Author: goldenstein.7

Text Review Assignment: The Hate U Give- Evan Goldenstein

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The Hate U Give is a film that follows the story of an African American girl named Starr Carter. Starr’s family resides in a predominantly African American neighborhood. However, Starr goes to school in a very wealthy and white neighborhood. Starr constantly juggles her life in the two very different places and struggles to find a balance between both. Watch The Hate U Give Streaming Online | Hulu (Free Trial)

The main incident of the film that drives the majority of the story occurs when Starr’s childhood friend, an African American male named Khalil, is driving them together in a car. Khalil is pulled over for no apparent reason and begins getting questioned by a white police officer. He is asked to step out of the car while the officer runs his license. When Khalil reaches into his car for his hairbrush, the officer shoots him in the chest. Starr runs out of the car to help her friend and is then handcuffed while she watches Khalil die. The rest of the film follows the aftermath of the incident for Starr as she struggles with her identity and fights for justice. 

This film relates to Simone De Beuiviors’ othering theory.  Her theory describes how different aspects of society like culture, politics, and economy are what create instances of inequality and lead to the “othering” of certain groups of people. This act against Khalil represents this theory as it shows how African Americans as a group are being completely “othered” by society.  In this film, Khalil and Starr are the ones othered by the white police officer. They are treated differently because of their skin tone. 

Movie Review - 'The Hate U Give' - mxdwn MoviesThe officer assumes Khalil is dangerous and kills him for no reason at all. Khalil becomes a symbol for all African American people. Starr along with many others begin to fight this systemic injustice of how African Americans are treated by police officers. Starr also struggles with her identity as an African American. She attempts to embrace her identity as an African American person but struggles with how people will react to her in a school surrounded by white people. Overall, the treatment Khalil and Starr receive from the officer is an example of othering and is a clear systemic injustice as they are treated differently because of how they look.

“Yo, is This Racist” Podcast- Evan Goldenstein and Davis Rogovich

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Transcript:

Evan: Hello everyone welcome to this edition of the Yo, is this Racist podcast, my name is Evan Goldenstein and today we will be discussing racism, and using the death of George Floyd as well as the vandalsim of the George Floyd statue in Manhattan to delve deeper into racism and more specifically the discrimination of African Americans and the way they are treated in society.

Davis: Hello my name is Davis Rogovich and another topic that we will be discussing on today’s podcast is police brutality and how this affects African Americans.

Evan: Davis if you wouldn’t mind showing our audience a picture of the vandalized statue so they can get an idea of what we’re talking about.

Davis: Yes I can do that, as you guys could see here this is the statue of George Floyd that was created to commemorate and honor him and as you see this is the individual right here that is vandalizing the statue for some reason that I don’t think I’ll ever understand why what are your thoughts on this Evan.

Evan: Yeah that’s overall just disappointing to see and for anyone who needs the background information on this what happened was In May 2020, a white police officer held his knee on an African American man named George Floyd, brutally killing him in the process. This death led to nationwide riots supporting the Back Lives Matter movement. These riots spread to over two thousand cities in over 60 countries. Some of these riots were peaceful but some resulted in violence and looting. This event led to police officers using violence against these people in the protests. 

Davis: This was just a really disappointing incident that took place and it’ll go down in American history as not a very good thing that America will be proud of ever and yeah I mean I’m sure everybody listening is aware of what happened but I mean what it led to the violence that clearly Americans were fed up with unarmed African-Americans being killed and yeah just something that will go down in history that is not a good look on America and clearly needs to be changed. 

Evan: Yeah, In my opinion, the vandalism of the statue was clearly a racist act. The statue was vandalized by a white man as you guys saw in the picture. This makes me think that this man didnt respect the black lives movement or what George Floyd symbolized for African Americans. This is a clear systemic injustice as these types of actions are deeply ingrained in society and there are still many people who don’t believe in the true equality of all and will try to bring others down. The vandalism of this statue is very upsetting and shows that there is still work to be done to eradicate systemic injustices like these. Something I also wanted to mention was about how this whole incident with George Floyd makes me think back to Dr. Martin Luther King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail where in this letter he was discussing the inherent nature of segregation he sees in society. 

Davis: Yeah and if I remember correctly he also talks about his resentment towards the white clergy for not having the courage to stand up and say that like this is wrong that you know African Americans not being treated fairly and not being seen as whole, whole people and that they’re seen as less is wrong and that the white population should have been standing up for them seeing like following their morals.

