Obligatorisk opgave 3 Engelsk B e-learning Ren Rubion

1. Write a summary of A Wedding Portrait in Black and White (200 words). Glennis and Joseph are getting married. The story is a transcript of a BBC documentary. I am not sure whether it is a radio or TV program. We follow the couple and their friends and families through the day, from the preparations in the morning to the reception after the ceremony. Nothing special happens, really; the story is simply an uneventful, ordinary wedding between to ordinary people. The bride is an ordinary white woman and the groom is an ordinary black man. Much of the story is told by the participants. Everybody is revealing their preoccupancy about the mix of races by putting an almost manic effort in telling how little it matters to them. Yet they keep on talking about how others might think about it. It is clearly a very big issue which everyone is trying to convince themselves matters nothing at all. The couples parents express concern about various troubles they anticipate for the couple and their future children. Specifically, an expected identitycrisis for the children whom they fear will grow up never knowing what culture they belong to. As if the cultures of blacks and whites were more different than the various sub-cultures within each group.

2. What are the attitudes and values of the speakers to the discussion topic in Is It Okay to Date Someone of Another Race? The speakers, who are American high-school students of various cultures, races and ethnicities, are themselves expressing few qualms about dating someone of another race. Some have even tried it. But most of them are telling that it matters to their parents, who seem to have a stronger tendency to identify with their culture and in most cases themselves have spouses of the same culture and race. Some of the group state that their parents opinions on the issue do have some influence on their choice of dates. There seems to be little disambiguation between the concepts of culture and race: Italians and Mexicans can hardly be considered to be different phenotypes. And neither do they probably, in broad terms, come even close to be considered as a different genotype from Caucasians or Europeans or whites. But, even so, the Italian and Mexican students parents prefer them to date someone of their own culture. So, on the surface of it all, culture matters as much as race. But black still seems to be an issue with white and vice versa. -Especially when the subject advances to actual marriage. I also find it a little interesting that they never touch on the subject of religion. Is it just a coincidence that apparently there isnt any Protestants and Catholics or Muslims and Jews in the group, or do they just file the issue away under the broad term race/culture?

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Obligatorisk opgave 3 Engelsk B e-learning Ren Rubion

3. Find and explain examples of irony in So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs from Americans. I would normally perceive the concept of irony as saying the opposite of what is meant, in a mocking way (not in a mean way - that would be sarcasm). -Or in a way that is so bizarre that it obviously is funny. And I found nothing like that in the text, only what I would call rhetorical questions. Then I looked up the word irony and discovered that it also means to pretend ignorance. So, in the light of this new information, I would say that the first three paragraphs are irony. The message of it is pretty self-evident: The writer points out the fact that Mexican illegal aliens are in no way taking any jobs from Americans. I say the fact, of course, because I agree with this point of view. Obviously, a lot of people are dead-serious when they say Mexicans are taking jobs from Americans. I also guess the leader he (ironically?) refers to could mean any - or one in particular (Im not sure) - republican politician fishing for votes from poor, ignorant white trash. You need not be a Nobel-prize winner in economics to realize that the Mexican illegal aliens are adding value to the US. There is not an underpaid job, occupied by a Mexican that any poor white trash on social welfare would bother to have anyway. There are no white trash people on social welfare that would work as house-maids or seasonal farm-hands for peanuts anyway. These maids liberate recourses for rich and middle-class families who in turn work longer and more efficiently on their jobs. And so do their pizza-delivery and what-not Mexican men.

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