eGAD

Cast of Characters, in Order of Appearance:
Will Holets, a ICer with Zero Technique and lots of Upper Body Strength
Mike Zupancic (Zupes), Grand Architect of this Competition
Michael Magenheimer (Magoogs), a Crazy Beast of a Climber
Guy Ross, an Extraordinarily Tall Person
Beth O'Malley, a Person with Talent at Making Faces, and Zupes' Girlfriend
Alex Wilson, a Laughable Laugher
Katie, a Blonde with Nifty Tattoos whose Last Name I Do Not Know
Melissa Halford, an Odyssey Guide and Fellow Synesthete
Jon Armstrong, Setter of Difficult Problems and Crap-talker
Amy Fegely, an ICer who is Also Very Tall.
Devin Rutkowski, a Hiker who would Rather Play with Tonapaw than Climb

I get there at like 12:05 and Will has already sent about half the easy problems on the wall as a warmup. He probably got there at like 11:30 and bothered Zupes till he let him in. Go figure.

Magoogs came back from NYC for this comp(He says he's been here since Thursday. xD)
He won his category, of course.
Zupes: "First place in Advanced... Gertrude Beatrice?"
Everyone: "..."
Zupes: "...Get your ass up here, Magenheimer."

Zupes used zipties to get the net out of the way so that people would have access to the Ramin Room. Guy used zipties to attach Zupes' beltloop to his chair. Zupes still beat Guy to the scissors, and managed to unattach himself before Guy could attach another loop to the chair. Then, Guy tried to attach Beth to her chair and Zupes had this horrfied look on his face and he was like "BETH! LOOK OUT!" and Beth managed to avoid being zip-tied. Then Zupes got some zipties and said "Oh hey Guy, guess what else these are good for?" But Guy wouldn't let Zupes cuff him.

Alex announced his presence when Katie made him laugh. Alex has the funniest laugh ever. I have to do an impression for you sometime. (Magoogs' is better, but whatever...) Since I've met Alex, I've discovered that humor can be quantified... in the number of times it makes Alex laugh. (I beat Alex by five points, whoop de do, etc.)

Melissa and I argued about what numbers have what color. 650 is similar colors to 680, because the green 6 and the red in each of the 5 and 8 clash, so I mistook her 650 score for a 680 score, which means she didn't kick my ass as much as I thought she did. Apparently, her timeline is a counterclockwise circle, but I'm standing on mine, and it's a curving pathway... eh.

Jon was being fairly nice today, w00t.
I fell off this overhanging problem from right by the bouldering line and turned as I fell so I could stick the landing instead of falling on my butt. Apparently I had a lot of momentum, because I fell over and ended up lying on the matt.
Me: "Well that sucks... I'm just gonna fall asleep here now, staring at this problem."
Jon: "I want to try this problem!"
Me: *gets up* "Go ahead, show everyone up."
Jon: "Well, you coulda stayed there... makes a softer landing for me."
Me: "Get outta here before I kick your ass."
Jon: "No! I gotta get this problem first!"
Me: *grr*
He also fell off it, and landed much worse than I did.
But apparently he was spotting me a few times. Aww, that's so nice of you, Jon. =P

Apparently on the same problem I'd been trying when Jon called me fat, the first time I fell off it, I did the same thing, turned around to fall better (stuck it!) and Katie said it looked like I hit myself on every single hold on the way down. =P I hit nothing.

There was this hard, technical problem, Jon kept falling (sliding, it was positive) off it and saying "I FUCKING HATE SLAB." Guy reached through the crux, and Will muscled through it, and sent. I got through the crux properly, on technique and couldn't reach the next hold. Zupes laughed through this entire thing. Thank you, Zupes. xD

There was a little kid with a hand-knitted sweater with a stegosaurus on it. She was like two. Her 4? 5? year old brother took 2nd in the kids' competition. That kid was beast. All the little kids were, actually.

Jon and Will are going to the New over Thanksgiving. I wanna go, but of course I'm going to Philly. Will: 'Nah, family's important.' Jon: 'Who'd want to go to Philly over Thanksgiving? Not that we'd want you with us anyways...' Me: 'Jerk.' Will, later: 'Wait, you and Jon were at each others' throats?!' Oh, Will... we love you too =P

Shortly thereafter:
Jon, at someone attempting and failing to use actual footholds: "Come on, stick it in there!"
Me: "THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!"
Jon: "DAMMIT! ...Nice one."

