort if he’d been played by a lesser-caliber actor, or one who I don’t have such an attachment to. But I realized that on an instinctive level, it upset me to see his face under a Klan hood, and to hear him say vile racist comments. Rationally, of course I know that A) He’s acting, and B) Even his character is acting, but Adam’s an utterly convincing actor, playing an undercover detective who’s very good at his job. Maybe both his and Flip’s performances were too good. I asked myself why it didn’t bother me the same way to hear Ron spout racist bullshit on the phone. Part of it is because he isn’t played by an actor I happen to deeply respect and admire, but there’s more to it than that. There’s a passage in the NYT review that got as close to my nebulous discomfort as anything I could express:

"The most shocking thing about Flip's (Adam Driver's undercover detective role) imposture is how easy it seems, how natural he looks and sounds. This unnerving authenticity is partly testament to Mr. Driver's ability to tuck one performance inside another, but it also testifies to a stark and discomforting truth. Maybe not everyone who is white is a racist, but racism is what makes us white.”

Adam’s performance as Flip is discomfiting because it shows how easily a white person can take up the mask of extreme bigotry and intolerance, and how easily they can be perceived as supporting a hate movement, regardless of their true internal ideologies. I know Flip doesn’t mean the things he’s saying, but he’s damn convincing because he looks the part. His whiteness paired with his words - regardless of whether they’re genuine - is powerful and terrible. And racism is what lends him the ability to put on that convincing mask. And if racism is what “makes us white,” Adam as Flip makes me wonder if I could do the same. If, for whatever reason, the situation was such that I had to convince someone I believed in these things... Would I surprise myself by finding that I’m capable of saying things equally terrible? Is this a role that every white person is capable of, at a certain subconscious level, because of systemic racism and implicit biases? 

In conclusion: This movie has fucked up my life. It’s genius and I think I need to see it again. (If I can stomach it...)

[auskultu]

The Strange New Love Land of the Hippies

Loudon Wainwright, Life, 31 March 1967

Just in case anybody's still got his head stuck in the sand, something is happening with American youth, and if others hope they will wake up one morning to lind ended the spreading youthful rebellion against virtually all the fine, old. established values, I think they can forget it. In fact, I believe the hour of the hippie—which could well enlist enormous numbers of young people from all over the country—is coming and that the most sensible thing we straight types can do is to take a good look at this bizarre new scene.

I recently had a brief contact with the hippies in their new national capital in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, and my own reactions to this scene were unexpectedly mixed. As a not-so-youthful square, I guess I thought it would repel and outrage me. As a parent engaged in the endless struggle to defend the worth of hard work and the merit of an orderly existence, I was prepared to suffer my own indignation. Yet I quite simply felt none of this at all.

Some of the hippie ways struck me as awful. Some of their talk is nonsense (but whose is not?), and some of their behavior. like the behavior of the squares they deplore, seems both self-destructive and immoral. The hippies jarred me, but there is much about them that is distinctly appealing. Those I met use the word "love” a lot and dispense it freely among themselves and to outsiders w ho don't bug them. It is a weapon of astonishing power.

The Haight-Ashbury section houses perhaps 30,000 people in a somewhat gonc-to-seed area of the city, and its central thoroughfare is Haight Street, an ordinary mixture of grocery and drugstores, shops and saloons. What is decidedly not ordinary about Haight Street are the pedestrians who stroll there, and on a clear day, clothed in wild combinations of capes, boots, turbans, necklaces, bells, chinos, earrings, bearded or not, long hair and short, they parade and lounge in such big and colorful numbers that carloads of sightseers create w eekend traffic jams. These are the hippies (plus some would-be hippies, runaway kids and some outright fakes who get dressed up and come to Haight Street just to join the fun), and it is estimated that between 6.000 and 8,000 of them from all over the I nited Stales are living in the district. By and large, the ages of these voting men and women range between 18 and 23, but there are older hippies, and there are hippie children, too, toddling along between their parents or strapped papooselike to the hack of a bearded father. If it is a strange scene, it is also an entirely peaceful one, and emerging here and there from the crow d are faces of true benignity and beauty.

