Stefania's blog :)

 I think that our class discussion on "The Head Patting Incident" was particularly captivating to me and left me thinking for a bit. It was interesting that the value of the headpat actually depended  on Martine's race - if he were black, it would be condescending at most, and if not, it would be racist, even if the intention behind it was only to show approval for Benji's work.  And one could say that no, his intention absolutely would change based on his race - a white person would have made the motion with a sense of entitlement, intrigue, or othering towards Benji's hair, while a black man would not have. And that may be true, yet the effect of the action was still completely separated from his race. The discussions the boys had, and the lingering discomfort that stuck with Benji after the incident, took place long before they found out that Martine actually was  black based on a photo.  The incident makes me wonder what long term effect the incident had on ...

Jason's representation of his stutter, Hangman, has four commandments through which he control's Jason's speech:  1st Commandment: Thou shalt hide from speech therapists.  2nd Commandment: Thou shalt strangle Taylor when he is nervous about stammering.  3rd Commandment: Thou shalt unleash Taylor when he is not nervous about stammering.  4th Commandment: Once Taylor is "stuttering" in the eyes of the world, he is yours.  All of these have to do with Jason's struggle between his internal self and the perception others have of him - if his classmates didn't have an affect on him, Hangman would have no power to either. I find it interesting how Jason indirectly learned to deal with these commandments throughout the story, and how he was affected by his stammer correlated to his growth in confidence and development as a person.  The first chapters of the book are filled to the brim with Jason's observations of others, as well as obsession over his own prese...