The 1973 Robin Hood film will always hold some nostalgia for me. I still whistle the intro to this day sometimes. This movie is about a younger brother, Prince John, whom comes into power after his older brother, King Richard, is out of England for some time. The protagonist of the story is Robin Hood who steals from the rich and gives to the poor with the help of his sidekick Little John. Robin Hood and Little John target Prince John since he is the wealthiest man in England. Being the greedy ruler that he is, Prince John continues to raise taxes on the poor to the point where whomever can’t pay their taxes is thrown in jail. Robin Hood and Little John devise a plan to free those stuck in prison while stealing back the tax money. The two hero’s, along with the poor and tax money, narrowly escape the clutches of Prince John. As this is happening, Prince John manages to burn down his family castle in an attempt to stop them. Soon after, King Richard shows back up and pardons those all who wronged his younger brother, and Robin Hood gets to marry the love of his life. This movie is an example about how much power rich people can have in society. The ruler at the time, Prince John, was corrupt and just cared about money. He didn’t care that the poor were starving and barely getting by. I think that this is almost the case for things in the United States. The upper-class income is growing while the middle and lower classes are slowly shrinking. The percentage of middle-class Americans has shrunk from 61% in 1971 to 51% in 2019 (Pew Research, 2020). The upper-class is becoming more and more powerful in this country. The richer they become, the more influence they have over people and even some politicians which is scary. I think that the film makers wanted to communicate that there are some bad people in power in the world but also some good. I also think that the film makers wanted to show that there are people that genuinely care for others in the world and that you don’t need money to be happy.
Horowitz, J. M., Igielnik, R., & Kochhar, R. (2020, August 17). Trends in U.S. income and wealth inequality. Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/#:~:text=The%20growth%20in%20income%20in,majority%20of%20Americans%2C%20is%20shrinking.&text=The%20share%20of%20American%20adults,1971%20to%2051%25%20in%202019.
On February 2, 2021, country music star Morgan Wallen was caught on film saying the n-word. He told reporters that he and a group of his friends were on a 36-hour bender out in Nashville and had performed a quick show prior to him coming home. The group came home around midnight and was being very loud. They were seen and heard honking their horns and shouting near Morgan’s house by his neighbors. One of his neighbors started recording them, and this is when the profanity was caught on tape. In the captured video the country music star was saying good bye to his friends and told them to, “Take care of this pussy ass n*****” using the hard “er” on the end of the word. This caused an uproar around the country because it was clear that this wasn’t his first time using the word. Morgan Wallen received a lot of backlash, and people demanded that he be held responsible. He issued a five-minute apology video saying that he was sorry and was going to start working with black organizations to see the error of his ways. After this incident, all of his music stopped airing on the radio, he lost all of his endorsements, and he was dropped from his record label, Big Loud. However, his music sales rose roughly 1,220% reported by Rolling Stone. This is absurd that people are willing to support a man who said a racial slur by buying his music. I don’t know if they bought his music out of fear that they won’t be able to listen to his music any longer or if they just wanted to buy his music because he said the n word. I know that I saw people on social media saying, “I’ll still listen to his music though.” That’s just an absurd thing to say after an incident like this happened. This shows the systemic racism that is rooted in the country music industry.
Going into one of the concepts that we have talked about in class is the “one” vs the “other.” Looking at this situation, we would classify the “one” as the white country music stars that have received all the recognition from the industry and fans. They don’t have to face backlash as often for their music and don’t have to deal with a lot of criticism, unless maybe you’re female. We would classify the “other” as black country artist who don’t usually receive the recognition that a lot of the white country artists do even though they could go note for note with them. Also, black country artists face a lot of criticism for their music and have often heard racial remarks towards them. Female artists, such as Mickey Guyton, have even said that a lot of hurt had to happen to them before they saw any success in the industry.
Jake Grim 0:12
Hello, everyone, my name is Jake grim. I am a fourth year student here at the Iowa State University. I will be graduating this spring with a degree in agricultural engineering specializing in soil and water.
