Author: liu.8480

Text Review “Black Panther”

by

I chose the movie Black Panther.

It’s a polished counterrevolutionary (anti-revolutionary, reformist, or opportunistic) superhero movie. What is particularly interesting is that this superhero movie is apparently spawned by the so-called “left-wing culture” of contemporary America, and takes a particularly acute social conflict — racial discrimination — as its theme. So it’s a very good example of what kind of culture wars contemporary capitalism is waging.

Today in the 21st century, racial conflict in the United States has intensified along with the economic crisis. The black poor are still suffering from poverty, drugs and street violence. The news that the American police wantonly shot innocent black people challenged the bottom line of the public again and again, and riots occurred in many areas where the black population gathered. Black elites also launched a social movement represented by “Black Lives Matter”, calling for the rights and interests of black people in all cultural occasions. The sharp contradiction creates a strange spectacle: on the one hand, the elite has created the shackles of “political correctness”, which makes everyone speechless and afraid to act, on the other hand, the poor of all ethnic groups at the bottom are still practically oppressed by exploitation and discrimination. The new social bomb is gathering energy, and no one knows when it will explode, or when the next Martin Luther King will appear.

(Film still)

Different from Martin Luther King in the old era, a large number of black people have become the top social elites in the new American society — sports stars, movie stars, politicians, singers, scholars and bosses… They don’t live in The “Wakanda” of the African jungle, but in the “Wakanda” of American high society. They have their own “modern lives” to defend. The poor African Americans, and the poor and war-torn blacks of Africa, who live outside Wakanda, continue to languish in misery. In order to change the status quo, some people themselves become more and more radical. Thus the movie Black Panther was born with the metaphor of reality. The new Martin Luther King, Jr., still propagates his strategy of nonviolent struggle in the face of black injustice. By this time, however, he was already outfitted with a vibranium suit as the new Avengers superhero.

 

“Yo, Is this Regional discrimination” Bingtong Liu

by

Introduction

Regional discrimination is different from racial discrimination. It is because the people within the nation are usually unfamiliar with people in other regions, and cultural and economic differences and inequalities, which can lead to prejudice and even demonization. For example, the discrimination and prejudice of Chinese urban people against country folks and migrant workers, and the regional prejudice against people from Northeast China, Xinjiang people, Tibetans, Beijingers, Shanghainese, Cantonese, Henanese, etc. When a foreigner comes to an area unfamiliar with him, the local people will explain their character based on the prejudice in the society, which may lead to prejudice and demonization.

Regional demonization is mostly manifested on the Internet as territorial posts, territorial jokes, and territorial attacks. When prejudice and demonization occur through institutional government actions, corporate actions, or personal behaviors such as insulting words, which damage the interests or reputation of others, these behaviors can be regarded as discriminatory behaviors, or even criminal behaviors, called regional discrimination. Regional discrimination is different from territorial demonization. Regional discrimination causes substantial damage to the interests and reputation of the discriminated person. Therefore, it is no longer as simple as a personal impression or a joke. Regional discrimination generally needs to be resolved through legal procedures.

(This image shows that this road has always been forbidden by outside builders in Dongguan.)

Features

1. Regional discrimination can be due to gaps in economic and social development.

Regional gaps exist objectively, and various conflicts of interest will inevitably arise due to competition for resources between regions. The existence of regional gaps and conflicts of regional interests will inevitably be reflected in social psychology, forming a sense of superiority for people in advantageous regions. If this sense of superiority is uncontrolled and excessively inflated, discrimination against backward areas and disadvantaged groups will be unavoidable.

2. Regional discrimination is a manifestation of China’s “social stereotype”.

The so-called “social stereotype” refers to a set of fixed views (usually with one-sided and negative colors) of a certain type of people, and uses this as a frame of reference, subjectively thinking that all members of this group of people conform to this Kind of opinion. “Social stereotype” is the simplest understanding of social groups. Although it is conducive to a general understanding of a certain group, it is also prone to deviations, leading to “preconceptions” prejudices and hindering normal understanding and understanding between people. Associate. “Stereotypes” also often lead to misunderstandings, because “stereotypes” are not based on facts, sometimes due to the rationalization of prejudice, and sometimes infer that individuals must have certain characteristics (not necessarily in fact) based on the fact that the group has certain characteristics. This characteristic is formed.