Among the hippies in the Haight-Ashbury are college graduates, people who have left good jobs, dropouts, men who have completed their military service, girls who couldn't stand their mothers (and boys their fathers), kids of high intelligence from well-off homes (from whence remittance money comes), drifters and misfits and a smattering of the human flotsam that might be expected to drift along with any crowd. Some work regularly, others irregularly, others not at all. Their common bond is revulsion against established authority and against the whole system ("the missile race is just a big, sick, sexual trip”), and among their most widely practiced tribal mores is the use of marijuana and LSD. A great majority of the hippies turn on frequently with these drugs and, though the practice is deplored by the more thoughtful members of the community, others use Methedrine ("speed”) or even heroin. The group's language is clearly drug-oriented, the posters, lapel buttons and literature sold in hippie-run shops have that distinct cast, and some wags have called the area Psychedelphia.

Perhaps because the hippies are peaceable (they don't drink, for one important thing), the population of San Francisco is relatively relaxed about their presence in the city. The attitudes of some are strongly positive. One such man is Father Leon Harris, the rector of All Saints’ Episcopal Church in the district. On the door of Father Harris’ office is a hippie poster in electric reds and greens which says "Haight is Love.”

’’I'm a booster for the hippies,” Father Harris told me. "They have some very fine ideas. They believe in sharing and they’re against hypocrisy. They’re for love and peace. They are honest and open. The drugs deeply concern me. They may have washed their hands of the Establishment, but in many way s that is quite understandable. Our example has been far front good. These people are trying to find a way, and I admire them for that.”

Of course, the view held by Father Harris is more loving than many. The drug situation in the Haight-Ashbury, where arrests tripled last year, is considered alarming by the police, doctors ami other authorities, and, aside from the effects on health, the obvious preoccupation of the hippies with the pleasures of the regularly drugged existence seems to me a most disruptive sort of escapism. All the talk about “mind-expanding” might just be masking a headlong flight from reality.

The worry is not just confined to the use of drugs. A lot of the hippies, as opposed to the equally long-haired hut busy and activist young students at Berkeley across the hay, are not really doing anything, and this aimless vegetation is a matter of concern to many hippie-watchers. Among them is a man named Bill Graham, who manages a wild and wonderful rock music group much admired by the hippies and called the Jefferson Airplane. Graham continually upbraids his hippie acquaintances for their idleness. "They run around shouting ’Rebel! Rebel! Rebel!’,” says Graham, "and nothing really is happening. A lot of them aren’t for anything, even themselves.”

One of the best-known small hippie groups in The Haight-Ashbury is an outfit called the Diggers, and they are by no means idle. They have taken on the responsibility of caring for hippies in general. To this end they provide shelter in two or three houses they have been able to rent. They gather, repair and distribute old clothing, and they scrounge for or buy at cut prices food which they pass out free and daily in a nearby park to anyone who arrives with a howl and an appetite. This regular mass feeding, which usually consists of a hot, stew like dish and bread, often accommodates upward of 100 diners, and the atmosphere, with the hippies in groups on the grass, is clearly picnicky. It is also inviting, and one story in the district has it that every few days a stranger in old clothes arrives to eat. When he is finished, he crosses the park and then gets into a car his chauffeur is waiting to drive away.

Father Harris, who considers the Diggers much like mendicants of the Middle Ages, has given them office space in the church basement and lets them use the kitchen for cooking their handout meals. A group of perhaps 10 were in the church the morning I was there and, feeling somewhat strange in my own costume of suit and necktie, I introduced myself.

They were wonderfully indifferent to my outlandish appearance ("that’s your trip, man”) and welcomed me immediately. For perhaps an hour we talked—or rather I listened as they talked—about a wide variety of matters. They attacked the war in Vietnam, the President, Governor Reagan, the press, the courts, the fuzz. "This system isn’t working,” one intense young man with an earring told me. "The people aren’t eating. This kind of setup encourages madmen.” He rapped his finger on the table. "You dig?” I shrugged hopefully.