Brock Michaelis 0:27
And my name is Brock Michaelis. I’m also a fourth year student and we graduated in the spring. My major is civil engineering and I have a minor in survey and I will be continuing to work in the civil engineering field and land development. Okay.
Jake Grim 0:47
Okay, on this episode of the podcast, we’ll be talking about two incidents of racism. So the first one is about country music, or Morgan Wallen, and the second one is about the shooting of Atlanta woman in Atlanta, or a gentleman in Atlanta. So, on February second 2021 country music star, Morgan Wallen was caught on film saying the N word. He told reporters that he had a he and a group of friends were on a 36 hour bender out in Nashville, and had performed a quick show prior to him coming home. The group came home around midnight and was being very loud. They were seen and heard honking their horns and shouting your Morgan’s house by his neighbors. One of his neighbors started recording them. And this is when the profanity was caught on tape. In the captured video, the country music star was saying goodbye to his friends, and told them to, quote, take care of this pussy ass blank. And quote, using the heart er at the end of the word. This caused an uproar around the country because it was clear that this wasn’t his first time using the word, Morgan Wallen received a lot of backlash, and people demanded that he be held responsible. He issued a five minute apology video saying that he was sorry, it was going to work with black organizations to see the error of his ways in which I think is kind of bullcrap. Because just because he got caught saying word, and now all of a sudden he wants to work with black organizations. And why wouldn’t he just do it from the first place, it just blows my mind a little. Anyways, after this incident, all of his music stopped airing on the radio. He lost all of his endorsements. And he was dropped from his record label big loud. However, his music sales rose roughly 1,220%, which is was reported by Rolling Stone. This is absurd that people are willing to show their support for a man who used a racial slur by buying his music. I don’t know if they bought the music out of fear that they would have won’t be able to listen to his music any longer. Or if they just wanted to buy his music because he said the N word. I know that I saw a lot of people on social media saying I’m still going to listen to his music, though. And I just think that’s an absurd thing to say after an incident like this has happened. Now after all the racial problems that have arose over this past couple years. I think that this incident just shows the systemic racism that is rooted in the country music industry.
Brock Michaelis 3:42
So as Jake was saying, he created a lot of backlash from the country music industry and its fans. Many artists have reacted in disgust to his actions, but some reacted in different ways. kelsea ballerini, a white country music artists tweeted, quote, the news out of Nashville a night does not represent country music, and quote, tweets like this for many country music artists and fans change the focus from a singular event to one focused on a system and sparked several reactions to the
Brock Michaelis 4:12
white country.
Brock Michaelis 4:14
Mickey Guyton as a Black Country music artists who tweeted quote, when I read comments saying, This is not who we are, I laugh because this is exactly who country music is. I’ve witnessed it for 10 GT years. You guys should just read some of the vile comments hurled at me on a daily basis. It’s a cold, hard truth to face, but it is the truth and quote, Nico marks quoted this and said, quote, agreed, there’s so many layers to this, it’s systemic, until there that can be acknowledged and addressed, the circle will continue to be unbroken, and quote, some or all other artists, including Rishi Palmer, Katy Bannon and Britney Spencer made similar comments calling out the industry and saying that this incident is rubbish. 100 of the difference between the reactions of white artists and black artists shows how this problem is truly systemic. The white artists don’t understand how huge the problem is, because they’re not the ones that experienced the racist comments and prejudices that are thrown at Black Country artists every day. So there’s clearly a systemic problem that is plaguing the country music industry, and creating an environment where black artists grow much more to feel accepted and find success.
Jake Grim 5:31
Going into one of the concepts we’ve talked about in class is the one versus the other. Looking at this situation, we would classify the one as the white country music stars that have received all the recognition from the industry and fans. They don’t usually have to face backlash as often for their music, and don’t have to deal with a lot of criticism. Unless maybe you’re a female. We would classify the other as a Black Country artist who usually who doesn’t usually receive the recognition that a lot of white country artists do, even though they could go note for note and bar for bar with them. Also, Black Country artists face a lot of criticism for their music, and often are often heard racial remarks towards them. female artists such as Mickey Guyton have even said that a lot of hurt had to happen to them before they saw any success in the country music industry.