Jon brought doughnuts. Forever forgiven. =)P

Devin: "I just want (unintelligablesqueal) Tonapaw!"
Tonapaw: *wags tail, beggy-eyes*
Melissa: "...So, Ariel, do you want to climb?"
Me: "He is the sweeeetest dog ever..."
Melissa: "..."
Devin: *pets the dog, squees, etc.*
Me: *giggles, 'cause Devin is this, like, 6' tall 20 year old who would rather play with the dog*
(I know there's more Devin stories. I can't remember any of them right now. =/)

For the kid problems, Zupes made themes--disney princesses, pokemon, superheroes--and had the rules being 'however many of these pictures you can touch, you get two points for that.' The pokemon one was the most popular, and some of the pokemon started falling off the wall... leading to "ALEX uses HEELHOOK! It's SUPER EFFECTIVE! BULBASAUR has FAINTED!" jokes.

People were having trouble watching their language around the little kids, so I told the story of what happened when someone wasn't being careful around 8-year-old me. Think of all the poor children that are getting the Talk right now.

There were about 80, 85 boulder problems there. Zupes estimated that he spent about 50 hours on this competition. O.O

Guy was, of course, 'flirting' with Magoogs and Zupes and everyone, despite having a (freshman...) girlfriend. Too many stories here. I think my brain's blocking some of them out.

I am the proud owner of one (1) Mad Rock poster, and one (1) shiny new Nalgene. Poster will go up once I'm done writing this. My fingertips have significantly less skin on them than before, but my fingers were only starting to get tired. I dunno how that works, since, like, Will, who is a lot stronger than me, was getting pumped at the end.

So... was not as immediately enthralling as I'd hoped. It's about the application of science to food, like, in terms of safety as well as enjoyment. So we talked a little about pasteurization, what is 'good food' and 'bad food,' as well as 'good diets' and 'bad diets', and what dietary factors affect health, but he didn't get in to regional differences in diet and how that leads to nutrient deficiencies, which I would have liked to see. =/
He talked a little bit about the sociology of food and eating--the reasons why we eat, the reasons why we choose the foods we do, and why we're going to apply science to food--to make nutrients more available, to inprove quality and quantity, and to provide safe food.
There's a project, in which we split into four groups and each group designs a low-fat, high-antioxidant ice cream. xD

I started spouting food ideas during dinner, and my mom took me over to Whole Foods and bought some ground chicken and I sautee'd some onions and garlic and then added chili and cinnamon and the chicken to the pan and poked it around and put some salt on it and poked it around some more until it was all cooked and it is delicious.

Tomorrow: Guacamole!

If you're on Twitter, set your location to Tehran; your timezone to GMT +3.30. Iranian security forces are hunting for bloggers using location/timezone searches. The more people at this location, the more of a log jam it creates for forces trying to shut down Iranians' access to the internet. Cut & paste; pass it on.

So, this little 3 year old came in and replaced me at my job today.

"Mommy! Look at the fishies!"

If Ariel was Maria... Ms. Cunningham would HAVE TO cast Derek Carpenter as Tony. (There may or may not have been financial incentive for this casting.)

If Ariel was Maria... In the Balcony Scene Ariel would have rock climbed down the wall to meet Tony, since Derek would have been way too lazy to climb the ladder.

If Ariel was Maria... Ms. Cunningham would have cast Jessica as Anita, because I would have paid her 5000 dollars to do so.

If Ariel was Maria... She would have told Tony very bluntly that he rushes in the song "Maria." And screws up his lines on purpose. And he should sit up straighter. And he is technically a liquid.

If Ariel was Maria... When notified that her brother was killed by her boyfriend, and say, Nathan was cast as her brother in this imaginary scenario, she would have been so happy she would have thrown a party and eaten some store-bought cookies.

If Ariel was Maria... Her mom would have organized the Dance at the Gym with a photo booth and raffle prizes from Crutchfield.

If Ariel was Maria... When the principal asked for quiet in the gym, she would have shouted out that she was offended by his statement and sat down angrily with her arms crossed! Then she would have gone over to the snack table and spilled all the M&M's.

If Ariel was Maria... Somebody in that last scene would have definitely gotten shot!

