Author: zhang.11887

Text Review: Fresh Off the Boat

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Fresh Off the Boat is the first network TELEVISION sitcom to feature an Asian-American family in the US in more than 20 years. The series portrays a Chinese-American family living as immigrants in Florida in the 1990s. The show is a true-to-life, in-depth look at mainstream Stereotypes of Asian-Americans in the United States, addressing controversial issues with humor while also entertaining viewers with plenty of comedy. This American drama is based on the memoir of Eddie Huang, has been released in 2018 to the fifth season, Eddie is the narrator of this drama, the background music of the whole drama is quite hip-hop, very rhythmic. The series revolves around Eddie Huang’s family, who want to integrate into American society while maintaining some traditional culture. In a community full of white people, it’s a natural conflict of stories, so there are a lot of funny jokes, most of which are related to Chinese culture.

This film describes the difference and collision of eastern and western cultures and uses the stereotype of the Chinese to show us all kinds of troubles they will encounter in life as immigrants. In this movie, I saw That Eddie felt upset and puzzled about his special identity since he was young. When the students laughed at the Chinese food he brought or Eddie’s love for hip hop music, they all showed a young person pursuing his own identity. Another scene that deeply affected me was when foreign friends said that they had forgotten that this family was Chinese, and my mother was anxious to carry out a Chinese cultural revival at home, speaking Chinese and eating Chinese food. Although it is a comedy, you may feel sadder after laughing. For immigrant families, the real difficulty is how to integrate into the mainstream culture of a foreign country. But fortunately, the protagonist’s family never gives up and uses their unique wisdom and humor to resist and resolve the injustice around them.

After watching the TV series, I can see some young children searching for their identity in confusion, and I can also see some systematic injustice against immigrants. But unlike the stories we have read in previous classes, this series takes the form of comedy and lighthearted immigrant life with an optimistic attitude.

“Yo, Is This Racist?” By Xiaonan Zhang, Yufan Duan, and GUOQUAN WANG

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Systemic injustice in the workplace

Introduction

Employment discrimination refers to the legal purpose and no legal reasons based on race, color, religion, politics, nation, social origin, gender, household registration, disability or health status, age, height, body language, and so on reasons, to take such as discrimination, exclusion, or give preferential measures of any violation of the equal rights. Discrimination, in short, means treating people unequally. In this article, we will look at some examples of systemic injustice in the workplace and discuss the harm it causes, then through some of our analyses to illustrate how to correct this situation.

How Most Chinese Companies’ Work Patterns Destroy Employees? (Guoquan Wang)

When it comes to the Chinese work model, we have to talk about the 996 work model. 996 is a work schedule where employees start at 9 am and finish at 9 pm and work six days a week. In addition to the regular working hours, there may be extra overtime hours and overtime pay that does not match the overtime hours. Some people may think it is a good thing to get paid for how much work they do. At the same time, many companies are using a communist value of labor to implement capitalism. The result is a squeeze on employees and vicious competition. The beneficiary is the company and the society as a whole is the bearer. In the former case, Japan, a series of social problems arose from the massive overtime work. Problems include low fertility rate, unmarried people, Low happiness, aging, and shortage of workers due to the drastic reduction of the young population. In addition, the consequence will also inhibit the development of the service industry, because employees earn money but no time to consume services. If you agree with 996, it is the same as materializing people. What is materialized people? It is not treating a person as a person, not as a person who has life, feelings, subjective will, and possibly his or her own limitations. Rather, it is to see a person as an object, a thing that can be manipulated, placed, occupied, or casually discarded as needed. And this objectification deals with huge destruction to our human opportunity and ability to experience happiness and joy. Certainly, companies will blur the concepts involved and transmit to employees the notion that hard work equals work overtime equals high pay as a justification. Once the problem is identified, the most important thing is to solve it. Employees need to properly protest and take legal action to protect their interests.

 

How does race factor into system injustice in the workplace? (Yufan Duan)

Diversity, equity, and inclusion have become a hot topic for companies with more attention from the public regarding the issues of injustice in the workplace. Employees indicate that they demand diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

However, injustice in the workplace is a common issue since about 20% of workers in the United States have experienced workplace bully and discrimination. For this section, I would like to talk about the reasons behind injustice in the workplace, especially due to race factors. According to Gallup data, about 25% of black workers have reported that they have encountered discrimination at work.