Some of their concerns that morning were more immediate. There are estimates that 200,000 young people will he migrating to the Haight-Ashbury this summer, and the Diggers are trying to find ways, including getting the help of the city, to prepare for what might prove to be a realty horrendous demand for housing and food. Indeed, the situation right now in the district is growing critical. On the day I saw them, the Diggers were very short of food and were incensed because they had discovered that in one hippie house there was a big supply of beans that should have been more generously shared. Not quite believing my own presence, I tagged along in their wake when they went to the house, burst up the stairs, had a brief and noisy argument with the startled hippie leaders there, came to agreement and departed carrying half the beans into the rain in boxes and a great, sagging blanket.

The house where we then took the beans was packed with people. In the living room there were perhaps 20 sitting around on shabby furniture and on the floor, some talking, some writing in notebooks, some listening to softly played guitars. Throughout the rest of the house every available bit of space was covered with cushions, mattresses, sleeping bags. Makeshift walls of cardboard and sheets partitioned the bedrooms into still smaller spaces, and in most of these, w hose walls were painted with splashes of color, psychedelic designs and slogans like "Love is the Trip,” more young men and women sat and talked or were sleeping ("crashing”). One boy spoke to me from his bed in a closet, and against a wall in the basement stood the lower half of a metal coffin. "It’s great, man,” said its proud tenant. "And you get to satisfy your death wish, too.”

There were possibly 50 people in the house that day, and it has held more. Singly and in couples (some legally married, some not), they come and go daily, and none of them is turned away unless he is under 18 or breaks the rule which forbids taking any drugs in the house. It’s perfectly all right to take them outside and then come in. There is a continuing effort to fight the squalor natural to such crowded conditions, and the battle against the plumbing is losing and constant. Yet to a great extent the dirt and discomfort are embraced as the logical companions of full freedom.

But the squalor does make one wonder. What is there about dirt and disorder that is so appealing, even desirable? What has the Establishment done to drive people to express their repudiation of it by wallowing in a mess they themselves make? If theirs is a form of protest, they seem clearly to be both the initiators and the victims of it. Would some small measure of self-respect (and I’m not talking about haircuts) undermine the revolution?

Certainly not all of the hippie quarters in The Haight-Ashbury are as jammed. I was invited to a smaller place where about 12 were living. This apartment was tidy, and one of the girls, who said that she produced her financial contribution to the household by panhandling, gave me coffee and a bowl of macaroni. When I refused sugar and said I had a pill for the coffee, the group laughed, and one boy called out: "Get the middle-aged hippie!” The girl curled up next to him on the couch said she had never been really happy until she left home. Now, she said, she thought she w as pregnant, and she and the boy exchanged fond looks.

It was all so loving—good friends together, warm shelter, food, the rain against the window—and it almost seemed plausible. But not quite. What about those who weren’t there, the families of the hippies? Were they looking for these young people or had they given them up? What, I wondered, about the girl who was becoming an accomplished panhandler? How long could she happily ply that humiliating trade? And the girl who thought she was pregnant, would she feel in a few months, as she obviously felt now, that her event was blessed? Or would she feel bitter and swindled and angry at herself for having once had the courage of her folly? In that context, the word "love” seems a ludicrous distortion, and at the very least I would wish for these young people that they had not taken this foolish and painful journey to find it.

The rain was coming down too hard for us to go out then, and we just sat around and talked for awhile. One of the boys took his guitar and began to sing, first folk and blues I didn’t know, then, in deference to the guest, he started on more familiar things like “House of the Rising Sun” and even “Summertime.” We all joined in, and in the middle of one song, a boy lying on the floor tugged at my trouser leg. "You get the vibrations?” he asked. "We’re all together, aren’t we, man?” Indeed we were, in that space and in that moment, and I was sad it could not last. Yet it could not for me, for I know of better afternoons, and it cannot last for them either.

[daliakristine-blog]

Do Icons exist today?

An icon is someone who makes an impact on society and inspires others. In today's society, there are many athletes we admire but should we be admiring them as much as we do? If you were to admire someone there should be a reason why other than them being a good person and an athlete. Serena Williams is an athlete who inspired many women to serve their own dominance and equality but she is not an icon because she has not done/ sacrificed anything other than inspiring people. Whereas Lebron James and Colin Kapernick are icons, they inspire those but they take the inspiration into action and create something with it. There are icons that exist in this world, but people can mistake someone who inspires them more than an icon just like how Serena Williams is different than Lebron and Colin.

