In the first scene of my documentary I want to have
different pictures of my community transitioning with each other in the
background with some beginning credits along with the music bringing it all
together. The background music I chose to use is the instrumental version of
Kanye West’s song, Runaway. The song starts off very slow and is a piano
hitting one note every two seconds. I chose this song because it allows the
viewer to get engaged by the piano notes while watching what my community looks
like but after the plain piano a beat is added creating a more upbeat feeling.
When this upbeat feeling begins to happen in the song, it is a perfect time to
state the problem in my community. With voice over I will say, “Joliet, Illinois
has a deep past, and that has slapped a negative label on the town. I’m here to
figure out why these negative labels have stuck with the city and have never
been given the thought of being lifted.” While I say that statement, the pictures
of my community will be finishing up. The first scene with the transitioning
pictures allows the viewers to catch a glimpse of what the city looks like and
also the feel of being there before. After those pictures finish up, three
pictures will pop up on the screen. Those three pictures will represent the
three main reasons why the problem of labeling exist upon Joliet. While the
three pictures appear on the screen one by one, I will construct a voice over
telling the viewers what these reasons are. I will say “Joliet receives these
negative label because of its location, money, high minority rates among the
high school and city as a whole, and the fact that the past never it left
behind.” This scene will help emphasize what is yet to come in the documentary
and give the viewers an insight of why the negative labels are given to Joliet.
At this point, the background music of the song “Runaway” will stop and a
transition will occur. For this transition, the screen will go black and the
documentary will be silent for a good three seconds before another background
song starts to play. This kind of transition will create a type of suspense for
the viewer that makes them wonder what will come next. The song that will start
is “No Church in the World” by Jay-Z and Kanye West. The reason I chose this
song is because it creates more suspense to the viewers and especially with the
next scenes explaining why location and money, high minorities, and the past
affect the views on Joliet, this song creates interest to viewers to know why
those three reasons have
high
minority rates I will connect the two reasons using the high school. To do so,
I will say, “Even though Joliet is not as wealthy as the other schools, they
have a higher minority rate.” While saying that I will bring in another
picture. The picture will help represent not all of the population in Joliet
but a sample of how diverse the city is and also shows that the high school in
Joliet is very diverse. Because diversity is so high, the school is seen as a
bad school. I will have a scene where a statistic is presented about the
diversity in the high school. The scene will be a black screen with the
statistic “Diversity in the High School in Joliet: White- 21.7%; Black- 23.1%;
Hispanic- 51.4%; Other- 3.8%” (JTHS 1). This statistic will show the viewers
that the school really does have a high minority rate. After that statistic is
shown I will say, “Because of the diversity in the high school, it is seen as a
bad school. It is seen as a bad school because the wealthier towns give this
assumption that being diverse makes you bad at school, that being white will
make you look better as a school. The school is made up of mostly Hispanics and
African Americans, and with the language barriers in some cases or different
ways of living, it’s hard to teach. Unlike the wealthy schools, that are
predominantly white, Joliet has a hard time sending students to a secondary
institution because not everyone has the same learning style as the other
schools may have and since the school cannot send as many to college, they get
seen as a horrible school to attend..” To go further into the secondary
education I will bring in a secondary source I found. In the article, “Stories
of Success: High Minority, High Poverty Public School Graduate Narratives on
Accessing Higher Education” by Richard Reddick is about the worrisome among
schools that have high minority rates and high poverty rates. Joliet fits into
this article because of the high minority rate in the school and continuing to
come into the high school and the problems with money the school can’t get out
of. The article further explains how it is harder for these kids to continue
into a secondary education (Reddick). Reddick says it is harder for these
students to get a higher education because of the school environments affect motivation
and the attitudes of students. Due to this, and just the location Joliet is at
being between two successful schools that make sending kids to college look
easy, gives Joliet a bad look to everybody. Throughout the article, Reddick
talks about how hard it is for these schools with higher minorities than others
that do not have to deal with high minorities. But in the article, it also
gives studies that were revealed in a school that helps the minority school’s
become more successful at helping students further their education. I will use
this article in the documentary by explaining how one of Richard Reddick’s
tests can help the High School in Joliet more successful in sending students to
get a secondary education. After I finish explaining one of Reddick’s test, I
will transition from the high minority rates to the past simply being not able
to be forgotten. I will use a transition such as, “Joliet has always been a
city with a high minority rate but they have also been a city with a bad
reputation.” After that transition the next scene will be a picture of a cop
car.