Evan: Yeah I definitely agree, this negative treatment of African American people has clearly been present in our nation for a long time and is something that we need to work towards eradicating. The full equality of all in my opinion should be a priority of our nation. We need to do our best to try to erase  systemic injustices like these and try to clear racist attitudes towards African American people. The vandalism of the statue as well as the death of George Floyd and the overall treatment  African Americans receive by police officers is utterly unacceptable and shows that there are still people who don’t view African Americans the same as everyone else and are treating them with racist intent. And I think Davis you can talk more about police brutality of African Americans. 

Davis: Yeah before I get into that I just wanted to say about the statue being vandalized that that is just a symbol that is very disgusting to me I mean like I said prior that that statues there to honor George Floyd and honor his family and what they had to go through that they experienced such a brutal loss because you know of the racist culture in American and the fact that they can’t even have their statue honored, it’s just disgusting to me so yeah it’s it’s a lot that needs to be done in America to fix this issue. 

Evan: To talk about this further George Floyd, the reason I think he was killed by the white police officer is because of the implicit bias of many officers in our nation which means that many of these officers already have it in their head without realizing it that African-Americans maybe are more like criminals or are more prone to commit crimes which is some of the reasons why there are committing these acts of violence against them.

Davis: Yeah implicit bias, I mean that is the issue here is that you know all these African Americans are just being seen as almost quote unquote more dangerous than other individuals and that’s the problem with these officers is that they have it set in their head that these individuals are dangerous just because of the color of their skin which is just such a terrible misconception and that’s kind of I want to get into a change that needs to be made America is that clearly these police officers need more training and I’m going to get into it later but there’s some other individuals George Floyd is certainly not the first unarmed African-American to be killed at the hands of police but I mean I’ll just go into it right now but I’m not sure if anybody’s familiar with Eric Garner I mean I’m sure people are but here’s another African American individual that was killed at the hands of police and I mean I’m just going to read something here it says Garner repeated the words I can’t breathe 11 times while lying face down on the sidewalk after Garner lost consciousness he remained laying on the sidewalk for 7 minutes while the officers waited for an ambulance to arrive, Garner was pronounced dead at an area hospital approximately one hour later, I mean I know I didn’t give much background on this but anyways Garner was placed in a Chokehold by a police officer after he was convicted of selling cigarettes illegally I mean just the fact that that leads to his death is just despicable and I can’t even think like it’s very disturbing and clearly I mean the fact that somebody choked him out to death when he screams I can’t breathe 11 times and eventually ends up dying and I mean like I said for selling cigarettes illegally it’s just very disturbing.

Evan: Yeah it’s definitely saddening to hear and something I would like your thoughts on is what do you think we can do to have these officers act the right way do you think there needs to be harsher punishments for them, do you think they need more training or is this something that is just going to very difficult for us to rid from our nation.

Davis: Yeah I mean you just mentioned two things that definitely 100% need to be put into place I mean the first thing you’ve mentioned was harsher punishments I mean I didn’t even mention but the police officer that ended up killing Garner was not charged, not charged decided to not indict the police officer they didn’t indict him and I just don’t understand how that’s even possible I can’t even wrap my head around it so yeah these police officers are getting away with this which is putting a bad image and other police officers think that this is I don’t want to say the word acceptable but almost acceptable I mean that the fact that he could put somebody in a Chokehold and have Garner scream 11 times I can’t breathe and have no punishment it’s disgusting but yeah so definitely the one thing you mentioned was harsher punishments I mean he should definitely be criminally charged and then another thing that you mentioned was training I mean one thing I hear is defund the police I don’t necessarily agree with that I almost think they need more money to train these police that clearly are not going through the proper training it’s very interesting and a very two sided argument I don’t really want to get too much into that but yeah I mean definitely need more training on these police officers.

Evan: Yeah I definitely agree with all of those points that you just made and after talking about all this something that just it made me think back to was Simone De Beuviors othering theory and after talking about this, this act against the George Floyd statue represents this theory as it shows how African Americans are being completely “othered” by society. The white man who vandalized the statue is an example of someone doing this as he didn’t accept what the statue stood for and felt the need to vandalize it out of pure discrimination and hate towards African American people. And to wrap up this podcast Davis I wanted to just ask you one question, what is your final definition of what racism means.

Davis: Yeah that is a great question actually I mean it kind of relates to the statement you just said about othering, othering is treating people differently and treating them as an other not somebody like yourself which is basically related to racism so basically where I’m getting at is that my definition of racism would be that you treat someone differently because of their skin tone because they’re not like you or because you don’t like their race, so that would be my basic definition of racism I mean I know there’s a lot more that goes into this but that would be my basic simple definition.

