The Shawshank Redemption is one of the most impressive and beloved films of all time. It tells a story of a banker Andy Dufresne who is convicted of murdering his wife and her lover and other prisoners’ life at the Shawshank State Penitentiary. In fact, Andy is innocent. With his accounting skills, Andy begins helping Warden Norton and the guards with their taxes and other financial issues. As a stone collector, he asks Ellie Redding (Red) to get him a rock hammer to collect rocks. This tool is the one that helps Andy get out of prison at the end, but it’s not the only one.

The process of life is a process of getting rid of institutionalization. Brooks finally gained freedom after being imprisoned for most of his life. However, he was at a loss in the free world. He always wanted to go back to the Shawshank prison that deprived him of his freedom but made him accustomed to it. In the end, he finally hanged himself. Prison is an institutionalized place where you hate it at first as it deprives you of your freedom; then you will slowly get used to it and become familiar with it; in the end, you will be inseparable from it. Unlike Brooks, Andy has great strength of will and a strong yearning for freedom, which makes him different from other people in the prison. He also inspires his friend Red and makes him gain freedom both mentally and physically.

In Shawshank, people have different races and socioeconomic classes especially Andy Dufresne. People other than Andy are mostly from the lower class, while Andy is in the upper class. Andy’s appearance greatly influences everyone. He sets up a library and provides tutor service for people who want to be educated. I would say that Andy is the “others” in Shawshank because he is the unique one. However, unlike “others” we talk about in class, Andy is not discriminated against because of his different identity and socioeconomic class. Instead, he has a great positive influence on his surroundings.

From my perspective, the author wants audiences to take away the ideas that how important hope and persistence is. Power is not only decided by society, but it is the one that you give to yourself. Everyone is powerful to change his/her life

The novelist Jamaica Kincaid was originally named Elaine Potter Richardson who was born in 1949 in St. John’s, the capital city of the Caribbean island of Antigua. She lived with her stepfather, a carpenter, and her mother and completed her secondary education under the British system in Antigua. In 1965 she went to New York to work as an au pair. Then, she studied photography at the New York School for Social Research and attended Franconia College in New Hampshire for a year. Wishing anonymity for her writing, she decided to change her name to Jamaica Kincaid in 1973. She met William Shawn, an editor of The New Yorker, and became a staff writer for the magazine.

Antigua was visited in 1493 by Christopher Columbus, and then colonized by English settlers in 1632 and remained a British possession. In 1967, Antigua became self-governing but was not able to make itself an independent nation within the Commonwealth until 1981.

It’s worth to talk about British Imperialism and the influence and impact it made in Antigua. British colonial imperialism must completely occupy the entire region and impose the British way of life in the economic, political, and socio-cultural fields. In an interview with the New York Times, Kincaid said “In my generation, the height of being a civilized person was to be English and to love English things and eat like English people. We couldn’t really look like them, but we could approximate being an English person.” Additionally, Antigua became Britain’s gateway to the Caribbean because there were many sugar plantations that could bring a large amount of profit to Britain. The purpose of A Small Place is to learn from the influence of British imperialism on the cultural influence of colonial rule on this country, which shaped the government’s identity after the colony through the actions of former oppressors. The proliferation of patriarchal rule illustrates the great influence of political corruption in shaping the identity of the post-colonial Antigua government.

Here’s the link to an interview with Jamaica Kincaid

References:

https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/postcolonialstudies/2014/06/10/kincaid-jamaica/

https://www.britannica.com/place/Antigua-and-Barbuda/History

https://medium.com/@xt.msomi/how-does-jamaica-kincaid-illustrate-the-influence-and-impact-of-british-imperialism-in-antiguas-489451d86252

Team members: Xinyao Yan, Chengcheng Hao, Samantha Yang

Xinyao Yan:

Let’s get into our topic today. As we all know, 2020 is a difficult year. A global epidemic broke out in this year: COVID-19. Because of the impact of this epidemic, the phenomenon of racial discrimination that was originally hidden in various countries has become more serious. Research so far found that the COVID-19 virus was spread from Wuhan, China. Because of the strong transmission power and infection rate of COVID-19, many countries have suffered from COVID-19, and the casualties are heavy. At this time, because of the spread of the epidemic in other countries, some Asians suffered racial discrimination from different countries. Some people yelled at them, threw things at them, or smashed their things. They turned their hatred of the epidemic to these overseas Chinese, thinking that the occurrence of the epidemic was the fault of the entire race. But no one can predict natural and man-made disasters. After the epidemic, the situation of Asians abroad has become more serious. The Australian National University conducted a survey of more than 3,000 Asians. In the survey, 84.5% of Asians said that they had encountered discrimination at least once between January and October 2020. Between February and April (during the epidemic), the working hours of Asians decreased by 5 hours, which was twice that of other Australians. Discrimination in the market makes life more difficult for Asians who are far away.