Everything of my internet is working except AIM and Gmail chat.
So, if you want to talk to me tonight, I'll be on Facebook, after I take a shower.

Waffles got into Dad's car last night, because he left the window open.=

This conclusion has been determined through amazing deductive reasoning, as follows:

1) Waffles was in our driveway at 10:45 last night.
2) There is pollen all over dad's car.
2a) There are cat pawprints in the pollen.
2b) These pawprints lead up the hood and the windshield and onto the top of the car.
3) There is cat hair all over the top felty part of the window where the thing holds the actual piece of glass.
4, and most incriminating) There is CAT HAIR ON THE DRIVER'S SEAT.

My mom wants to tell John's mom about this. I don't want her to. :P

In the back yard at my grandma's house this morning, I saw a raccoon the size of a dog. It was the biggest freaking raccoon I've ever seen. Out in broad daylight, trying to find something edible. My camera was out of batteries, too.

So, on the first day, we mostly kinda slept/'slept'/wouldn't shut up on the bus on the way down there. And we eventually got to Port Canaveral, where the marching band got out and performed. Then we got back on the bus, back off the bus at the dock, schlepped through Customs, got on the boat, ditched our stuff in the room, went and ate lunch. Which was pretty awesome. The lunch buffet place, for one thing, is probably the best cafeteria-style food I'm ever gonna have. Also, the entire thing is surrounded by windows and there is an excellent view.
We wandered around for a few hours, checked out the rock wall and the pool and the hot tub... eventually got to dinner, which was fancy and delicious and the waiters had wierd senses of humor.
There was some sort of comedy routine every night. The first guy was okay. When he was done we went up to the 'teen center', which very quickly turned into a massive freak-dancing fest to annoying hip-hop music, so I went and played Guitar Hero till 11:30 or so, then crashed in the tiny little cabin which was supposed to be a quad but ended up being just me and June, which was awesome.
Next day was a ton of performances, and one of the judges was Jerry Novak, who writes a ton of charts for just about every single band I've ever been in, which was pretty awesome. The judges couldn't get over us. I kinda snuck out of the rest of the choir performances so I could go win the teen speed climbing tournament, which was pretty awesome. Eventually we were free to get off and go to Nassau and the straw market, which is pretty much the place where it's most obvious that the Bahamas run off of touristry... "This is $15, 12 for you..." And you're always bargaining down. I got most of the "$15" stuff for $8. A little wooden seahorse carving and a necklace. That night was 'formal night' and there was a 'midnight buffet' where there was tasty food and carved fruit and ice carvings and other such awesomeness. Pictures on Bookface. There was also all sorts of really really fun breakup drama which was super-stressful.
Aaaand the next day we went to CocoCay, which was the cruise line's private island, and we just kinda sat around and sunburned for the whole day. I went snorkelling a couple of times, which led to some interesting awesomeness. Tommy found a huge conch shell and let Spencer hold it, then he started flipping out and dropped the shell, and then Tommy flips out at him for dropping it.
Spencer: There's a crab in it!
Tommy: Oh my God, Spencer, did it pinch you?
Spencer: It touched me and it was GROSS...
Turns out there was an actual conch in it, a queen conch, which are overharvested (you should have seen my mom when she saw the conch shell) and so they put the shell back.
I went out again, to where the water was 30ish feet deep, and there were all sorts of colorful fish and coral and you really had to be there to see how awesome it was.
After that it was mostly just the band & choir kids hanging out and messing around until the next day when we crashed on the bus and complained about how late we were getting back.
In short, awesome.

"Uh, no. She's married to a girl, she's a lesbian."
Just because you're in love with another woman doesn't mean you can't also like men. Just because you're a straight girl doesn't mean everything deviating from the straight-girl norm is likeomgworthy. Bisexuals/whatever they hell people want to call themselves exist. I don't know if you think people haven't 'made up their mind' or whatever, I honestly don't care. I'm getting the impression that since it's outside your own experience, you stereotype and generalize it. I'm also getting the impression, from other conversations we've had, that this holds true to your life in general. And this really, really bothers me--that either you don't have enough patience, or you don't want to take the time, or you're flat-out unwilling to go get to know real people, and see beyond the stereotype.

