Joshua’s Blog

      Music is something that impacts us all one way or another. Listening to it while studying or on a car ride, or wherever, it has profound impact on humanity as a whole and to the individual. There have been various clinical studies to showcase how music can affect the brain in many positive ways and how certain types of music maybe beneficial in certain types of scenarios such as for focus and memory improvement.      The author showcases how music has impacted his life by describing walking through many deserted and ghost town-esque streets of the Bronx, saying how various blocks would be seemingly abandoned yet he would still hear the sound of hip-hop. Westmore talks about how hearing hip-hop was a certain awakening for representation for him. Hip-hop has its roots in African-American culture and has been popularized by the African-American community as such. More sees this as representation for the black community and as well as himself as an indivi...

    Wes Moore had a caring yet somewhat tough mother growing up. She is likely his first mentor as he had no father figure losing his father early in his life. She had ingrained in him lessons of the importance of doing well in school, as well as finding a good career for yourself and not getting into trouble. She also taught him about respecting women and people in general. When she sees that Wes was starting to get into some serious trouble at a rather early age she had realized that she may not be able to do enough to set him on a good path in life, and therefore made a decision to send him to military school. In going to military school and having those father like figures who are there to still teach and toughen him up, Wes, learns to respect his lieutenants and those in higher command further up the chain of command and is shaped into a much more respectable person where he then learns to focus on his career and his future while still caring for his community back home. ...