The event I attended was a seminar on Brandon Scott, President of the Baltimore City Council, and his achievements and accomplishments contributed to the Baltimore community. He discussed his upbringing and how he came to be in the position that he was in and what he has done and wants to continue to do for the community. He also brought a friend of his that was wrongly convicted and was done wrong by the criminal justice system to discuss his experiences with us as well. These gentlemen both highlighted how easy it is to get swept away by wrongdoings based on the circumstances you are and how to best avoid them entirely. They discussed how simply being outside in the wrong place at the wrong time was enough to have your entire life thrown away.
When we are placed into a situation that we deem as terrifying or traumatic, we normally become anxious and agitated instead of calm, cool, and collected; a reaction that puts us as a community many steps further back than where we should be today. in Jill McDonough “Accident, Mass. Ave.”, we see two humans who have never had any kind of interaction whatsoever completely unhinge on one another over a minor fender bender where there were no serious injuries or damage from. Both the characters in this poem were thrown into this unforeseen situation and acted like humans beings normally do. They acted purely out of fear and anger and caused them to act in ways that would be considered stark comparisons to their true selves. The guest Mr. Scott discussed with us during the seminar that this same feeling in these moments is what causes people to do bad things that they do. The same feeling of fear and anger cause people to act in ways and commit acts they would not normally do and it has great and lasting effects on all of the communities. The same anger that caused these ladies to yell at each other is the same anger that fuels the crime that was done in these less fortunate areas of Baltimore. The anger is what needs to be controlled inside of us and that must be replaced with compassion in order to truly treat each other with dignity and respect and that is the first true step that needs to be taken to make real and lasting change within the community.
Someone's face can be truly deceiving if they are good at hiding their emotions and intentions. A face can smile and nod till the day gets dark but it will never show what the person behind it is truly thinking. We see this here when our friends Fortunato is deceived by his "friend" Montresor into his death. Fortunato thought that he was being brought to taste expensive wine with a fellow connoisseur, but his friends had other intentions for how the night was to go. Montresor laughed and smiled with Fortunato up until that last moment he spent with him, up until the end Fortunato was left without knowing the true nature of his friend's intentions. The guest brought by Mr. Scott discussed how he was wrongfully framed for being the mastermind of burglary by someone older than him and that he trusted. That person put all the blame on the speaker when he had nothing to do with any of the crimes. That person deceived our speaker and the criminal system into believing he was good and fine and had done nothing wrong while putting someone younger than him at complete risk. That person looked at our speaker and never let him know his true intention until he was already paying the price.
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