"I don't hate gays or anything, I just don't think they should exist."
I'm getting the impression that you're feeling threatened or grossed out by the idea of another boy being sexually interested in you. And I can respect that. HOWEVER. It bothers me that you're so willing to want this 1.7% of people to not exist just because you feel threatened by them. Honestly, in my (female) opinion, there's plenty of attractive gay or bi or whatever men out there. Also, and although I don't have an exact percentage on this, only a small fraction of men are rapists or otherwise creepers, and only 1.7% of those people are gay, statistically speaking. In most cases, when you're not interested in someone, they'll go away, not harass you. There really isn't any reason for you to have to worry about it. To me, this statement is equivalent to condemning an entire religious group into nonexistance because you're afraid one of them will try to convert you.

Not cool, people, not cool.

So.
It all started with Mr. Thomas, who we usually bring an entire pie down to during pi day. There were three of us, taking a smallish pumpkin pie down to the band room. Duncan, Austin McPhillips, and myself. It was decided that we were a presidential envoy, carrying the nuclear secrets/pie to the Oval/Rectangular/Band office. Duncan was the modified limo/HMVV/tank, since he was biggest and tallest. I was the Secret Service, because I had sunglasses. And Austin was just kinda slacking/Austin.
Anyways.
It was also Nick Janssens' birthday today, and he wanted to make sure that he got a slice of oreo cream pie, because it was his birthday, and he wanted a piece of oreo cream pie, dammit. But by the time we figured out there was oreo cream pie at our table, it was already long lunch, which means that we don't have time for both serving and eating. So we hid the entire pie at the bottom of the stack of pies.
However.
John Barclay and Ben Deal decided that they also wanted oreo cream pie. Eventually it got to the point where we had to employ a full time border guard to keep John, Ben, Quino, Landon, Sarah, Caleb, and all the other various members of the terrorist group from SeniorCircleLand called al Weisend/the cross country team from stealing the oreo cream win.
Eventually.
The oreo cream pie was airlifted to a secret and secure location/the teacher workroom freezer, where international aid agencies/Ms. Savage agreed to let me into Switzerland/the teacher room and put the pie in the freezer, and even listened to my speech/epic tale about the entire Oreo Cream Pie Crisis/pi drama and let me wait outside to prevent any untoward intrusions/John figuring out where we went.
Imagine.
If you were Ms. Strong/China, the country/person that does not take any of your crap, and all of a sudden Janssens and Austin and some other people came charging into the UN conference room/teacher workroom, being extraordinarily loud and disruptive, and raiding the freezer for oreo cream pie... what would your reaction be?
Exactly.
So we had a mini oreo-cream-pie-eating session, in which Janssens ate quite a bit of the pie, and then I took a piece of oreo cream pie out to my sophomore/pet colony, JonathanKarnsLand, while Janssens, et al, took the rest of the oreo cream pie over to SeniorCircleLand and presented it to John, who had already found oreo cream pie elsewhere. Seems like they just wanted ours... Something about the overwhelming Americanness of it.
Then.
We discussed our various wins and other victories and John threw a cherry pie at Austin. It was still in the box. The same cherry pie graced our classroom through our Econ 101/UN Security Council discussion, though it was subject to intense scrutiny/jealousy/high demand combined with low supply can lead to a whole $20/$200000 changing hands for something as useless as a cherry pie.
Strawberry.
Just so you know. It's better.
'Night.

I sold a pair of hiking boots today to a family with a young son who was about 3 1/2. After they finally got him to sit down and they got the shoes on him, I had him walk up the incline so he could tell me if his toes hit the front when he walked down, and he immediately attempted to climb onto the top of it, because, of course, that's the most direct way up.
When we eventually found a pair of boots that fit, he wouldn't take them off because he liked them so much and he was so excited. It was cute.
He went and looked at the boots in water display:
Kid: Why are the shoes underwater?
Me: They're actually fish.
Kid: ...
Me: They're not moving because they're asleep right now.
Kid: ...But they look like shoes...
Me: They're disguised as shoes so people will throw them back when they go fishing.
Kid: No WAY!
Kid's Dad: *finally starts laughing because the kid stopped buying it*
They lifted the kid up onto the counter so Doug could see that he was wearing the shoes when he rang it up, and the parents look around the store a little bit, and the kid is kinda jumping around going 'shoes, shoes, shoes' because he LOVES the boots so much. ^_^

