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Emotion

Tino Lopez

Emotions play a massive role when talking about internalization. People tend to overlook the emotional connection and don't really understand what it is like to be in that person’s spot. Many times when learning about internalization people overlook the true meaning about what is being told to them. For example, many people that internalize their problems such as slavery. People tend to be afraid to speak up for themselves and just want to be able to survive the day. This statement will just be read over and not be fully understood. This is because many people do not know what it is like to live a life like that. Imagine if it were you, you were being dehumanized and there wasn't anyone that truly cared about you. My experience of seeing the slave ship with people living in boxes was terrifying. I could not get past the fact that people were willing to dehumanize others because of their di erences. This is important for the comparison of slavery and hazing because it provokes similar emotions for me. It provokes the feeling of fear.

Imagine if you were put onto a ship for weeks, maybe months, and had to stay in a box and not move. Imagine watching people next to you die. Imagine watching your family die. Imagine always having the thought that you would be next to die.

Now, I am hoping to open your eyes a little so that you understand how terrible your life could be. Morrison refers to rendering slavery as a “personal experience.” This is because not many people understand what slavery was like unless you were enslaved. A personal experience is when I went to a new team and older people on the team seemed to be trapped in a box. I tried talking to our team captain but seemed to be bothered by the fact that I was trying to get to know him. Early in the year, the underclassmen beat the upperclassmen in a scrimmage which seems to be the prime reason why he is in this box. It seems to me that my captain was more intimidated by the fact that I come from a professional environment that he had not experienced before. He had created this alpha male personality that dominates everyone around him. Especially younger people. Since I was able to beat him in a game it threatens his entire sense of his masculinity. This made me feel intimidated because he said he wanted to hurt some of the younger kids because we “need to be put in our place.” His words hurt a little because I

was not used to having someone trying to destroy my confidence because I threatened his masculinity. I was thinking about how someone, a teammate, could think like that. The younger people only want to make the team the best as possible. It seems like he does not want that. This does not make sense to me because he is a captain and should be helping the younger ones out. How could someone with a leadership role be so hurt and scared? Is it because the younger kids are pushing him to his limits? We will never know because he has the look of someone that would be the boss. He has the presence that is seen no matter where we are. Yet somehow he still does not want the best for anyone. People seem to underappreciate what they have in their lives. When comparing your life with someone that is dehumanized and struggles with internalizing their problems, all of a sudden, your life seems to be a whole lot better. The person who was internalizing their problem in this situation would be me because I am too afraid to confront the captain. He had put me in this box that I was stuck in for a while because of his masculinity. However, through classes I have taken, I was able to become more self aware and in touch with my own emotions. This allowed me to remove myself from the box that traps the older team captain. I was able to learn how to form healthy and intimate friendships with people unlike him.

Hazing is also a big problem in today’s society. A prime example is having the feeling that someone is always watching you even though they really are not. For me, I feel as if someone is always watching me because I am on an athletics team. I always have the feeling that if I do something wrong, there will be someone that is there to tell someone about everything that I have done. Having this feeling has the potential to put someone into a mental box. This is because it puts fear into an individual's head which takes away from them the ability to make their own decisions. That happens because no one wants to get punished for making a decision. People just want to be able to make their own free decisions and live the life that they want. This is how it made me feel at least. How does it make you feel?

Although today many people are starting to see the problem with dehumanizing others

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and the impact internalization can have on some, we still tend to do the same thing over and over. We have experimented in the past and have seen the results of dehumanizing others such as slavery. They have been terrible, but today we still see the same things happening. It creates a problem in the world that someone cannot just apologize for. It just does not make sense as to why these problems still occur in today’s world. I believe it is because people are arrogant in the sense that since they do not experience that type of life, then they believe it does not exist. The logic that justifies both hazing and slavery discourages people from taking other people’s experiences and perceptions seriously. The sense of having power because of skin color is why people internalize their problems. For example, when walking down a street, white people tend to feel more safe because they are white.b Compared to colored people, they tend to have a better sense of their surroundings because they have a sense that someone is always watching them. Just because people have di erences proves how arrogant some people are. However, if the emotional connection is made, it seems as if people start to respect others more. Understanding how lucky someone is to have a free and happy life is everything. This is because it could have easily been someone else such as yourself. I assure you that if you put yourself in the situation some people are in, you would fold and not want to have that life.

Toni Morrison does a fantastic job in relating to the emotional state when she writes. She is able to have the reader put themselves in the situation and provoke actual feelings. The reader will not be able to just read the text, instead they understand it. That is because if the reader does not put themselves in the characters’ situations, then they will not fully understand what Morrison is talking about. In the novel The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, many of the characters su er from internalization. Internalizing meaning holding problems within oneself and being afraid to talk about their problems to others. The only way to truly understand how the characters feel, is to put yourself into their shoes. This is how Morrison connects to the emotional state of her readers. Morrison does this by walking through the characters life by demonstrating what they think and not by what they do. Her characters are defined through their thoughts and their struggles that they deal with in the head. Listening and understanding the characters' problems, allows for the reader to truly experience something that they have never understood. Most of Morrison’s characters end up dying because they cannot deal with being dehumanized. This is very important in Morrison’s work because it shows the significance of how misunderstood the problem is. This then provokes the reader to switch places with the character which places fear into the reader's mind.

Fear goes into the reader's mind because they now understand that if that were them, they would be just as afraid and want change. How can someone write in their own way without having to worry about what the readers emotions will be? For example, fear, not everyone has the same definition of fear. A writer must be capable of writing to their readers feeling of fear even though they have completely di erent definitions of fear. Once in an interview, Morrison stated that she has to hurt the reader if she wants them to understand her pain. Morrison does a great job with this. She provides real life examples that would bring fear into anyone’s eyes. This person would be stuck in a mental box because they do not know how to get out of it. They have this feeling of being trapped. This then could make someone feel as if they are being harassed or dehumanized because of how they feel. Being stuck in this box builds someone's biopower. That is because this individual only wants to do what is accepted by society because if they do not, then they look “misplaced.” Taking away from someone’s free will is horrific because now they will not make their own decision, or they make the decision that is not the right one for their body or mind. Do you agree?