Colin Kaepernick is an icon who had given up his career to protest something he was against. Before this protest, he lost his job, then had missed the last few months of the season due to a shoulder injury. As time went on and he had healed, Kaepernick was then given the opportunity to play. He protested by sitting during the national anthem at the Packers versus’ the 49ers game on September 1,2016. On the following day his friend, Eric Reid, took a knee beside him during the anthem to show that it is a serious problem and so if more people had gone along with Kaepernick’s protest it will make more people realize. The meaning of his protest was to raise awareness of police brutality. In 2016, police brutality had been getting more recognition. It was violent to the point where there were many cases of people of colour, especially African-Americans, who were killed without a valid reason. Since Kaepernick is a person of colour, this issue had affected him. NFL Media reporter, Steve Wyche, wrote an article on this issue and quoted Kaepernicks’ words, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.” He wanted to make a statement that the country that he plays for and represents has been mistreating people of colour. Our world today is not perfect and every day this topic is getting worse. Kaepernick was strongly moved by this issue. He wanted to do something to ensure that justice will be served. Kaepernick does not want to stand up for a country that kills people of colour without a valid reason. As an American citizen as well as a known NFL player, he felt that he had the right platform to express his views on police brutality. This allows him to get more people in his country to realize what is going on. Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL, had said, “I don’t necessarily agree with what he’s doing, but I support our players when they want to see a change in society, and we don’t live in a perfect society.”. What Roger had said, he shows that he understands and agrees that Kaepernick is doing this for a good reason. Kaepernick knows that in situations like this, his career can be jeopardized, which in the end it was. Once he left his team, it was hard for Kaepernick to be able to join another team after what he had done. In the end, it was worth it as he did it for a good reason. Although he could have handled this situation better, in his perspective, he was aware of what he was doing. He understands that not a lot of people will agree with his actions. Kaepernick did what had to be done and that ended up with him sacrificing his football career. He said, "I am not looking for approval. I have to stand up for people that are oppressed. ... If they take football away, my endorsements from me, I know that I stood up for what is right." Kapernick did not care about who will judge him or those who would criticize him. He wanted to get an important point across. As Kaepernick said, he has to stand up for the people being oppressed because if no one does anything about it, how will it get more recognition? It will become worse if no one speaks or takes action on it. He made a movement by sitting which led to him losing his career. Kaepernick finds that police brutality is something he should stand up for. He had known the consequences of losing his job, but he knew he did it to bring awareness against police brutality, and the oppression of people of colour in America.

Lebron James is also an icon just like Colin Kaepernick, although Lebron did not do any type of protest like Colin, he did build a school in his hometown Akron Ohio, for at-risk students because he knew what it is like. Lebron wanted to be known for more than just a famous basketball player, in his past he knew what it is like to not have a lot of money and he knew what it was like to not be as privileged as others and he did not want any other kids to feel this way so he did something about it.In this school, they have an eight hour day, a “support circle” for students after lunch, GED courses and job placements for parents. He made sure all of those were available for the students and their families to help kids overcome what he faced as a low-income student. In a New York Times article about Lebron’s schools opening it said, “Mr. James’s foundation has provided about $600,000 in financial support for additional teaching staff to help reduce class sizes, and an additional hour of after-school programming and tutors.” because of Lebrons foundation he was about to be known not only as a famous basketball player but as somebody who helps children finish education through the school he funded. He used the money he was earning and put it towards something that would help others in a positive way rather than spending it on items that are not as important, he sacrificed something he had to put it towards something that meant a lot to him. Not only did he put in tons of money into the school to create extra help, he also made sure that the kids would not be only secure for elementary but for when they are finished and they need to go into college. In an article about the school and his plan with the students who go there they said, “According to a spokesperson for the foundation, the I Promise program currently has 1,300 kids. When James and his foundation announced the program in 2015, they said they could give scholarships to as many as 2,300 students.” This school does not only benefit them while they are in the school but they also have benefits when they leave the school. James confirmed that to be able to qualify for the scholarship you would need a 3.0 GPA and you would need to hit specific high standards, as you can see he is not just giving out scholarships he is making sure they work for it and they deserve it. Lebron is very passionate about making sure at-risk kids have something to look forward too and have an education so he makes sure of that by building a school and having opportunities for them after school with his own earnings.