I went over to school this evening to get my instrument stand and the custodial lady who let me into the bandroom had really beautiful thick hair, up in a bun so it was out of her way. I asked her how long her hair was when it was down and it was probably waist length or hip length. I told her about runaz and her wanting to grow her hair out to her knees so she could donate 18 inches to Locks for Love and still have waist-length hair. And the lady said that her mother had had cancer and she donated her own hair for her mother's wig. Which I thought was the sweetest thing ever. ^_^

Because I like this one, and because Jack George did it:
Anger
Pride
Sloth
Greed
Lust
Envy
Gluttony

So, today me and my mom and my sister went down to the old Obama office downtown, where they were having a restocking drive for the Day of Service/MLK Jr. Day. Basically people were bringing in old clothes and nonperishable food and school supplies and stuff and what we were doing was organizing it so that it went to the right organizations.

Some people... just... wow, I guess. People brought in clothes that their grandbabies had grown out of, people brought in amazing hand-knitted blankets and gloves and things. One person brought in about 6 really nice, I mean really nice men's coats that probably hadn't been worn in years. Someone bought a brand new copy of Courderoy the Bear, probably from one of those little bookshops on the Downtown Mall. Someone brought in at least 50 blue beanies, which was excellent, because hats are amazing for helping you be not cold. It was amazing to see all the stuff people brought in.

Now I feel like cashing my paycheck which I think is $150 or 200 and that other $50 check and going to MallWart or Target or something and buying a bunch of stuff with the $200 and give it to one of the homeless shelters.

Except also, that doesn't feel like I'm helping enough. I want to be the person who's making the dinner at whatever church is up on Pacem's shelter rotation and serving it to people.

I dunno. I'm gonna look into this, anyways.

So cherchilaverita and I probably spelled that wrong already knows about this, a bit, because she's in my class.
We discussed Grendel in English class today. Post-Modernism and Existentialism. And, of course, as one of two existentialists in the class, I start to make fun of existentialism. I don't even remember half of the stuff me and Adam were making fun of, but trust me on that it was awesome. *nodnod*

Plus, we were working in small groups, so we didn't even distract the entire class... Just Ms. Pavlo!

:D

Hey all, I'm alive, I'm just in trouble and not supposed to be writing this right now. I'm kicked off the computer for today.

THESIS:
In Richard Wright’s Native Son, color symbolism is used to provide insight into race relations in Chicago at the time. These symbols illustrate the characters’ limited perception of each other’s motive and their limited understanding of each other’s social situation. In this way, every character in Native Son is ‘blind’—they can only see from one perspective, and, in a kind of vicious cycle, this blindness to social realities allows racial oppression to continue.

BODY PARAGRAPHS:
The Thomases and the Daltons each have animals living in their homes—a black rat for Bigger’s family and a white cat for Mary’s. The Daltons’ cat is representative of white society from the perspective of blacks: it is big, it is omnipresent; it is accusatory and brings up feelings of guilt within Bigger. The rat in the Thomas’s apartment is representative of black society from the perception of whites: it is vicious, its yellow fangs induce fear—not only in Bigger’s family but in any person, it is vermin, a pest; it is huge and dangerous. The rat’s fangs are yellow instead of white both to show that it is impure, since white represents purity, and to show the fear that the presence of a rat causes—‘yellow’ is a word for a coward, for someone who is weak. The Thomases are afraid of having the rat bite them, because its teeth could cause disease as well as serious injury—the yellow fangs are impure. There are no black rats in the Dalton’s house because of the cat; the white cat’s presence is enough to keep any vermin from breaking the pristine purity of the white Dalton house. There are no white cats in the Thomas’s house because There are no white cats in the Thomas’s house because of the rat; a gang of rats could overpower and kill a cat, and the rats are in desperate enough straits that they will kill each other off, thus doing the cat’s job for him.

The cat and the rat represent both black and white society, and the barriers to integration. The animals are symbolic—they represent the whole, and, as such, they are generalizations of whites and blacks. On a basic level, a cat is a predator that eats rats, among other things—which places the white people that the cat represents at a higher status than the blacks that the rat represents. However, the rat is also a predator—a scavenger, which will turn to carnivorousness and even cannibalism in extreme survival situations. The blacks that the rat represents live in poverty; they are always struggling to make ends meet. They steal from each other and kill each other, and whites take no notice—it only reduces the population of pestilent black rats that the white cat has to take care of.