The epidemic’s racial discrimination for Asians may have caused great inconvenience to their lives, while racial discrimination for people of color, including African Americans, Asians, and Latinos, prevents them from having fair medical treatment opportunities in the United States. In the article ‘An unbelievable chain of oppression’: America’s history of racism was a preexisting condition for COVID-19, it is stated that during the epidemic, the death rate of colored communities was much higher than that of white communities. According to statistics, among the 10 counties with the highest COVID-19 mortality rate in the United States, 7 counties have permanent residents mostly of color; among the 50 counties with the highest COVID-19 mortality rate in the United States, 31 counties have more permanent residents People of color; 62% of the counties with the highest death rate from new coronary pneumonia in the United States, their permanent residents are mostly people of color; data previously released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that among the confirmed cases in the United States, about 52% of patients are people of color Kind. There are many reasons for the large mortality gap: people of color have been treated unfairly for a long time, and the living environment is poor, making them more susceptible to infection. And because of poor economic conditions, they cannot support them in treatment. At the same time, the deep-rooted racial discrimination in the United States makes it difficult for people of color to receive equal medical protection. Even if they have symptoms of infection, it is difficult to obtain testing opportunities and even more difficult to obtain effective treatment.

Chengcheng Hao:

Thank you Xinyao for sharing the information with us. Let’s go deeper into the social issue. Now comes another question: is it true that there is no racial discrimination in China?

Of course, there is. Chinese people are not aware of the fact that racial discrimination is serious and widespread.

In psychology, Discrimination is divided into explicit discrimination and implicit discrimination. Explicit discrimination refers to the external and obvious verbal and physical attacks on people through racial factors, while implicit bias an unconscious association, belief, or attitude toward any social group. Thanks to the blood and sweat of their predecessors in the affirmative action movement, racial equality has long been the absolute political correctness. Explicit discrimination in Western countries, as long as the evidence is conclusive, can be appealed to legal justice. International students and recent immigrants have encountered homeless people on the street who insult your country or attack the color or appearance of your skin, but most Chinese are unlikely to verbally attack a stranger based on race. But does that mean we don’t have racial discrimination? Not at all.

Prejudice based on race, skin color, national origin, etc. Even after a massive rational crackdown, real Chinese (and people around the world) still consciously or unconsciously make subconsciously biased choices. Let’s say you stop two cabs on the street in North America, one Asian and one black, and you subconsciously pick the Asian driver. This is because the stereotype of black people in your mind makes you make a subconscious choice. You unconsciously fear and protect yourself, and you unwittingly become a “racist” in the eyes of the black driver.

Apart from the wariness and rejection of certain ethnic minorities in China, what surprised me most was the widespread prejudice against blacks and the admiration for whites.

Based on the yearning for western culture, white people (whether white people in Europe or America) enjoy “super-national treatment” in China, and enjoy preferential treatment in terms of justice and human rights. As a result, such absurd social phenomena as “report the lost property on behalf of the white people and it will be recovered within 24 hours” have been born.

In the minds of some people, the white man is superior. Racial discrimination in the vast majority of countries is based on the fact that one’s race is the best and other RACES are the worst. The “racial discrimination” in China that elevates another race above one’s social status also opened my eyes.

The discrimination against blacks is even more striking. One of the strangest things I’ve heard is that an English training center in Shanghai is recruiting foreign teachers for oral English. The job Posting says that white Students from Europe and the United States are preferred, followed by white students from non-English-speaking countries. So perhaps a British-born, well-educated, English-standard black man would not be able to get such a job simply because of the color of his skin.

Much of the discrimination against blacks in the country stems from fear. The general impression of black people in China is “black, low level of education, low IQ, violence, a disorderly life,” etc., all of which are negative impressions like backward primitive human beings. There are many strange phenomena, such as taxi drivers being afraid of picking up black passengers, restaurants unwilling to serve the black meals, parents unwilling to let their children be friends with black people, etc. Illegal African immigrants in some cities along the southeast coast are indeed disturbing the social order, but the media’s negative coverage of them through colored glasses is also partly to blame.

