Author: thomas.4710

Diary of Systemic Injustice Showcase: Hairstyle and Culture Discrimination

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In this week of systemic racism I will be talking about how businesses, religions, and sporting events are racist against specific African American hairstyles, specifically dread locks. The instance I will be talking about specifically is the Andrew Johnson high school wrestling incident. Andrew Johnson was forced to cut his dread locks in the middle of a wrestling match because of a Caucasian referee enforcing a rule that states hair can not be to0
long to wrestle and can not interfere with certain wrestling moves.
This rule and referee are both forms of racism. Dread locks are apart of who Andrew Johnson was before he had to cut them to continue participating in the sport he grew up playing and loves. He had spent years growing his hair, it was part of his culture, his identity, and who he was as a person. Yet, a racist rule and a racist referee made Andrew Johnson feel very embarrassed, and caused him to lose part of who he was as a person. These rules need to end as they are part of systemic racism.
As a society we much understand that African American hairstyles are a part of their society, culture, and identity, and we must not make unfair and racist rules and laws that are prejudice towards African American hairstyles, just like we don’t have laws against white hairstyles. Jobs have also been prejudice and racist against hiring African Americans with dreads as they view them as low class and this needs to end as well. As a society we must work to accept and appreciate African American hairstyles and end systemic and all racism against them.
Hairstyles from any person, of any color, of any representation should be embraced and accepted.  Hair is a way to express ourselves and no types of racism or oppression should be against hair.  No jobs or positions should be not hiring or firing a person based on their hair style.  Hair styles of all people from all backgrounds need to be accepted.  We have come too far as a society to still be judging and oppressing people based off how we express ourselves with our hair.  Hair is an expression of our identity and systemic injustice against all hair styles must end.
https://theundefeated.com/features/the-untold-story-of-wrestler-andrew-johnsons-dreadlocks/

The Life of Lisa Ko- H. Thomas (week 11)

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Lisa Ko was born to immigrant parents from China in 1977.  She published her first novel The Leavers in 2016 after working on the novel for eight years.  This novel was a best seller and won many, many awards, including being named novel of the year by the Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly, and NPR.  Lisa Ko was born in part of Queens, New York and struggled growing up being the first member of her family to grow up in the United States.  Ko also struggled with being a person of color in the United States in being in the extreme minority where she grew up.  These struggles are what lead her to the reading, and the writing of fictional novels.  Ko then became frustrated and puzzled by the lack of Asian American representation and story telling told in fiction novels.  She was curious why their was no fictional stories about immigration and the struggles and stories of immigrants so she set out to change that.

 

Lisa Ko’s main inspiration for the novel was an article she read in the New York Times about an immigrant mother who tried to bring her son to the United States as well.  Her son was caught by immigration and taken away from his family.  The son was eventually adopted by a family in Canada and departed from his mother in America permanently.  This was startling and shocking to Lisa Ko so she started to do more research on stories like that.  She found way too many examples of families and children being separated and adopted by other families in Canada and elsewhere after being caught illegally immigrating to the United States.  This can clearly be seen through the characters of Holly who is smuggled into the United States and her son Demming, who become separated.  This is where Lisa Ko’s main inspiration for her characters and novel came from.  Lisa Ko’s novel is incredible in many ways.  For one she spreads awareness on issues within America’s immigration system.  She also writes an Asian American fiction novel which there are an extreme lack of.  And lastly she tells a truly intriguing novel that allows the readers to experience many emotions

 

Memolo, Erika. “About the Author.” MOVING FICTIONS, 18 May 2020, https://sites.udel.edu/movingfictions/theleavers/about-the-author/.

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.