These cat-and-rat generalizations are also representative of how whites and blacks view each other—not as people, but as stereotypes, as generalizations. Whites and blacks each perceive every member of the other race as being the same. In the point of view of the blind Dalkins, every black person is like the skittering, yellow-toothed rat, and in the point of view of Bigger, every white person is like the fancy, elegant cat. This perception-as-generalization, this stereotyping, is what causes ‘blindness’—inability to perceive peoples’ individual differences.

Bigger sees whites not as individual people, but as a “great natural force, like a stormy sky looming overhead.” (97) Symbolically speaking, a stormy sky is dark, angry, and, most importantly, physically higher than the person watching it. Dark is an adjective that is applicable to the skin of Bigger and other blacks, but it also has connotations of being forbidding and depressing. These adjectives all apply to Bigger’s situation as the black everyman in Chicago, and, as such, most blacks’ perception of whites—the white world and by extension white people in general are high and mighty, far out of reach; they are fickle, irritable, daunting, and oppressive. Although Bigger feels that “a lot of people [are] like Mrs. Dalton, blind,” he himself is blind because he does not see whites as individual people. (91)

The eyes of the white jury and policemen at Bigger’s trial are described as grey and blue, as are the eyes of every other white person besides Mary. Blue is a cold color—the blue sky is portrayed as being “cold.” (351) ‘Cold’, as an emotional descriptor, means distant and uncaring, which certainly fits the character of the whites in Native Son. Although the Daltons, Jan, and Max do care about the plight of American blacks, they are distant and removed from the situation, because they have not experienced what it is like to be black. The Daltons are white millionaires and far detached from black society. Jan and Mary eat at black cafés to try to gain perspective on the ‘black experience,’ but their manner is lively, excited, and drunk, and they cannot comprehend the emotional turmoil, the “guilt-fear” that is part of being black. (329) Max, who understands Bigger better than any other character, cannot understand him fully—he lacks the ability to comprehend why Bigger believes in “what [he] killed for.” (358) Because of their distance and detachment from Bigger’s situation, the blue- and grey-eyed whites are blind—they cannot see Bigger’s point of view, they cannot understand his motivations, they cannot comprehend his emotions. They can see only one perspective, which is the one that they want to believe, and everything that does not fit into that perspective, they are ‘blind’ to, and they cannot understand it.

Mary Dalton is described as looking “like a doll in a show window: black eyes, white face, red lips.” (54) These three colors—red, black, and white—are associated with three social groups in Chicago at the time—Communist supporters, blacks, and whites. These three colors are also traditionally symbolic of certain characteristics—red represents anger and passion, black represents despair and ignorance, and white represents purity and innocence. The three body parts mentioned also, by tradition, give insight into a character’s personality. Eye color reflects what a character perceives, the face reflect how others perceive the character, and the lips reflect what the character expresses. Mary Dalton’s black eyes mean that she sees problems everywhere, which she takes it upon herself to fix. Her white face most obviously means that she is seen as a white woman, in the racial sense, but also that she is naïve—innocent and inexperienced. Her red lips mean that she is impassioned by Communism, and she preaches Communism to every new person she meets. She rejects her father’s capitalist approach to fixing inequality—donating some of his millions to charity for blacks—in favor of the more extreme Communist approach.

Mary has good intentions—she wants to make Bigger feel equal, like a man. However, she is fixated on solving the injustices of American society, injustices that, as Max says during Bigger’s trial, have become “an accomplished fact of life” in America. (330) She is naïve, so she does not realize that creating economic equality is more complicated than having a Communist revolution, and she does not realize that creating social equality is more complicated than inviting Bigger to eat with her. Mary wants immediate change, which is what brings her downfall. By treating Bigger like a white person—taking him along on her outing with Jan, and coming home drunk and alone in the car with him—she causes more shame and anger within him, because he is more conscious of his black skin, his difference, than he would have been had she not broken the ultimate social rule of race relations—blacks’ submission and deference to whites is absolutely mandatory. She is too naïve to realize that by breaking this rule, she puts Bigger in a dangerous position—Bigger has to carry her up to her room because she is too drunk to walk, and if he is discovered in her room, at night, by a white person, it would instantly be assumed that he had raped her, which would almost certainly mean death for Bigger, whether by lynching or legal execution.