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  The text review I chose to focus on is from a movie called ‘Green Book’. The film is adapted from a real story about bodyguard being hired as the world’s best classical pianist. The pianist will hold a tour from New York and a story of friendship between the two people across race and class is been told. This may related to the course theme of ‘others’ and has connections with people of different races. I always have the opinion that ‘Everyone is an independent individual. We should accept, tolerate and understand the sense of being different from ourselves and respect the value of others’.

  Tony, the bodyguard who was employed by the pianist Don, discriminated against black people from the beginning. This was vividly shown in the film through the scene that he threw the cups which black people used into the trash can. For Don, who had received higher education, his difference was that on the one hand, he really wanted to integrate into the upper class society, but he had to live in hotels designed for black people in the South as shown in the ‘green book’. He hoped to use his talent to strive for more fairness for black people. It is through this journey that the film gives the two characters full and vivid images. Everything about Don is changing Tony’s inherent understanding of black people. In the process of getting along with each other, Don gradually realizes the value of himself.

  We all know that racial discrimination was very serious in the United States in the past few decades. The title ‘green book’ is a theme or hint. From it, we can feel the director’s emotional thread for the film. It is said that the green book truly once existed. It records which hotels, restaurants, bars and other places black people can go in and out. Although racial discrimination is a very serious topic, this film is always expressed in a humorous and interesting rhythm. We’ve learned ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ which is written by Martin Luther King, Jr. this semester. It expressed dissatisfaction for the white middle class and the church, and criticized the power structure. This letter is more like a speech, which can make us realize the tragic treatment of black people in the West. The climax of the film is that Don can’t have meals in the restaurant where he will perform later because of apartheid, which makes it difficult for him to accept. Martin’s letter comes from this. In the southern Birmingham region, even though the US Supreme Court has made it clear that apartheid is unconstitutional, the southern provinces refuse to implement this ruling. We need to be aware of the systematic injustice and that discrimination and injustice have been practiced, repeated and consolidated by generations before they gradually evolve into a widely accepted social reality. Man becomes himself only in his social relations, in his relations with other men, in his mutual recognition; An isolated person cannot be a real person. We should respect others and love each other.

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Book_(film)

The graphic novel, American Born Chinese, is a story divided into 3 distinct storylines that blend into one final story that uses both realistic and fantastical ideas. The graphic novel begins with Jin, a Chinese-American boy, struggling to fit in, the ‘Monkey King’, a fantasy-like deity with some similarities to Chinese traditional fables, and Danny, a caucasian alter-ego to Jin. After moving to a new city, Jin is ostracized because of his race, and begins to hate other Asians out of fear of losing his already minimal popularity. In the second storyline, the caucasian Danny, later revealed to be Jin’s fantastical alter-ego, struggles to maintain his popular status as his cousin Chin, a racist caricature of Asian men, moves in with him. Finally, the Monkey King character serves as a test of character for Jin and helps affirm his identity as a Chinese American.

Overall, this graphic novel depicts struggles with identity. Jin struggles with his Asian identity throughout the novel, even forcing himself to create a white alter-ego to himself. This internalized hate causes him to despise other Asian Americans in an effort of self-preservation. The text also highlights the complexity of the Asian American experience, as the Taiwanese-born Wei-Chen and the American-born Jin struggle to understand the other’s identity in contrast to their own.  This has similarities to Lisa Ko’s The Leavers, as both Jin and Deming, Asian boys in the US, struggle to balance their identities as American and Chinese. In the way Daniel rebels against his white adopted parents and explores his Chinese heritage by travelling to Fuzhou, Jin learns to accept his Asian identity and forfeit his caucasian alter-ego, both reaching an understanding of their complex identities.

Regarding power dynamics and injustice, Asian Americans are “Othered” as a white student forces Jin to not date a white girl, teachers intentionally mispronounce and mock Asian names, and Asians are repeated victims of racist remarks from other students. Also, Asian culture, including language and cuisine, are seen as ‘weird’ by white students. In this way, white students are assumed to be the ‘default’, while Asian students are bullied through the above methods into accepting the lie of their cultural ‘inferiority’. De Beauvoir defines “Othering” as the ‘One’ being the default, forcing the ‘Other’ to view themselves as inferior, in a similar way to this graphic novel.

Overall, I believe the author wants the reader to contemplate how Americans view Asian culture, the “Othering” of Asians in power dynamics, and how Asian Americans develop a sense of identity. How can we understand the identities of Asian Americans and immigrants? Which ethnicities have access to power in the US, and which do not? How can the US minimize injustice and racism? These questions are prompted by this complex work.

(Yang and Pien)

Works Cited

“American Born Chinese.” Macmillan, 20 July 2021, https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780312384487/americanbornchinese.

De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. Vintage Classic, 2015.

Ko, Lisa. The Leavers. Little, Brown, 2018.

Yang, Gene Luen, and Lark Pien. American Born Chinese. First Second, 2021.

CCoThe new Netflix series, Colin In Black and White, does a splendid job capturing the harsh reality of racism that can take place even within a family unit. Directed by Colin Kaepernick, it is a personal narrative of demonstrated injustice throughout his childhood. The show flips between his childhood and him narrating his adulthood in the “eyes” of his youth. Colin is black, yet he is raised by white parents who do not see the world from his point of view. For example, a doorman asks his parents, “Are you two okay?” when getting into the elevator with a Black boy who is their son. Or, when a cop pulls Colin over when he’s driving with his (white) parents in the car for no reason, just to make sure the white couple was “okay”. These are examples of terrible situations that Colin and his parents are put in, simply because he is Black and racist outsiders are quick to make assumptions. 

