ZeumMasters on Film

Check out this video, made by Nae, Brianna, Denzel, Andrew, Leigh Ann, Wing Yan, Victor and Sammi and with the assistance of awesome Educator Eli.

Josh on Media Movement

What I think about BAYCAT (Bayview Hunters Point Center for Arts and Technology) Presenting: Media Movement - the new exhibit up in the spiral gallery. (the photo is of me, Joshua.)

This morning, the ZeumMasters looked at the new show in the spiral gallery, which was mostly made up of videos. The video I watched the most was about transforming the negative. I picked this video because youth that start off young, influenced by the negativity don't help anyone at all. Living this way not only makes their life difficult, but the community they're living in also.

I know this because it took me till I was fifteen to realize that I wanted to make a difference. That was the turning point in my life because something bad would always happen to me when I was disobediant. I wasn't going to school, I was hanging with youth who were selling drugs, and I would be involved in turf issues just because I was with the wrong crowd. I didn't want that in my life anymore. Pretending to be someone you are not is very hard because everyone wants to be and feel apart of a group.

If I were to run a workshop with other teens on how to use media to make a difference, first, I would give it a name. It will be called, "Love looking for trouble". The video would be a discussion with different youth from different turfs (neighborhoods) but not about the negativity anymore, with another group of youth who are influenced by the negativity from different turfs and have a small conversation on why youth today, love looking for trouble!

I say and pick this name because in the past, my friends and I would be so confused about what's life about. We would get up in the morning and say lets go look for trouble. We would go in the streets looking in cars to see if there was bags in the front or back seat. That mean't that either lab tops were in the bag/s or something useful was in the bag/s because then people would put bags over things. That's why people don't leave important things in their car unless it was some books. You don't get that everyday...a person breaking in your car for a book which is quite funny to say.

However, my friends and I were so confused that we loved looking for trouble until one day we ran into trouble. That was the day where my friends and I knew what we were doing had to stop and change our lives around into something that could influence others to start being positive. For example, instead of stealing and hanging out, finding a job was a better choice. Instead of hanging out on the streets getting into more trouble, playing basketball was a better choice. And finally, instead of waking up bored and lazy, going to school getting educated became the number one thing in our lives.

Of course, other youth in our neighborhoods and people my friends and I knew called us names and thought we were "soft" (doing the right thing makes you soft), but we were told by an older adult, that you only get one life, so be the best that you could be and make things better in life not worser than it already is. This older person was a random senior citizen who knew what we were getting ourselves in just by looking at us. That was surprising!

Talking about Hip Hop

This morning we had an amazing workshop about gender and power in hip hop.

Hip hop is something I always loved to listen to because not only did I grow up on hip hop, it's a part of my culture. However, what I learned during this workshop was that a lot of mainstream hip hop is controlled by these rich white, old men that have the choice and power on whether to put certain hip hop in the media or not. Also, the media has a way of only showing the public, hip hop that they think should be what the public needs to here. And that the public they are thinking about making money off of is the youth.

There was some great discussion that went throughout the workshop and I was able to give a lot of input on what I thought about hip hop.

I noticed that because a lot of things I see and hear on the internet, such as on youtube and on other cool websites, I think are being held back and sometimes interesting for the public to hear on the radio but are not given that opportunity. To be specific, a lot of music that is always on the radio mostly has the same message...such as talking about the sexuality of both male and female, turf issues, violence, weapons, politics, drugs, and sometimes about where their from and how things set off in their hood/neighborhood.

During this workshop, the group and I were asked an agree or disagree question on whether it matters if you personally care more about listening to the beat rather than the lyrics or vice versa. I told everyone that the beat of the music determines whether or not I want to listen to the rap/song or not. This is because the tone and base of the beat gives me the opportunity "to lean wit' it, rock wit' it" to the lyrics.

Sorry to say, but if I, JJ, don't have the opportunity "to lean wit' it, rock wit' it" to the beat then, something is really wrong with this song because leaning and rocking to the beat gives me a feel to the lyrics and make me want to say, "This song GO"! When I say that, it means that I really like this rap/song/music and when a person such as I, don't know the lyrics to a rap/song, it only frustrates me when I cannot "lean wit' it, rock wit' it" to the beat.

In others people's opinions, they said that the lyrics attract them more rather than the beat because they would like to actually get a message out of the rap/song/music instead of just leaning with it and rocking with and to the beat.

The workshop made me feel open to saying everything that was on my mind about hip hop. It felt like there was no right or wrong answer and that anything I said, other people in the workshop could relate to and speak on more about what I had to say. -JJ

My Own Powerful Media

My name is WENDY I've been at zeum for about 2 weeks. I like zeum. It's actually really fun - I like seeing the kids have fun and I be having fun too. What I like about everybody who works here is they are really friendly and nice. When i first came I was kind of scared and shy but now that I know everybody and I've worked with almost everybody... its actually pretty fun.

Well this morning we had a workshop with World Savvy and Theo, a photo journalist and Katina from World Savvy came in to talk to us. They talked about Cindy Sheehan how she went to Texas and sat in President Bushes ranch because she was mad that her son died in the war. Theo had taken a lot of different pictures and the picture that was different - the one that ended up getting published - was the one where she was like screaming and she was holding a cross with her son's name up high. We talked about why newspapers choose the photos they choose. They choosed the picture they think is best to one that actually relates to the article they writing about.

All the attention was on Cindy. There was a sign that was against the war and another one that wanted the war to continue. Some one made a poster that said "god bless bush and the troops." There was a chair that had a sign that said "why is bush afraid to talk to cindy?" Then they also showed us another picture where a 9 year old little girl that had another sign that said "thank you Mr. president for staying in Iraq." But in the pictures it seemed like a lot of people were supporting Cindy. After he showed us an article that they used the picture that said "why is this man afraid to talk to Cindy?" and in the bottom it said "i'm so sorry" then it had another picture with a family and Bush they looked pretty sad. Theo told us about a lady that lost her son in the war to and she sent a letter to bush and it said that she still supports him after what happen with her son. Some of these picture were chosen to be in some news papers and some in others. Newspapers have a lot of power -they pick the pictures based on what story they want to tell.

Pictures can be interpreted in different ways. people interpret pictures the way they want. In pictures you can't actually hear or see everything the people do, so that's when they say stuff about the people just by looking at it, even if is not really true.

Then Theo talked about an immigrant family, he showed us a video with pictures. Some girl was talking about how Americans say that supposedly they're taking their jobs knowing that they could get better jobs than them and that they would never do job they do. She also said that almost all Americans think immigrants are criminals when that's not true.

After we finished talking about that we got to make our own article about topics we don't see in the news and that peoples don't actually talk about for example they only talk about teens when they fight or kill somebody but they never say the good things they only publish the negative stuff.

I wrote about how everybody thinks that all immigrants are criminals and that is NOT TRUE. I choose to write about that cause my parents came to San Francisco as immigrants and they are not criminals. They came here because they wanted a better future for my family. The only reason why my parents came here was for more money cause my grandmother was sick and they needed to pay her medical bills cause everything in El Salvador is expensive.

THIS IS SOME OF THE WORK OTHER ZEUMMASTERS WERE DOING THIS MORNING.