For example, on September 21, 2019, CNN reported serious racism at General Motor’s factory in Toledo, Ohio. At least nine employees sued the company for horrible racism in the workplace. There were KKK’s nooses hanging at the factory with slogans of “White-Only” near the restroom. One of the employees who is African American complained that he was verbally threatened by one white employee to go back to his country. When he reported the issue to General Motors, he was told that if he wants to keep his job he should keep quiet. GM replied to the angry public through Twitter “This is not us. We have zero tolerance for any racial discrimination. We are. Efforts are being made to clear this situation out of GM.”

There is still a long way to go to solve the injustice in the workplace and change the stereotypes against certain groups due to their races. Companies need to have regulations against racism in the workplace as well as efforts to enforce diversity and inclusion.

 

How does discrimination at work affect the company? (Xiaonan Zhang)

Often when we talk about discrimination, our behavior is influenced by stereotypes of certain groups or individuals.  Unfair discrimination often occurs when we assume that everyone in a group is the same, that is, we don’t see individual differences. Such discriminatory views often do great harm to the company itself and its employees. However, there are many cases of discrimination against in each company, and more cases are unknown to the public. Discriminatory behaviors occur frequently, including rude treatment or rejection of those who are discriminated against.

 

Discrimination takes various forms:

  1. Deterrence: To publicly threaten or challenge employees of a specific group
  2.  Ridicule and insult:  From negative stereotypes, sometimes ridicule can have serious consequences.
  3. Ostracism: Some people are constantly denied promotions, social activities, discussions, or informal teaching activities, which may be intentional by others.
  4. Rudeness: Disrespectful treatment includes treating someone in an aggressive manner, constantly interrupting someone, or ignoring their input.

Discrimination can take many forms, and its consequences can vary, depending on differences in the work environment and the personal biases of the members of the workforce. Forms of discrimination such as exclusion and rudeness can be difficult to observe, or simply because the person is unaware of the consequences of his or her actions. Whether intentional or not, discriminatory behavior can have serious consequences for a company, including reduced productivity, reduced employee behavior, negative conflict, and increased employee turnover. Unfair discrimination can also cause qualified candidates to be overlooked in the initial hiring or promotion process. Even if there is no law on company discrimination, there are still many employees who are discriminated against.

 

Possible Solutions

Workplace discrimination puts psychological pressure on people and limits fair and healthy career development. Therefore, the primary goal of a company should be to focus on the physical and mental management of employees and to achieve efficiency through a good corporate culture.

  1. Plan employee salaries properly: In the workplace, the salary of employees is also the condition of unequal treatment. Therefore, it is necessary to plan the salary reasonably so that employees can see that they are respected and valued.
  2. Give employees the opportunity to grow: At any time, the growth of employees is the premise of maintaining the stability of the company’s talents, giving them enough space for growth, so that they can realize the value.
  3. Help employees plan their careers: For employees, many may have no plans for the future. If the enterprise can make reasonable plans according to the personality and ability of employees, it is also a good way to eliminate prejudice.
  4. Provide training and promotion opportunities: For enterprise employees, the most important thing is the training opportunities, only good at improving the training opportunities for employees, so that employees feel valued.
  5. Strengthen regular communication: For some disharmonious employees in the workplace, we must regularly strengthen communication, resolve through communication without regret, and also increase the cohesion of the team.

These solutions can help companies eliminate discrimination and unequal treatment as much as possible, but it is not easy for a company to do well in these aspects. This requires a lot of experience and a mature management system. Therefore, for employees, the most efficient way is to improve their ability and tolerance, to calm down their mentality, and not to be the aggressor and oppressor. People should keep a serious attitude towards all kinds of discrimination. We won’t accept it, but we won’t lose our minds and take extreme actions because of it.

 

Conclusion:

Workplace injustice includes discrimination, harassment, and bullying, which are caused by sociodemographic factors such as gender, disability, race, and etc. The dilemma for all kinds of businesses is how to ensure employees’ rights in certain social issues, particularly sophisticated social, political, and economic issues. One of the topics that might be tough to address is race.

Even while the legislation protects workers from being discriminated against in the job because of their personal qualities, it only applies to specific protected groups. As a result of the loopholes, not every discrimination or unjust treatment is prohibited.