Although his mother is pretty insensitive to Black culture, such as in the way she refers to Colin’s braids as “unprofessional” and “trashy”, the viewer gets to witness how Colin’s parents adjust to these racial experiences. This is similar to the way that in Lisa Ko’s The Leavers, the main character Deming’s name is changed to Daniel in order to sound more “American”. Colin’s mother would rather have her son cut his hair short, instead of embracing his culture with appropriate hair, because she is trying to minimize the fact that he is not white. She does not want to draw attention to it because even though she is not blatantly racist, she still carries a lot of institutionalized bias as a white woman. Her son is different from her, making her want to change Colin’s cultural identity.

There are many encounters of culture and identity throughout the series as the main character aspires to become quarterback of his football team. The show’s team does a fantastic job at leaving the viewer with many cringey, inherently racist scenes that make you want to fix the injustice for the sake of everyone involved. Ultimately, the show leaves you with the following questions: His parents probably aren’t blatantly racist or they would not have adopted a Black son, so why do they look down on his cultural interest? How can we educate all students on diversity of appearance? How can we reform the police system so that racist, unreasonable arrests/ pull-overs stop happening? This work was a powerful way to open up conversations about what we can do as students, athletes, future parents, and future employees or employers, to minimize that gap of judgment between cultural identities. 

Sources: 

DuVernay A. & Kaepernick C., creators. Colin In Black and White. Array Filmworks, 2021

The text review I chose to focus on is from a movie called The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, which is about a Jewish boy growing up in a concentration camp in Germany.  This touches on the injustices of racism, we could also look at it as a form of “othering”.  Even though this was a fictional single story, it was a powerful one and left people wanting to learn more about the marginalization of Germany.

I can remember when I was a young girl and my brother was showing me pictures of mounds and mounds of dead bodies, bodies in wheelbarrows, bodies lined up on dirt ground.  Stripped naked and lifeless black and white Polaroid’s. He had explained to me our great grandfather had given them to our father and it was a part of the holocaust.  I don’t know that I was ever so stunned before in my life, I remember feeling so sorry and hearing him tell me they all died because they were Jewish and the leader Adolf Hitler was worshiped over and all the Germans did as he said, they even had their own special solute for this particular leader.

As we have learned over this course the different cultures, intercultural relationships, Identity, injustice, races, religious backgrounds and what all of this looks like when wrapped up in the power of the wrong hands, in this case it cost many lives of humans that did not look a particular way.  Adolf started out life in a lower socioeconomic class and grew threw becoming a German soldier then socialist group leader for an organization abbreviated Nazi.  He claimed to want to lead the Aryan race to world supremacy, which he attempted to do so through dictatorship and was able to do so for 11 years.  The Nazis grew larger and overtook the Jews where they were forced to work or die mostly by gas chambers, many starved to death.  We read something similar to this with a single story of Marjane Satrapi and the struggles they were facing if they did not agree with the new government. Injustices like these force people to migrate for a better life, I can remember being a young nurse, 20 years ago, I sat with a patient who had numbers tattooed on his arm, he explained it was from the holocaust and he was so very lucky to escape and start fresh right here in Columbus Ohio. His story was intriguing explaining the identity crisis he had when first moving here and feeling guilt for making it out. He claimed prior to this his nationality was thick and now he has had to restart a new life, he said he fit in fairly well however he did have mass intercultural encounters that made him feel so lonely until he met his wife.

So what I am trying to show here is even though multiple levels of immigration and culture shock existed it was not as unbearable as his dictatorship ran country that starved/gassed their people for not looking a certain way.

references:

History.com Editors. (2020, August 3). Hitler becomes dictator of Germany. HISTORY. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/hitler-becomes-fuhrer

Katznelson, I. (2017, October 3). What America Taught the Nazis in the 1930s. The     Atlantic.https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/what-america-taught-the-nazis/540630/

I have chosen to analyze a literary work by Nicholas Sparks called, “The Wish.” This book analyzes how a woman who lives in a very well-known city of Seattle, is forced to move to a very remote town where she must overcome the differences of the socioeconomic classes to fit in with the rest of the way that the town lives. However, once these differences are overcome, she falls in love with a man who lives there and considers this small new town her new home for life. Although this main character Maggie comes from a wealthy big city, she is upset at first for her parents making her move to a much poorer small town which much less to do, she begins to appreciate what the town and the people have to offer.

I feel this book also relates to what we have learned about in this course so far concerning the idea of the “Others.” When Maggie first arrives to the small town, she considers herself the “One” and the rest of the town as the “Others” because she feels her socioeconomic status puts her at a much higher scale compared to rest of the town. However, this idea quickly changes once she learns how the socioeconomic status of each person does not matter but rather the genuine quality of the person and how they treat her as a new person of their town.

Overall, this book is great story and truly shows how a simple injustice such as socioeconomic class does not reflect the quality of the person but rather is just a small meaning to the person. Once Maggie moves to this much smaller town, she begins to appreciate the true beauty of both it and the people in it. She no longer considers herself better, “The One,” once she learns more about the town and each person who lives there.