Christiane Campbell

          The online community Wu is trying to portray is sufferers of Factitious Disorder, which causes people to pretend that something is wrong with them because they enjoy the attention and sympathy they receive from it. The sources she relies on for finding out more about the disorder are online forums for people who know someone with FD and those who actually have it and are on the road to healing. She creates a verbal portrait of the community on the pages by describing the forums on which she visited for people with the disorder, or as she called, “FDers”. The first forum she visited was mostly comprised of commentary of people that fell susceptible to the acts of a loved one who was a FDer or suspected that that loved one had FD. The second forum she visited, she found from the first forum via a link in one of its posts. This time the posts in the forums were comprised of actual FDers. She notes that the FD posters have the same layout in their responses. This layout consists of the backstory of the FDer’s illness, how it affected them and their loved ones, expression that they’ve reached their limit with FD, and a request of advice on how to curb the behaviors from the disorder. The role that footnotes play in Wu’s text is providing helpful background information. For example, in the first forum she was in, the doctor in charge of it kept referring patients to his book in his replies to them. Wu then put in a footnote that someone politely called him out on it and that he denied using the forum as a way to advertise his book. In her piece, Wu describes the community by creating a verbal portrait of them, relies on specific sources, and ensures that the reader has a better understanding of her content by including footnotes with information relevant to what she is stating.

Today I went to Brookville Park in Rosedale, Queens, NY. I chose multiple places for observation as I was there today: the open field, playground, and bridge with the lakewater beneath it. As I was in the open field, I watched a bunch of teenagers play catch with a football. They practiced running routes (which is the specific direction on the field that you’re supposed to run during a play). They continued running routes for about fifteen minutes, then switched to practicing defense techniques. None of them were wearing coats, which makes sense because NYC’s weather has been getting warmer. I wondered if they were skipping school since their age group is in high school and today (March 11th, 2020) is a school day. As I was on the playground, I saw children running around, playing tag and enjoying the swings. One little boy, about 3 or 4 was chasing a girl about the same age. The little girl fell and started crying, so the boy helped her up. The children on the swings were swinging at dangerously high heights and had to be warned against that so that they did not hurt themselves. They too, were wearing no coats, but rather sweatshirts instead. After watching them play, I casually made my way over to the bridge over the lakewater. It was a much less populated area; no one was there except the occasional person walking or jogging by. Even the joggers had no coats on. The lake was very still; virtually no movement was present within it. Common themes I realized within my observation is that people’s attire is reflecting the change in season and that people tend to be very happy when participating in physical activity. 

Christiane Campbell                                                                                                       3/4/2020

CCNY | ENGL 21002

Discussion Post #2

In “The Hustlers at Scores” by Jessica Pressler, the nightlife of Manhattan’s white-collar men and strippers are exposed. Some main names to keep track of are Roselyn Keo, Samantha Barbash, Marsi Rosen, and Karina Pascucci. They, along with other women, stole from rich Wall Street men by luring them into strip clubs, drugging them, and then running up their credit card. In this article, Pressley conveys the shared beliefs of the women, carefully selecting background information to help the readers in understanding the story and bringing her informants to life with her vivid descriptions.

The driving belief of the women in this operation was that the white-collared men that came to the strip clubs were indecent scumbags, and they were filthy rich anyway, so they deserved to have their credit cards wiped clean. This is conveyed when Pressley includes quotes from Keo and Barbash (respectively) where they say, “The men were mostly assholes” and “They had history. They’d been to Hustler, they’d been to Rick’s, they’d been to Scores. They all walked in ready to party.” Another quote by Keo further portrays this shared belief when she says $10,000 was “nothing to [the rich men]”. In other words, these wealthy, white-collar men deserved to have their money stolen because they were morally degraded and being robbed of a couple of tens of thousands would not financially destroy them anyway. 

Also, Pressley included background information to help the reader’s comprehension of the story. This is obvious through the background information she includes on the women in the scam and the men involved in them. From Rosie, a high school dropout who realized the financial advantages in the strip club industry from a young age; Samatha Barbash, another stripper who later became the leader of a strip club pyramid scheme; Mari Rosen and Karina Pascucci, who were both strip recruits of Barbash. Background information on the men were also included, such as that of an employee at Guggenheim Partners that spent $100k every time he was at the strip club; Brian, a white-collar professional who let his fiancee’s visa expire in hopes of being with Roselyn; Dr.Zyad Younan, a cardiologist who racked up a $135k bill from the women. This background information helps the reader understand the story because it magnifies the relationship between the women’s backgrounds and the high profile clients they were dealing with, emphasizing the “these men are rich scumbags, so it doesn’t matter if we steal from them” mentality. Lastly, Pressley brings the informants to life with her vivid descriptions. For example, she described Barbash as “Jessica Rabbit curvy, her lips Angelina Jolie puffy; her hair, which concealed tattoos of a cascade of stars running down her neck, was Cleopatra black”. 