Because no one can control what other people think, businesses and leaders must adopt a code of conduct to minimize bias and discrimination in the workplace. People have the freedom to believe anything they want, but they are not permitted to speak or do whatever they want at work since it may infringe on the rights of others. Bias will sabotage the company’s overall performance and cohesion. To avoid workplace injustice, it is vital to identify the border. The culture of a corporation is critical in combating discrimination. The first step a firm may take to address social problems and, eventually, remove bias is to have a clearly defined set of beliefs and values.

 

References

Citation: https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/16/us/gm-toledo-racism-lawsuit/index.html

 

https://bencrump.com/blog/racial-injustice-in-america/#Black_LGBTQ_Discrimination_in_America Blog in BEN CRUMP trial lawyer for justice, “RACIAL INJUSTICE IN AMERICA”.

Diary of Systemic Injustice Showcase: Racial injustice in the workplace

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In this diary, I will focus on the topic of Injustice in the workplace. According to the reading I found, the environment of the workplace also could be affected by racism and form systemic injustice in one’s life. Studies show that black applicants are relatively less likely to get a job interview in the first place. A Harvard Business School study, for example, showed that both blacks and Asians who have ethnically sounding names were less likely to be called for interviews. However, there are still some difficulties for those black applicants who have jobs like facing microaggressions, stereotypes, discrimination, and/or a hostile work environment. Besides, when they speak out or complain, they often have a fear of getting reprisals. To conclude, I believe this is a kind of single-story referred by Adichie in the before class. Those people always hold a single story for colored communities, which can lead them to make wrong assumptions about others and draw incomplete or inaccurate conclusions. They always set people of color as other people, giving them other identities and prejudice, which makes it impossible for them to estimate the right candidate from a fair perspective. Thus, this kind of view ultimately leads to systematic unfairness in the competition for jobs.

This kind of unbalanced situation leads blacks to various disadvantages in financial, social, and emotional aspects. According to the materials, Black workers earned 62 percent less on average than their white counterparts in 2018. Even worse, black women earn 66 percent less than white male workers. Due to their gender and racial position, black women face harder difficulties. In conclusion, although blacks often put in extra or invisible labor, they were paid less for their work. Thus, I believe the way to improve the current situation is first to protect the labor rights of the black and other oppressed groups by making new laws or policies, which can balance the employment rate for the whole society and improve the fairness of competition. After that, the government should focus on education for the next generation about the concept of racial freedom in long-term development.

 

https://bencrump.com/blog/racial-injustice-in-america/#Black_LGBTQ_Discrimination_in_America

Blog in BEN CRUMP trial lawyer for justice, “RACIAL INJUSTICE IN AMERICA”.

“Can the Subaltern Speak?” by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (week 5)

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Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is a professor of literature and feminist critic at Columbia University. She is also a founding member of the establishment’s Institute for Comparative Literature and Society. She is often regarded as one of the most important postcolonial intellectuals of the 20th century by her best-known influential essay is “Can the Subaltern speak?”, and she has also translated various works by Mahasweta Devi. In 2012, she was awarded the Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy as she was considered a critical theorist and educator who speaks against intellectual colonialism.

In her 1988 essay, Spivak argues that the main problem for the poor and most marginalized is that they have no voice in society and are not able to affect policy debates. Gayatri Spivak’s work focuses on the idea of agency. This paper discusses how western scholars have inadvertently reproduced hegemonic structures in their works. She is a scholar, and she is acutely aware of the difficulties of presuming to speak for the subalterns that she writes about. Her work is typically viewed as a delicate exercise in the analysis of interpretation, focusing on the issues of meaning. Interpretation is crucial work, as it tackles the issue of how to treat subalterns. It is a matter of how to treat them and Spivak takes a stand against a specifically intellectual form of oppression and marginalization.

By the “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, Spivak established herself as a feminist who focuses on women’s history, geography, and class. She is also known as a critic who has feminized and deconstructed notions of deconstruction. As the speaker, she played an important role to point out and critic those unequal in the society by her accurate and vivid words like the sentence that she interprets the relationship between the colonizers and the natives, “White men are saving the brown women from brown men”.

References:

Graham K. Riach. “An Analysis of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s Can the Subaltern Speak?”, 2017

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781912281770/analysis-gayatri-chakravorty-spivak-subaltern-speak-graham-riach

 

MORRIS, ROSALIND C., editor. “Can the Subaltern Speak?: Reflections on the History of an Idea.” Columbia University Press, 2010. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/morr14384.

 

Gayatri C. Spivak’s Biography. Columbia university department of English and Comparative Literature. https://english.columbia.edu/content/gayatri-c-spivak