So About Transamerica…

Weird movie. It disturbed me from the beginning with the woman making noises to herself. Anyway the boy Toby without his mother or father like most troubled and confused teenagers today, he turned to drugs and the streets. The movie to me was more about judgement and the journey of finding yourself and who you are. In the movie, Toby and his father/mother find their true identities. Toby needed someone to rely on and go to and moral help and support. His father needed the same, but he didn’t know that. If his psychiatrist had not have told him to go call his son I do not think he would have ended up being happy or complete knowing he had a son who was not in his life. Believe it or not I think he actually needed him. All and all I think the movie was somewhat about judgement as well, about not judging a book by its cover and about acceptance. Although Toby’s father was dressed as a man and considered to have a mental disorder (being a woman in a man’s body supposedly), he turned out to be a pretty cool person and a person that could support his son as well as be supported. However, through his actions letting his son kiss him and not stop him, leaving his family, and pushing everyone away, as well as many other things, he needed a lot of help for himself.

Civil Rights Movement, Women, MLK Jr.

            Whenever people think of the Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King Jr. is the first name that comes to mind. But did you know that women influenced Martin? I learned that many women were in Martin Luther King Jr.’s life from early childhood until his death and even beyond his death influencing him and other men and women. One noted person that is barely ever mentioned in anything is Jennie Celeste Park Williams which was Martin’s maternal grandmother. She was known as “mama” to him, and when she died he became upset with himself because he was out at a parade that he wasn’t supposed to be at instead of at home that day. He cried for days over her, but years later he wrote about how her death influenced him to become very religious.

            Alberta Williams King, Martin’s mother, was once a teacher, but because of laws women had to stop working when they got married. So she gave up her job, but she still played important roles at the church where Micheal King, Martin’s father, and Martin Jr. preached such as choir director and pianist. Alberta also taught her kids to respect themselves as well as others and supported them in their activities they took part in. She was a strong woman and proved to stay strong even after Martin’s death.

            Martin’s attempt to reach out and speak to people started in the church where his mom taught him and brought him up and through his grandmother Jennie’s death that he developed a real love for religion. His lectures and speeches started at the church he had always grown up in where his family was brought up and his grandmother and grandfather once owned before their death, Ebenezer Church.

            Coretta Scott King later became Martin Luther King Jr.’s wife. She helped support him and push him to become a great leader in the Civil Rights Movement and the Poor People’s Movement. Coretta King marched with him. She even gave speeches for him when he could not make it or had prior engagements. In one of Martin’s speeches that he wrote, he tributed to his wife and her words of encouragement and help when he needed it. He also talked about how she stood beside him all the way. When Martin was killed, instead of Coretta King stepping out of the limeline and mellowing down, she stepped up and took his place in the fight just as she always had. She stepped up as a civil rights leader leading a march in Memphis, and later in Washington on his behalf. She accepted many awards he had been granted before his death and preached at places he had already made arrangements to preach at all over the world such as in India and Italy. She also became the first woman to preach at St. Paul’s Cathedral in front of the Pope. She founded the King Center in Atlanta, which I visited and helped Martin Luther King Day become possible through the law. She also remained active in organizations such as the National Council of Negro Women.  She shared Martin’s dream of all people equal under the law. She spoke out against all injustices for the rest of her life hoping for equality until the day of her death in 2005. Martin’s dream never died, it lived on through her. Through her he had immortality which Martin Luther King Jr. was a firm believer in because of his grandmother.

            While at the King Center in Atlanta, GA, I also learned that many important people including men can sustain from violence and still fight for their rights and win justice and equality (of course a fact that I already knew but I learned more about it there). However, Men are usually and traditionally seen as a violent group, but men can be nonviolent also. Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. proved that and showed that through nonviolent resistance all their lives. So men necessarily being associated with violence is a stereotype like many stereotypes and thoughts ingrained into our society by the media.