As one can see, Pressley is successful in ensuring that the audience understands the story and keeps them engaged with evocative descriptions.

Christiane Campbell                  2/15/2020                                                                                   

In “A Report from Occupied Territory” by James Baldwin, the horrors endured by Harlem’s black community from white people and especially white police officers are revealed. He includes first hand accounts of witnesses of police brutality, including Frank Stafford’s who defended the Harlem Six. In Baldwin’s article, shared beliefs within the black community are portrayed and gives idea for suitable questions for a fieldworker to ask to uncover more of the culture being described in the article.  

To commence with, three of the shared beliefs in the black community portrayed in the article are the education that black children receive is inferior to the education of white children; the police are the enemy; the police are afraid of black people. The first belief is highlighted when Baldwin states, “the Negro’s education…a segregated education…is but another way of saying that he is taught the habits of inferiority every day that he lives.” This belief is still currently accepted by the black community and proves to ring true through all the articles of today– that are just a quick Google search away– that expose the disparity in quality education in regards to white versus black kids. The second belief is conveyed when he states “And the police are simply hired enemies of this [the black] population.” This belief is still widely accepted by the black community and this is seen with black people’s responding comments such as “the police violate the very rights that they’re supposed to protect” whenever the topic of police brutality is brought up. The third belief is emphasized when he says, “since they [the police] know that they are hated, they are always afraid”. This belief is also widely accepted by the black community and can be observed in social media comment sections discussing police brutality against black people. In some ways, this article is almost a mirror to the black community today.

Subsequently, this article raises questions that field workers can ask to further uncover the culture this article describes. Some of these questions can be, “Knowing that their education was inferior to those of their white counterparts, how did the behavioral dynamic of black kids differ from white kids?”; “In what situations was black hopelessness most evident?”; “In what way(s) did you see black fear of white police officers juxtapose the fear white officers had towards black people?”. These are great questions since they give the person being questioned an opportunity to expand on their answers since the question is open-ended and can give a close look into a popular black mentality. Other sources a fieldworker may use to penetrate the insider perspective are articles, books, and films written by those on the inside– like James Baldwin’s.

Christiane Campbell                                                                                                       2/12/2020

CCNY ENGL 21002 | Prof. Shamecca Harris

Informant Description 

         The pseudonym I will be using for the person I am interviewing is “Marcia”. They are a cisgender, heterosexual female. She is nearly 18 and is White with an Albanian background. The chosen topic is Islam. This topic was chosen because I am interested in Islam and she is Muslim. I was especially interested in the general principles of Islam, such as there being an engagement period to get to know a person further instead of just dating; modesty is another important concept included in the Islamic faith that I was interested in. To my surprise, Marcia does not follow the majority of Islamic principles; this is majorly due to the general attitude in Albania towards Islam. According to Marcia, most Albanians are Muslim, but are very loose in the way they practice the religion. This is a stark contrast to other countries of the world such as Iran, where Islam is practiced in a much more conservative way. For example, mentioned earlier in this informant description is how there is an engagement period practiced by Muslims where they get to know a person beyond the friendship level. The reason for this is that boyfriend-girlfirend relationships are not permitted in Islam. However, Marica says that despite being Muslim, she and other Albanian Muslims that she knows do not follow this. For them, it’s more about being romantically involved with the right person the first time instead of being romantically involved with multiple people (like the typical person) over the period of your life. As a result of this, Marcia agrees that there is a pressure to get your love life right the first time. Another concept I mentioned that is important to Islam is modesty. In this religion, it is widely accepted that you are not supposed to show a lot of skin and in many cases you are to wear a headscarf (a hijab, in this case). Marcia and the majority of Albanian Muslims wear clothes that expose a substantial amount of skin, such as shorts and also do not wear the hijab. Overall, I was extremely surprised to learn that there are liberal Muslims and that Albanian culture is the reason that Islam is practiced with little to no conservatism there. However, I feel I should not have been surprised because there are liberal participants of every faith and culture is an influence in every country to how a religion is practiced there.