In October 2020, Netflix released an original series called The Queens Gambit. There is only one season of the show released so far, however there is talk of another season coming out soon. The show takes place during the late 1950’s through 1960’s. It starts with the main character, Beth, an 8-year-old who is in an orphanage. The orphanage, however, gives the girls tranquilizers to keep them calm. During her time there, she makes friends with the janitor, and he teaches her how to play chess. They both soon learn that Beth is an amazing chess player, and it is all she thinks about. At the age of 13, she gets adopted by a couple from Lexington. Shortly after Beth moves in with them, she starts entering chess competitions. She is a 13-year-old girl playing against snobby men who are much older than she is. They did not think Beth had a chance, but she won the whole competition. From then on, she would travel all around the country, and even the world, to compete and kept winning. Throughout the show she has many encounters she faces and overcomes, which leads up to when Beth competes in the World Championship at the end of the show and wins.

Beth starts the show with nothing. She doesn’t know who she is or what she wants to do with her life. In the orphanage the staff was trying to stop that from happening. They used their power over the girls to surprise them and stop them from being their creative 8-year-old selves. The girls would become addicted and later in Beth’s life and through chess competitions it was something she had to work through. What I think helped Beth find her identity the most was the men she competed against.  Everyone looked down upon her. Especially because during this time no other girls or women played chess. It was a man’s game. She was also in a lower social class than these men in the beginning. She didn’t have the appropriate clothes for contest, and she would also be judged because of that. The more games she won the more people started to respect her. She would win cash prizes and created a name for herself. She made friends with other well-respected chess players, and soon everyone in the chess community knew who she was.

What is important to take away from Beth’s story and journey is to never let anyone’s opinion stop you from being the best version of yourself. She overcame gender inequality, which was a huge deal especially during this time. After coming from nothing, she was able to make a living for herself and take care of her mother while traveling. She found her identity and grew as a person which is something we all can admire.

Frank, S., & Scott, A. (Writers). The Queens Gambit. (Season 1) 2020. Netflix.

Recently, a school district in Utah is under investigation dude to a large amount of racial harassment against Black and Asian American students. The investigation showed accounts of physical and verbal assault towards the kids along with hundreds of documented uses of the N word. These terrible acts of racial discrimination and harassment have been going on for the past 5 years according to the investigation. Many of the students also spoke to the authorities and stated that many of the white students also make comments to them about the color of their skin. These comments went as far as “go pick cotton” and “you are my slave”. Also, many of the Black and Asian American students were punished in classrooms more harshly than their other peers. This school district’s behavior is sickening. They are not only harassing and discriminating against these students, but they are teaching the kids that this behavior is okay. The school needs to rethink their approach to teaching and the teachers preforming these actions need to be held accountable. The kids have a right to feel safe in their own school and deserve to be treated the same as everyone else. The harassment that has taken place also affects the kids learning. This is a prime example of systemic injustice because the school district is not doing anything to stop the racist behavior. The school district needs to teach their students to be accepting of all people no matter their gender race or religion. This system in this school is in just and everyone found to be a part of this in the investigation needs to be held accountable. This story relates to the story The Leavers and how Daniel felt in school. Daniel is an Asian American raised by immigrant parents. In school he didn’t have many friends and felt that he was looked down upon from his teachers and peers. There are many other schools besides the one in Utah where racism takes place. Many times, these actions can be brushed under the rug or overlooked. There needs to be more coverage of these instances within school districts so that they can be held accountable, so no kid has to ever be hurt and discriminated against.

Works cited

Ko, Lisa. The Leavers. Dialogue Books, 2018.

Whitehurst, Lindsay. “’Widespread’ Racial Harassment Found at Utah School District.” AP NEWS, Associated Press, 22 Oct. 2021, https://apnews.com/article/education-race-and-ethnicity-racial-injustice-utah-salt-lake-city-ddbbc8596f1c05f617e31ea3fcfa5dc9.

The story “Recitatif” by Toni Morrison is a story about two girls and the journey of their friendship over the course of many years. In the beginning of the story, the narrator named Twyla is moving into an orphanage St. Bonny’s. Her mother was still alive she but she “danced all night” and therefore unable to take care of her. Twyla was introduced to her roommate Roberta, who was of a different race than her own, and they were not the best of friends at first. Twyla said, “It was one thing to be taken out of your bed early in the morning-it was something else to be stuck in a strange place with a girl from a whole other race (Morrison, 1983).”. She also explained that this was taught by her mother. Twyla said her mother told her “…they never wash their hair and they smelled funny (Morrison, 1983).”. Roberta also had a mother that was unable to take care of her, but Roberta did not seem to think sharing a room with Twyla was a problem. When reading this it shows how the racism is learned from their parents and has a very big impact on these girls of such a young age. I saw the same type of learned behavior when reading Letter from Birmingham by Dr. Martin Luther King. A five-year-old boy asked his father, “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean? (King,1993)”. These young kids are curious and are not biased based on the color of a person’s skin. It is only once they are taught not to like someone that then they believe it too.

Twyla and Rebecca were not included by the other girls at St. Bonny’s, so they became better friends. They stuck together and kept to themselves because they did not want to be bullied by the older girls. They even introduced their moms to each other, but it did not go well. As they got older and left St. Bonny’s they ran into each other a few different times over the course of many years. They were of different social classes and lived different types of lifestyles. Each time seemed to be a different type of encounter. The first time Rebecca did not hardly speak to Twyla. Then a few years later they met, and Rebecca wanted to go coffee and hear all about Twyla’s life. Another few years later they started to have an argument about what happened in their past at St. Bonny’s. They friendship and fighting over the course of their life goes back to the way they were taught about race at a young age. Twyla was taught not to like Rebecca. While they were living together, she learned that she liked being friends with her and race didn’t matter. Once they grew up and not the same social class, they saw the world and issues in their different perspectives. At the end they talked about when one of the workers that was beat. They both remembered it very differently because they saw the world when they were little different than once they grew up and had opinions of their own.

Sources

King, Martin Luther. Letter from the Birmingham Jail. Harper San Francisco, 1993.

Morrison, Toni. “Recitatif.” 1983, https://osu.instructure.com/courses/106813/files/33418722?module_item_id=6554301