Serena Williams is known as the greatest female tennis player of all time. Serena is an icon but not the type of icon that Lebron and Colin are, she is an icon that inspires people especially young girls and boys to get involved in a sport they would have never thought of playing, as a coloured female athlete she goes through sexism and racism. On a website called themodist.com that sell women accessories, clothing, and much more they also talk about some inspiring women, when they did a little article about Serena Williams they said this, “For the US Open, she wore a custom-designed one-shouldered tutu dress by Virgil Abloh in collaboration with Nike.” She wore a custom-designed-one-shouldered tutu dress because the french open announced they would not allow her to wear her black panther inspired catsuit. Serena is faced with many times when people told her she was not allowed to wear specific types of clothing because she is a female, but as you can see it does not stop her from playing what she loves, which inspires other young girls and boys that look up to her to not let people who tell you, you can not do something stop you. Serena also has a business called serenaventures.com and on that website it talks about who they are, their team, and their investments, it also has contact information if you would want to get in touch with them. In the section about who they are she said in the first sentence, “In 2014, I launched Serena Ventures with the mission of giving opportunities to founders across an array of industries.” Serena and her company invests in companies that embrace diverse leadership, individual empowerment, creativity and opportunities because she knows what it is like to have people supporting you especially if you are someone of colour. She remembers as a little girl when her father would tell her when you hear gunshots, get low and she uses this business as a way to help support people of colour doing big and great things in life by investing in them because she has had many experiences of what it is like to be a person of colour living in this world with many people telling you, you could not do something or you would not make it up there because you are not a person with a white complexion. Although Serena did not protest like Colin did or open a school with many opportunities for students like Lebron did she has still done some things in her life that would make people see her as a great inspiration or in some ways an icon as well.

There are many icons that exist in our world today. Some of the biggest athletes have a huge impact on our world today, they can influence others with their actions or influence others with their words. Colin Kapernick is a great example of an icon, he jeopardized his career to fight for Police brutality, and America oppressing people of colour. He sat during the national anthem to fight against it, which made him sacrifice his job. Lebron James is an icon just like Colin Kapernick, though he did not sacrifice anything. He built a school to help kids in his state who are struggling or in need of help. The school provided every necessity needed for school.They were provided with uniform, food, and school supplies. Lastly Serena williams is not an icon because she does not influence people with her actions but with her words. She has made a verbal impact to many women to stand up for themselves and become more dominant and serve equality. She did that by not letting people tell her what to do and what to wear, and to stand up to racism. These 3 people are some of the biggest athletes in our world today who made a big impact in today's society with their actions or words.

Citations

1.Green, Erica L. “LeBron James Opened a School That Was Considered an Experiment. It's Showing Promise.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 12 Apr. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/04/12/education/lebron-james-school-ohio.html.

2.Davis, Scott. “LeBron James' Commitment to Send Kids from His School to College Could One Day Reach over $100 Million.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 31 July 2018, www.businessinsider.com/lebron-james-college-scholarship-school-cost-100-million-2018-7.

3.“Serena Williams: An Icon.” The Modist, www.themodist.com/en/magazine/serena-williams-an-icon/.

4. Wyche, Steve. “Colin Kaepernick Explains Why He Sat during National Anthem.” NFL.com, National Football League, 28 Aug. 2016, www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000691077/article/colin-kaepernick-explains-why-he-sat-during-national-anthem.

5. Mather, Victor. “A Timeline of Colin Kaepernick vs. the N.F.L.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 15 Feb. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/02/15/sports/nfl-colin-kaepernick-protests-timeline.html.

6. bomani_jones. “Kaepernick Sacrificed His Career - What More Do People Want?” The Undefeated, The Undefeated, 20 Feb. 2019, theundefeated.com/features/kaepernick-sacrificed-his-career-what-more-do-people-want/.

7. Washington Examiner. “The Real Reason Colin Kaepernick Isn't Playing Football.” Washington Examiner, 11 Jan. 2020, www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/the-real-reason-colin-kaepernick-isnt-playing-football.