3. Regional discrimination is the result of herd mentality and collective unconsciousness.

In the modern information “big bang” society, ordinary people are particularly prone to lose the ability to think and judge independently, and often do not make independent thinking and rational judgments about many things, thus forming the phenomenon of herd mentality and collective unconsciousness. For example, some media reports on cases of crimes committed by the floating population have often become the psychological basis for people to judge the people around them, and they have been exaggerated and enlarged, making it easy to treat a certain group in a symbolic and labeled way. This cannot but be said to be an important social and psychological basis for regional discrimination.

4. Regional discrimination is a manifestation of the mentality of “low and poor”.

China is currently in a period of social transformation, and social development has a series of phased characteristics, such as various social contradictions are intertwined, and there are many social problems. In particular, the psychology of “hatred of the rich” and “base and poor” caused by the continuous expansion of the gap between the rich and the poor has widened the gap between the poor and the rich. People in poor places are vulnerable to discrimination when they go to some economically developed coastal provinces to earn a living. In a sense, their hometown is too poor. The rich look down on the poor, and the city people look down on the rural people. This discriminates.

5. Regional discrimination is also a reflection of the consciousness of small farmers.

China has been in an agricultural society for a long time and has formed a deep-rooted consciousness and psychology of small farmers. The typical reflection of smallholder consciousness and smallholder psychology in interpersonal relationships is discrimination between families due to family identity, and rural discrimination due to identification with the countryside. On the surface, regional discrimination shows that people in cities look down on rural people, and people in developed areas look down on people in backward areas, but in its bones and deep down, it is still the peasant psychology at work.

(This image shows that a certain university only admits local students, and does not consider other regions’ students at all.)

Social harm

The social harm of regional discrimination is obvious. Taking Northeast and Henan as examples, regional discrimination not only deprives some people of their right to subsistence to a certain extent, and creates social injustice, but it also tends to cause some low-quality people to breed criminal psychology, thus posing new harm to society. If a China with a population of 1.3 billion, hundreds of millions of people are treated unfairly, the “explosive force” these people will produce after being provoked is conceivable. Therefore, we must take precautions and attach great importance to regional discrimination.

Regionaldiscrimination is contrary to the concepts of fairness, equality, and justice advocated by modern society, and it is not conducive to the protection of human rights. Any society, let alone development, is also the basic foundation in terms of stability. A fair society has at least three levels of fairness: one is the fairness of the starting point, the other is the fairness of the process, and the third is the fairness of the result. If a person is in a situation of being discriminated against, it will have a negative psychological impact on the individual, and even make the individual take some extreme acts of revenge against society. We want to build a harmonious society, and regional discrimination will breed some potential social contradictions, which can easily bring some negative effects to a harmonious society.

First, in China, regional discrimination is not conducive to building a fair, just, and harmonious society. Regional discrimination violates the basic principles of fairness and justice, is unfair to the discriminated person, and lacks justice. Contempt of the dialect on the bus, some shops put up signs not to sell goods from a certain place, and the recruiting unit claimed that they did not want people from a certain place. In 2011, a Shenzhen police station pulled out a large banner to “resolutely crack down on Henan extortion gangs” and other regional discrimination. Phenomena are all illegal acts that are contrary to fairness and justice.

Second, regional discrimination is not conducive to building a harmonious society of honesty and friendship. Integrity requires members of society to consciously abide by social rules, rules and regulations, and public order. Friendship emphasizes the need to advocate equality, fraternity, and harmony among all people in the whole society.

Third, regional discrimination is not conducive to the formation of a social situation in which everyone does their best, gets what they can, and lives in harmony. Regional discrimination will make society a state that is difficult to integrate. After the intensification of contradictions, it can easily lead to a state of tearing in the society, which is what sociologists call “fractured society.” A “fractured society” can never be a harmonious society.

So what should we do?

1. When you are subject to regional discrimination, it means that you are competing for a certain resource with the discriminator. In many cases, the discriminators are the real disadvantaged, because they can do nothing but verbal attack.

2. I agree with and appreciate many people’s peace of mind for years and years, but I still hope that young people have the courage to face confrontation and competition. Contradictions are not terrible, and there is nothing wrong with doing something that is labeled “others”. The most terrifying thing is lying in one’s own comfortable circle, trapped by the verbal and moral shackles of others, willing to be a victim of conflicts in-group interests, and when someone points out a problem, he has to jump out to defend the perpetrator and say that he is in harmony with the perpetrator. Everyone gets along well.

