Wednesday, December 8, 2010
In A Heartbeat-- Post 1
For my outside reading assignment, I have decided to read the book In A Heartbeat written by Sean and Leigh Ann Tuohy. Those names may sound a little bit familiar to you, and if they do, it is because you saw the movie The Blind Side. Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy are the adoptive parents of NFL player Michael Oher, and this book is their story of how they came about adopting Michael and the journey that they took. I decided to read this book because of my love for the movie. I instantly developed a love for The Blind Side after I saw it, so I decided that I wanted to read the book by the Tuohys to get an inside view at their perspective and why they decided to take in a homeless black man. When reading the prologue to this book, I was taken aback by the way in which the Tuohys described American's and put the act of charitable giving in perspective. The Tuohys began to think about making a difference and how many people do things because it will give them positive attention, will make them look good to others, or, as they say it, "Gives us more points on our Visa card." While hard to hear, this is unfortunately true for many of Americans. Although 89% of American households give to charity, many of the people who give to charity do so for the sole reason of getting attention from others, which brings the average to only 1.9% of total household income being donated to charity. When put into perspective, this is a very low percentage. The Tuohys decided to take a different approach to giving to charity. They decided to "do small things with great love. If [they] could do that, little opportunities to give might grow beyond [their] wildest dreams." This is the mentality that needs to be spread across the country to so many more people.
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The Blind Side was really a moving movie. I completely agree with your attitude towards Americans and charity too. While the Touhys may not contribute monatary value to charity, they do so much more with their time and love. In the movie, it seemed like they were going to take chairty one person at a time. Also, they did not do this for recognition. It is obvious in the movie that they did what they did to change a life. Also, I liked that you pointed out how much Americans give to charity. If you put this into perspective and take account of the thousands of deserving charities, there is no way that everyone of them can get enough money to support their cause. Emulating the mentality of the Touhys would be the greatest.
ReplyDeleteI think that you brought up a few really great points. When they helped Michael, it didn't seem as if their goal was to get recognition from other people, which ended up happening. While every charity cannot be helped to the magnitude that they may hope, it is important to maintain the mindset that you mentioned of one person at a time. People say that they could have done so much more and helped so many more people with the amount of time and money that they put into Michael's life (which is probably true), but if everyone just worried about helping one person at a time, the world would be a much better place.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how I feel about the Blind Side. It's great that this family took in a homeless black man and nurtured his career in football and gave him opportunities he would not have had before, but I'm equally disgusted by the idea of an upper-middle class family having such pity for a poor black person. I felt like it was a project for a bored housewife even though I know that it was a lot more than that. I don't know. It's a really rude sentiment, but I just don't feel comfortable with the idea that white people can actually be so kindhearted with no evil motives like self gratification.
ReplyDeleteProvocative post by Emily. I had a similar reaction. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteOops just saw this...
ReplyDeleteWhile I obviously don't know what their motives were in conjunction with this entire situation, I think that this may be the problem with the whole story. Had this actually been a project that they were trying to get publicity for, I agree that this is disgusting and is doing the right thing for all the wrong reasons. But, I would like to believe that this isn't the case and that they are actually kindhearted people who wanted to do good in the world, saw an opportunity to do so, and seized it. I guess we will never know what their intentions were, so my opinion is that we might as well assume the best and assume they were only trying to help out, because ultimately, they did a lot of good in his, and many other people's, lives.