Brock Michaelis 6:31
Considering all this, the country music industry has created a system in which most black artists are cast to the side and are exposed to racial comments in the prejudice industry and needs to take a step back as a whole. admit there’s a problem, you focus on making change that will help eliminate these in justices.
Jake Grim 6:52
Moving on to our next example, it is about the Asian woman that were shot in Atlanta by a white male. So our next example is about a white male Robert long, who shot and killed eight people, six of which were Asian women. The man legally purchased a nine millimeter handgun earlier in the day and headed towards an Asian run massage parlor. The man went into Young’s Asian massage parlor and was seen leaving after an hour and 12 minutes of being inside. The police were called roughly five minutes after he left and showed up to two people fatally shot and three others wounded, two of which died at the hospital. Police then received reports of a robbery at gold massage, gold massage spa, where they found three woman dead from gunshot wounds. They then received reports of a shooting across the street at Roma therapy spa, where they found yet another woman shot and killed Robert long was eventually found and arrested roughly three and a half hours after the shootings about 150 miles south of Atlanta. I think that this incident just shows how there are truly evil people out there in the world and that don’t care about who you are and where you come from, and will discriminate you solely against your ethnicity.
Brock Michaelis 8:20
This horrific shooting is clearly sparked many reactions across the country. Many people in organizations have made statements to show their support to the Asian American community. In response to this incident in many other recent crimes toward Asian Americans, OSU Barstow compiled comments from Asian American students and made a post about it on Instagram. Many of them expressed how they experienced backhanded comments that are all always include the fact that they’re Asian. One quote included in the post said, quote, it’s the constant backhanded compliments for me. I just feel that everything about me is contrasted with people’s expectations based on my race. I was told very recently that I speak English surprisingly well. I mean, yeah, I’m American. Implicit racism is considerably harder to even call out much less combat, and quote, by giving these backhanded compliments people are saying that they are surprised that Asians can have these positive characteristics which is completely wrong. Our society should be able to accept Asian Americans for who they are and stop constraining them to stereotypes that have been made about them. Some students were even quoted in the posts saying that they were they were their hoodies up to cover their face when they go out in areas off campus because they fear getting attacked because of their race. They also express concerns for their elderly relatives that are more vulnerable and susceptible to attacks like these fact that Asian Americans have to hide who they are to protect themselves as horrifying. These multiple accounts from students shows it is more than isolated events and that it truly is systemic. The Post from OSU bar so even referenced a statistic from Cal State that said Asian American hate crimes are on the rise 149% this year. I can’t act like I understand their feelings sign not an Asian American. But I can speak out against these problems and try to help our society move in the right direction to eliminate these systemic and justices.
Jake Grim 10:22
It is sad to hear about these examples of systemic racism and racist, racist experiences throughout the country. I know that I can’t really relate to any being a white male, and it’s just sad to hear. That’s really all the time we have for today. Thank you for listening and we will continue to show our support against systemic racism and do what we can to combat it.
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi is a graphic memoir that takes place during an Islamic revolution in Iran. It depicts the impacts of religious extremism on her people, especially women. The memoir begins with a ten year old Satrapi. She belongs to an upper middle class family and which allows her to have access to education materials. These educational materials eventually expose her to Western political thought. When Shah’s regime comes to an end, religious extremists gain control of the new form of government which is put into place. This new regime is extremely harsh towards women and makes them cover themselves when out in public. War is thrown into the mix when the new regime declares war against Iraq. After two years of war, Satrapi comes home finds out that a long range missile had hit her neighborhood. She becomes enraged with the political system that was put into place which brought war to her front door step and is traumatized from the site of one of her friend’s dead body. The memoir ends with Satrapi’s leave to Europe after her family fears for her safety.
This memoir really emphasizes how women across the globe are being discriminated against. In a lot of places, such as the extremist regimes that take place in the memoir, women are being treated as second-class citizens. It really makes me appreciate the country that I grew up in. I feel as if America is almost a guide for those trying to achieve equal rights. I’m not saying that America is perfect, but we definitely are on the right path to doing so. Offering any help and sanctuary for those who are struggling against political extremists is always there for those in need.