3. Everyone has discrimination in their hearts, but education and life experience will make us calm and restrained when we want to discriminate against others. As far as the discriminated person is concerned, we must be self-reliant, improve our own quality, strive to change our own image, and use actions to change the prejudices of others.

4. As far as the country is concerned. The most fundamental thing to oppose regional discrimination is to rely on development, especially to speed up the development of backward areas, so as to gradually narrow the regional gap.

Reference:

http://k.sina.com.cn/article_6421091740_17eba159c00100b3zf.html

https://www.360kuai.com/pc/9e3459ef8e490d406?cota=4&tj_url=so_rec&sign=360_57c3bbd1&refer_scene=so_1

http://news.163.com/special/reviews/placist.html

https://www.zhihu.com/question/23447238

Zhang, Ran. “Media, litigation, and regional discrimination in college admission in China.” Chinese Education & Society 43.4 (2010): 60-74.

Peng, Altman Yuzhu. “Amplification of regional discrimination on Chinese news portals: An affective critical discourse analysis.” Convergence (2020): 1354856520977851.

 

Diary of Systemic Injustices: Lookism

by

It may seem an ugly truth to some that beautiful people are often more successful than plain ones. But now appearance has emerged as a new form of discrimination in legal disputes. Some claim that lookism is a new form of racism that should be banished from civilized society. Discrimination based on ugliness is no different from discrimination based on race or disability. But it is hard for lookism to rise to political theory because it shields itself from fatal unreasonableness, but most of the public follow blindly, and the so-called lie told a thousand times becomes the preconceived correct truth. In South Korea, looks not only affect employment and promotion, but also a person’s social status and interpersonal relationships, far more than society can tolerate. The first and most obvious way in society to dominate the self-esteem of others is through the expectation of appearance, which may vary from culture to culture. Ortiz-Cofer strongly proved this at the beginning of her story, explaining that she “was a white girl born in Puerto Rico, but became a brown girl when she came to the United States to live.” How her relative perceptions vary from location to location affects the way she labels herself. On the one hand, “lookism” discriminates against those with less than perfect appearance, which has a great impact on their study, life and employment. On the other hand, people who can afford to reshape their appearance and eliminate feelings of inferiority tend to discriminate against those who can’t, exacerbating their feelings of inferiority and psychological stress. This kind of lookism theory inevitably involves the presence of others, and these differences often provide a pernicious basis when it comes to how others see us. For those labeled as “others,” the struggle and burden of physical and mental growth are inherently more difficult. Otis-Cofer details this phenomenon in her novel The Story of My Body, where she demonstrates that as an ‘other’ she faced countless struggles and difficulties in self-image and growing up that no one in her generation had to face. As Otis-Cofer says, the good-looking people don’t have to deal with this, and it’s unfair to the other.

Lisa Ko and ‘The Leavers’ (Week 11)

by

‘The Leavers’ mainly tells the story of a little boy who was abandoned by a Chinese mother in the United States. The reason why Lisa Ko wrote this novel is that she read in the “New York Times” a story about an illegal immigrant entering the United States. Lisa was attracted by this story and she wanted to try to understand why her parents had to deal with each other when immigrating. The children are separated and the children are adopted by other families.

This novel is based on many true stories about Lisa Ko, as well as her own life experiences and thoughts. She noticed that most of the immigration stories came from real, non-fictional stories, so she wrote a story about a Chinese boy who was abandoned by his mother in the United States with the background of fictional towns in New York and China.

Lisa Ko is undoubtedly thinking about the emotions and problems of the characters in the story, which is an accurate description based on her personal experience. Lisa Ko was born into an immigrant family in Queens, New York. She grew up in an American family but has Asian descent because moving to the United States from an Asian country has a great influence on her identity and lifestyle. Ko has been struggling because she became a minority in the United States, and her struggle as a minority seems to help shape the true portrayal of the characters, just like Deming in the story she wrote. As a young boy, Deming had an ambivalent sense of identity, so he returned to Manhattan ten years later and started looking for his mother Polly and clues to prove his identity. So Ko wrote this novel because she wanted to let immigrants recognize her identity through her identity and cultural beliefs as an Asian American.

Messer, Miwa. “Lisa Ko on Immigration and the Inspiration for ‘The Leavers.’” The Barnes & Noble Review, The Barnes & Noble Review, 21 July 2017, https://www.barnesandnoble.com/review/lisa-ko-immigration-inspiration-leavers.