If you think about it, we use the word “discrimination” a little too much. Every prejudice is formed for objective reasons. The difference in history, culture, and concept is irreversible, but we can also do it to minimize the harm to people.

First, distinguishing between “individuals” and “species” is a basic form of parenting. Just because a population gives people a negative impression doesn’t mean that every “person” in it has these characteristics. To treat others with courtesy, neither humble nor arrogant, is the first step that our overseas students and Overseas Chinese need to start from me.

Samantha Yang:

Thank you Chengcheng! As my other two teammates have shown different cases of racism, I am going to talk about why racism exists and what can we do to solve this problem.

Seven factors contribute to racism, which are categories, factions, segregation, hierarchy, power, media, and passivism. Categories mean organizing people into distinct groups. For example, people are normally recognized by their skin color such as white, black, and yellow. We have learned the story of Ortiz Cofer who was discriminated against due to the different skin colors she had. The story Chengcheng shared with us could be connected to Ortiz’s experience. Black people were discriminated against in China because of their skin color, even though they do not give offense to anybody. As the world is becoming globalized, more people move around the world. Therefore, people with different backgrounds would live together, which will lead to outgroup competition within a society.

The second point that you may be interested in is whether racism is bred in the bone or taught. The answer is both. People feel more comfortable when they are surrounded by whom they are familiar with or groups that share similar identities, and there are some genetic reasons to distrust outgroups. Additionally, people are also influenced by the environment. Like what Chengcheng talked about, parents in China would ask their children to stay away from the black. Being taught to do so, the youth would view the black as “threaten”. This is absolutely wrong because we should not judge people based on their physical appearance.

We have discussed several examples of racism and learned that racism is a severe social issue across the world. Now, let’s find out what we, as individuals, and governments can do to deal with this problem. As individuals, we should treat everyone fairly and be nice to people. Meanwhile, governments should enact laws to publish racists. As people and governments work together, this issue would be gradually solved.

Reference:

http://www.chinaqw.com/hqhr/2020/11-03/274855.shtml

http://news.kf.cn/2020/1018/502599.shtml

http://www.plxww.com/contents/22/64204.html

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/an-unbelievable-chain-of-oppression-americas-history-of-racism-was-a-preexisting-condition-for-covid-19/ar-BB19Xlf1

https://www.zhihu.com/question/295563613/answer/499194316

https://www.stlmag.com/news/alan-lambert/

https://news.stanford.edu/2020/06/09/seven-factors-contributing-american-racism/

The story of systemic injustices that I want to talk about is how the president and some people name COVID-19. I am Chinese and was born and raised in China until I came to the states in 2018. At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 started to spread out in China and then all over the world. China has put a lot of effort to prevent the spread of the virus. The fact and statistical data did show that China did a good job in controlling the epidemic. However, the president of the United States consistently said that data reported by the Chinese government was fake, and the number of death cases was much higher than that in the states in conferences and on Twitter. The most unbelievable thing he has done was that he called COVID-19 “China Virus” on Twitter. Undeniably, the first case of COVID-19 was reported in China, but did it mean that the virus was from China? In a country where people advocate for justice and equality, the president of this country openly talked about racially offensive words. Then, some people followed him and called it “China Virus”. As a Chinese citizen, it was heartbreaking to see this term on social media.

The behavior of the president leads more people to believe that the virus originates in China which is still debatable, and what even worse is that some people discriminate against Chinese because they believe that Chinese people carry COVID-19. Innocent Chinese people were hit on the streets without doing anything offensive. It’s systemic injustice because it is racial discrimination implemented by various groups of people that is always one of the most serious problems in the world. Chinese, as a minority in the United States, hardly have voices to speak out their needs. In The Leavers, Lisa Ko also talks about a story of a family of Chinese living in the U.S. From my perspective, Peilan would be classified as a subaltern because as a poor immigrant of color in the working class and an unmarried mother, she has no voice to speak out about her needs and feelings. Chineses in the United States are now in the same situation as she does. Although President Donald Trump says racially offensive words, the Chinese cannot address this situation. Additionally, Martin Luther King Jr. said that life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?” When the pandemic spreads out all over the world, people should unite in fighting against it but not blaming anyone and a president should be the leader to advocate for this movement. Racial discrimination is always one of the most serious social problems in the world throughout history. The president should not be the leader of being racist because he has great power in influencing all people within the country.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/17/politics/trump-china-coronavirus/index.html

Report from CNN of Donald Trump’s use the term “China Virus”