Group Member:
Tsai-fan Weng
Yizhi Wang
Podcast Transcript
Tsai-fan, Weng: Hi, everyone. Our group’s discussion topic of this “Yo is this Racism” podcast is interminority racism and intersection identity. I am Tsai-fan Weng. (I am Yizhi Wang) I came up this idea because of the latest human right protest called Black lives Matter. I saw news on the internet saying that there were Korean merchants gathered together with guns in defense of the disturbance from protesters who cause turmoil in protest, most of them were African Americans. They attacked China towns, Korean Towns and other settlement of immigrants. Many Asian Americans were attacked, robbed and even beaten by some so called protesters. What happened in BLM were just typical examples. I think it is not to hard find that there is always turmoil relate to other minority groups accompanying the protests for equal rights. I am not saying that there are large amounts of African Americans commit such a crime or emphasizing the seriousness of such an issue, but I am trying to bring this particular kind of racism within minority groups into spotlight. I think this is a kind of racism people can easily overlook. In the United States, especially because of the history of slavery, this is most conspicuous between White and Black people when talking about race. But as demonstrate before, racism can be spectrum, with some races more privileged than others even in minority groups.So, in general, the phenomena I discussed before is an irony to equality. In its essence, people doing this is still asking for privilege just like what white people did to the black people, but the only different is they ask in the name of equality. It is a debate over all lives matter and black lives matter.
Yizhi, Wang: Yeah When we recall the origin of the event, The Floyd incident shows that most African Americans are still marginalized and at the bottom of the society. The current economic situation in the United States demonstrates the economic vulnerability of this group. The COVID-19also shows that blacks and other disadvantaged groups in the United States are more likely to become victims, and the United States cannot protect the well-being of these people. In post-colonial theories, Westerners are often referred to as the subjective “self”, and the people in the colonies are referred to as the “other”. Some white people regard the non-Western world other than the “self” as the “other,” and oppose the two. The black group we are discussing right now is also a group mainly regarded as others. Therefore, the concept of “other” actually implies a Western-centric ideology. Broadly speaking, the other is a reference that is both different and connected with the subject. But when we go back to the protest movement that swept across the United States, race is only one of the factors, because there are still a large number of white people in the protest group. The objective analysis should be that those groups who have been opposed to president Trump, those who are dissatisfied with president Trump’s response to the COVID-19, those who have suffered economic damage due to the closure of the city, and those who hope that president Trump will step down because of the presidential election, all take advantage of this incident. Bias mainly exists in the mind as a subjective attitude, while discrimination is a behavior. Bias can occur between any group. The strong group can have a bias against the disadvantaged group, and versa. For example, hatred of the rich often has a bias against the rich. Discrimination is only targeted at disadvantaged groups. It should be noted that the strengths and weaknesses will change with environmental changes. For example, white Americans once believed that black people were inferior races, so they established various segregation systems to treat them differently. Under such a policy, blacks cannot get a good education, work, and living environment, and it is difficult for them to develop a sound personality. Therefore, some characteristics that conform to the bias of whites will also be produced. When a white man saw a black man who grew up in this environment, he found that the black man was illiterate, so he came to the conclusion that “the black man is substandard” and strengthened his bias attitude. But in fact, it was just because the black man had no chance to enjoy education. TheFloyd incident shows that there are serious problems with the American economic and social development model. The phrase “I can’t breathe” is a concentrated reflection of the feeling of suffocation, oppression and anxiety among the American people at the bottom. Those who are already suffering from unfair treatment are struggling for their own lives. They try their best not to let themselves lose their place to live on the streets. That’s all.
Tsai-fan, Weng: Great. And I totally agree with the binary between white and black under particular historic and economic background like you said, black and white has long history in having frictions and conflicts between each other. We can use the examples in these situations between blacks and whites to the, minorities like Asians like I discussed before. There is also a dynamic change between minorities groups because of economic or history or politic issues.
Yizhi, Wang: Yeah like Asian Americans and all those minorities in America.
Tsai-fan, Weng: Yes, so. Another concept I want to discuss a little more is intersectional identities. If I want to describe racism and intersectional identity in a vivid way. They are like two interlocking gears that change forever on both sides. To Asian for example, they are discriminated by both white and black but for different reasons. The identities of Asian Americans have different preconceptions among different groups of people. In BLM, I discussed before, they are discriminated against not only because they are yellow but also because they are considered rich and easy to bully. And under the current pandemic, Asians are discriminated against because people assume Asians are virus carriers. The yellow people, rich people and virus carriers are the idenitites born under particular environment, the environment I think is like you’ve mentioned before. This is our “Yo, Is This…” advice podcast. Thanks for listening! Thank you!