The picture represents the violence that happens in the city of Joliet. Unlike
the neighboring cities, Joliet has a lot of violence and crime. In the past, a
lot of gangs had started to have activity in Joliet, and it happened to stick
there. People talked about Joliet and how violent it was. In the school,
security is a high priority with metal detectors and stricter rules than both
of the wealthier schools. With that information, I will say, “Because of Joliet
being the home to a lot of gangs in the past, and the heightened security and
law enforcement has put the city in a view of others as a dangerous and unsafe
place.” I will back this claim up that the past never gets let go and always
sticks by your side by using another secondary source. In a newspaper in
Australia there was article called, "Some Crimes Should Not Be
Forever." The article talks about a woman's crime and if it should be held
on her for the rest of her life. She was convicted of drunk driving one time
and it began to affect her life completely. She was labeled a "criminal";
where she is from, the city and the people take speeding as a crime. The
newspaper just talks about how the lady's case went about when she took action
to court and what happened to her after she had to pay the ticket and take
punishment. She was rejected a telephone operator job with the Emergency
Services Telecommunications Authority because the offense was put on her record
and her record caused her to get negative stereotypes so no other job wanted
her services (Hugh). This helps back up the reason that the past never leaves
you because the lady only committed the offence one time and she was punished
because her past followed her. The same goes for Joliet because at one point in
time, it was a violent place to live in and even if the violence calmed down,
people still remember and act like it is bad. The stereotype has just followed
Joliet and caused them to look like a horrible place. After I am finished
explaining my reasons and why Joliet gets these negative labels, I am going to
transition to how these problems can be resolved. I will use another song and a
black screen to transition to a conclusion. The instrumental version of the
song “One Man Can Change the World” by Big Sean creates a certain optimism that
things will get better. It this situation, it is pretty clear that the problem
with Joliet may not have a solution to get better because we cannot change how
people look at the city. In an article, “The Effects of Labels and Behavior on
Teacher Expectations", it talks about the effects of labels given to
people and how their behaviors may be. In this case in the article, it is about
special education students. The article says that when special education
students are given negative labels, that student's expectations may decrease
because how the label is put on them. In the film after bringing in this
article, I will say “It is the same for Joliet, if students and people hear
these labels put on them and the city, they feel like they cannot do anything
about it so why try if they will never be lifted.” For instance, Joliet gets
these negative labels like being poor or minorities cannot go to college as
much as white people, which can affect the people that live in the city and
ultimately affect how they react or move on from the labels, they can either
accept them and fail or accept them and use them for motivation (Algozzine 131).
For the problem going on in the city of Joliet, there’s no clear resolution
because people think what they want to think based on what their living
situations are and what they see but also it relies on how the city reacts to
these labels and if they want them to be lifted off of them, they may need to
change some things. I will have a final voice over bring all the reasons
together and how the problem can be resolved and it cannot be resolved, there
is no simple way to say that the problem will be solved. Even the problem
cannot be solved, if Joliet comes together as a city and takes on these labels
as motivation, they grow past the labels. Maybe it would not be a fast
transition but if they work past them it can happen relatively quickly. The
song will create this feeling that anything can happen which will have viewers
believe that both sides can be at fault. At the end the song will fade slowly
and the documentary will go into the ending credits. Works Cited
Algozzine, Bob, Cecil D.
Merger, and Terry Countermine. "The Effects Of Labels And Behavior On Teacher Expectations."
Exceptional Children 44.2 (1977): 131-132. Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 Oct. 2015. http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.uky.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=5&sid=e27565dd- 495a-4b58-8e91-8a3e555b193a%40sessionmgr4005&hid=4205&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=20878378&db=a9h
Bautista, Michael.
“Various pictures” Joliet, Illinois. 2015
Big Sean. One Man Can
Change the World. Big Sean. Amaire Johnson, 2014. YouTube. Web.15 Nov. 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6PwNS7OmvY.
HUGH de, KRETSER.
"Some Crimes Should Not Be Forever." Herald Sun (Melbourne) Newspaper Source. Web. 20 Oct. 2015. http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.uky.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=33&sid=19253947- 16c5-42bd-9f2a-dacb8a31b883%40sessionmgr110&hid=120&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=200608241021634121&db=nfh
Jay-Z, and Kanye West. No
Church in the Wild. Jay-Z. Kanye West, 2011. YouTube. Web. 15 Nov. 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PVQU0UaZGc.
Reddick, Richard J., et
al. "Stories Of Success: High
Minority, High Poverty Public School Graduate
Narratives On Accessing Higher Education." Journal of Advanced
Academics 22.4 (2011):
594-618. Academic Search Complete. Web. 12 Oct. 2015. http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.uky.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=3&sid=8552e1fb-8644-4717-935f-2f04e0ae16eb%40sessionmgr4001&hid=4103&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=76247535&db=a9h
West, Kanye. Runaway.
Kanye West. Kanye West, 2010. YouTube. Web. 15 Nov. 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDh_IpDtARQ.
