The Spirit of Giving

In this editorial cartoon, the artist is trying to convey the fact that Christmas gifts are not about receiving, but rather the spirit of giving in the givers heart. Now, we all know that the true meaning of Christmas is the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ, but Americans have turned Christmas into a secular day of exchanging gifts. The customer in the store hears the message on the tv, and realizes that she doesn't need to be buying all these material possessions, Christmas means more than just exchanging gifts. The employee at the store, who has been using a holy day of the church to exploit money from customers, is shocked when he hears this saying that Christmas does not come from a store.
I agree with this cartoon, Americans have gotten so far from the true meaning of Christmas that when we hear a message contrary to that Christmas is all about presents, we are surprised.
The fact that this is a visual cartoon, and not just black words on a white screen really help strength the point of this cartoon. The Grinch is given as a visual on the screen, and everyone knows the story of the Grinch. They can see the Grinch on the tv and immediately relate him to the "scrooge" Christmas. He thought that he would ruin Christmas by stealing all the presents, but then he realized that "Christmas doesn't come from a store, maybe perhaps Christmas needs a little bit more." Because you can see the Grinch saying this, it brings more meaning to the saying because of the visual of the Grinch. The VISA card also is a visual symbol of the American way of viewing Christmas. The customer just hands over the credit card to pay for all these meaningless things that she is buying for other people for Christmas. The credit card is a visual reminder of the way Americans think. You just hand over a piece of plastic and you get everything you ever wanted. These two visuals help us to incur the purpose of this cartoon. The real meaning of Christmas is the virgin birth of Christ. The tradition that we have of exchanging gifts is not about the material possessions that are exchange, but rather of the spirit of giving.

R.I.P. Sean Taylor

Jason Whitlock believes that the death of football player Sean Taylor was a result of the black KKK. He believes that black people target black people.

His main point is that the black KKK "wants to keep black men in their place — uneducated, outside the mainstream and six feet deep."

I have to disagree with Whilock in this case. I know we have different vantage points because I am white , while he is black. I believe that Sean Taylor was not targeted because of his race, but because of his social status. Several athletes have been murdered in the last year, and I do not believe that it is coincidence. I do agree that hip hop music does encourage this type of behavior, however black people are not targeted because of their skin color, but rather poor members of society, white or black, living a rough life in the innercity will target rich people like athletes.

Whitlock does use parallelism in this article, he says, "I blame hip hop for playing a role in the genocide of American black men. When your leading causes of death and dysfunction are murder, ignorance and incarceration, there's no reason to give a free pass to a culture that celebrates murder, ignorance and incarceration." Hip hop and rap music definitely celebrates murder, ignorance, and incarceration and he does a good job paralleling the rap music to the social order of the typical urban black man. He uses parallelism to give a reason of why he believes that the black KKK targets other black men. Without this parallelism, it would just be his thought of why murder rates are high among black men is abnormally high. But by blaming rap music, he shows the readers an example of a factor that increases murder. However, the murder rate is not a product of black people targeting black people, but rather a consequence of hard economic times and a bad situation, a factor that is independent of race.