"I found it ironic; children and the elderly were meant to be sent away from impending battles but in our case, it was the fittest and brightest who were leaving, those who in the past would have been expected to remain. I was filled with contempt for myself, such contempt that I could not bring myself to converse or to eat"

After the terrorist attacks that occurred on 9/11, Changez began to despise the way he had given in so easily to the American way of life, and had abandoned his roots in the name of assimilation. When he returned to Pakistan he noted the shabby and run down infrastructure with a level of disgust, but soon realizing he is looking at his country through a white gaze.

Freud views the melancholic as one who is lacking self-regard and a loss of ego. Compared to mourning, which he believes the mourner feels as if the world at large that feels empty versus the melancholic who views themselves as worthless and "incapable of any achievement and morally despicable".

Freud believes that the melancholic suffers some sort of illness that makes him more self-aware than those who do not feel melancholy. Melancholia is depicted as an indescribable loss that leads to a cycle of self-loathing and contempt for himself and the world he lives in. Life becomes unlivable.

The idea of anger for Amia Srinvisan is a form "of communication a way of publicly making moral disvalue, calling for the shared negative appreciation of others" (104). In her essay, she deconstructs the idea of when it is appropriate to feel anger. The fact of the matter is, anger and aggression often make people uncomfortable and can be seen as counterproductive to your cause, whether justified or not, specially for minorities or the oppressed.

The Aptness of Anger argues that anger is necessary and "calls for public recognition but is met with dismissal or retrenchment" (133). The essay argues that to see real and significant changes, one must manifest their anger and call out the injustices they deal with. We have to reject the idea of counterproductively when discussing anger if we hope to better the situation. Srinivasan believes that there is power in anger and it is necessary for our social reality.

For Pecola, the self-hatred hit the hardest. She was constantly reminded of her 'ugliness' as a dark-skinned, poor black child, and desperately longed for the beauty that she believed whiteness would give her. Pecola specifically longed for "those blue eyes that held the pictures and knew the sights- those eyes of hers were different, that is to say beautiful, herself would be different” (46). When Pecola thought of everything that was wrong with her life she attributed it to her blackness.

Twilight Los Angeles told the stories of various men and women in L.A who were affected by the 1994 riots after the beating of Rodney King. I believe that the riots, while they ended in violence and death, were riots of survival, the survival of black men and women, the survival of the generational trauma that lives in the black community, a chance to examine how much harder black and brown bodies had to fight for survival.

The film's intention was not to place blame or to give one side of the story but rather help the healing process of a broken city, full of broken people. It aimed to help heal the city of L.A and the people who continued to suffer at the hands of racism and civil unrest.

Despite the best attempts of those who hope to assimilate or conform to a way of life or to a group of persons who reject them, there is always going to be a fear of the other. The bodies and psyches of black, brown, Asian immigrants, are continually attacked. The ability to conform to the white majority becomes pointless when your sheer existence strikes fear and signals a red flag.

"Crucially here, we end up a fantasy in which the white child says to its mother: 'Mama the n**ger going to eat up' Such a cannibalistic fantasy of being incorporated into the body of the other, is crucial to the politics: fear works by establishing others as fearsome insofar as they threaten to take the self in" (64).

In Moving Politics Deborah Gould explores the creation and movement of ACT UP, how they were able to turn their grief into anger, in the name of their own survival. The queer community realized that their survival was on them to figure out, no one cared that gay men were dying at alarming rates, if they wanted their friends and family to stop dying, they would have to make people pay attention. Gould focuses on the movement's ability to channel their anger and turn it into something that allows for their survival.

"There was a great deal of collective mourning in the queer community at that time... so if my memory serves we were bending the stick in the other direction. We were saying "Mourning's fine. No problem. Make space for mourning. but then you know, get out, grab a rock and throw it the window of the FDA"

" We are inclined to favor the theory that shame is an innate auxiliary affect and a specific inhibitor of continuing interest and enjoyment. Like disgust it operates ordinarily only after or enjoyment has been activated, and inhibits one or the other or both. The innate activator of shame is complete reduction or joy. Hence any barrier to further exploration which reduces interest or the smile of enjoyment will activate the lowering of the head and eyes in the shame and reduce further exploration or self-exposure powered by excitement or joy" (135)

Tomkins appears to be making the argument that shame helps us understand and appreciate the positive affects in life. He presents shame as a necessity for our existence. Even though shame brings negative feelings in our life, it allows us to appreciate the good moments, and recognize the problems in our path that need to be rectified if we hope to move forward.

" As in the old days of racial segregation where black folks learned to 'wear the mask', many of us pretend to be comfortable in the face of whiteness only to turn our backs and give an expression of intense levels of discomfort." (169)

The historical legacy of slavery and the 'invisibility' that slaves had to assimilate to lives on today, without any real acknowledgment from either white or black folks. Hooks points out that the black communities' refusal to acknowledge whiteness or inability to disassociate themselves from whiteness leads to internalized feels of hatred, and idealization of whiteness. Even when black folks imitate and try to embody whiteness they still perceive whites as a threat or with suspicion. This acts as a perfect critique of assimilation. A vicious cycle of trying to emulate something you despise or don't trust, creating a push and pull of self hatred and resentment.

In the second chapter of The Woman Warrior Maxine Kingston tells the story of the epic warrior of Fa Mu Lan from a first-person perspective. Fa Mu Lan is a young girl who is taken to the mountains miles away from village and family, and trains to fight against the corrupt empire repressing the Chinese population. Through the fictional Fa Mu Lan, Kingston can challenge the presence of a woman in Chinese society, where they belong, what they're capable of doing, she rejects the Chinese gender expectations. Fa Mu Lan is the ultimate story of rebellion and the power of female revenge.

Later in the chapter, Kingston pivots back to her own life in America where she feels unable to stand up to her racist boss or parents' disinterest in her achievements. She uses Fu Mu Lan to contextualize her own struggles in real life and realizes that her own power comes from her words. She is able to challenge the racist stereotypes of her people to bring them closer together as a population.

In our modern political climate, the idea of hope can sometimes feel futile, and pointless. For the communities that faced continual threats and oppression without any sign of stopping, the fight can seem hopeless.

Ernest Bloch explores the complexity and the necessity of hope in "Can hope be disappointed?". Bloch explains that it doesn't matter if the hope is simply 'wishful thinking' and will end in disappointment, that disappointment is essential in hope, "without there can be nothing new" (341). We must push past adversity and setbacks. Munoz follows this up with the idea of hope being necessary for survival because "we must dream and enact new and better pleasures, other ways of being in the world, ultimately new worlds" (1). The ability to hope allows us to recreate our situation, and to work to new and better possibilities, not just for ourselves but for the generations after us.