Evan: Yeah that’s definitely something to think about and that makes me wonder the question, let’s say George Floyd was white, would he still have been killed, I don’t know, that’s kind of where the racism is involved in this and to give my definition of racism I have that it is simply a person showing a negative bias or hatred towards another person or group of people because they are not the same as them whether that be skin color or race and treating them as others in society without full equality. The person who vandalized the George Floyd statue was clearly committing an act of racism as he was showing his hatred towards African Americans and displayed that he doesn’t respect them as equals or support the movement that George Floyd stood for.

Davis: Yeah I totally agree and I really think you had a lot of good stuff to say Evan, it was nice doing this podcast with you and I hope our audience enjoyed listening.

Evan: You as well and that’s the end of our podcast, thanks for listening. 

Works Cited:

“Eric Garner Dies in NYPD Chokehold.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 15 July 2020, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/eric-garner-dies-nypd-chokehold.

Garcia, Kristine, et al. “Suspect Arrested in George Floyd Statue Vandalism in Union Square.” PIX11, PIX11, 27 Oct. 2021, https://pix11.com/news/local-news/manhattan/suspect-arrested-george-floyd-statue-vandalism-union-square/.

Week 13 Context Presentation “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”- Evan Goldenstein

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Certain events in history have had a major impact on how people of different cultures treat each other in America. Throughout the novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid the main character Changez, a Pakistani man, discusses his life in America and what changed after 9/11. Changez describes an enormous surge in patriotism and illustrates how people treated him differently than before. He receives increased airport security checks and insults from strangers. This eventually leads to Changez losing his job and returning to Pakistan. Changez’s experience in America after 9/11 demonstrates a larger picture of how Muslim’s and Arab’s have had to deal with increased hostility and discrimination.

Muslims, Arabs, and people of similar culture have experienced a different America post 9/11. These people began to receive increased discrimination and racism and became stereotyped as “terrorists.” Mona Amer, a Muslim woman living in America described how “She felt the relentless stares of strangers everywhere she went. I received horrid emails, including death threats” (Mekouar, 1). This is another example of a Muslim person receiving discrimination and hate from people around her simply because of her religion and appearance. The views of Americans on Arab people have changed immensely. “A poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research conducted ahead of the 9/11 anniversary found that 53% of Americans have unfavorable views toward Islam” (Fam, 4). This statistic is extremely disappointing as it shows that a very large portion of Americans have negative views on people from Islam which can make it very uncomfortable for these people to feel like they belong in America.

The way these people are being treated relates back to Simone de Beauvoir’s theory of the othering. Muslims and people of similar culture have become othered by society. Anan Hafez, a Muslim man who lives in America perfectly described how his people are being othered. He described that “The othering of Muslims since 9/11 has had a long-term impact on the lives of Muslim Americans and their sense of belonging and inclusion in the fabric of American society” (Mineo, 3). This illustrates how these people feel that they don’t belong in America and the treatment they receive has greatly impacted their lives in a negative way. Overall, 9/11 had a very negative impact on how Muslim and Arab people are perceived by American society and has led to constant discrimination and othering of these people.

 

Citations:

Mariam Fam, Deepti Hajela. “Two Decades after 9/11, Muslim Americans Still Fighting Bias.” AP NEWS, Associated Press, 7 Sept. 2021, https://apnews.com/article/September-11-Muslim-Americans-93f97dd9219c25371428f4268a2b33b4.

Mekouar, Dora. “How 9/11 Changed Arab and Muslim Americans.” VOA, How 9/11 Changed Arab and Muslim Americans, 21 Sept. 2021, https://www.voanews.com/a/6222700.html.

Mineo, Liz. “Muslim Americans Reflect on the Impact of 9/11.” Harvard Gazette, Harvard Gazette, 11 Sept. 2021, https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/09/muslim-americans-reflect-on-the-impact-of-9-11/.

Diary of Systemic Injustices Showcase- Discrimination against African Americans (George Floyd Statue Vandalized)

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Throughout our nations history, African American people have been treated as lessers in society and have been severely discriminated against. While we as a nation have done our best to eradicate this issue, it is still an injustice that is embedded in society as some people still do not respect African Americans equally. George Floyd was an African American man who was murdered by a white police officer for no apparent reason. This was a major event in society and sparked nationwide revolts and protests in support of African American people and their place within society. I remember having a conversation with a friend about how awesome we thought the statue of George Floyd in Manhattan was. This statue was made in remembrance of George Floyd and was a symbol for African American people. Recently, the statue was vandalized by a white man. This act of violence is a clear example of a systemic injustice. This statue was doing no harm to anyone and George Floyd Union Square statue vandalized: Suspect arrested | PIX11was simply put up in support of George Floyd’s family and what his death stood for. Instead of tearing down symbols of equality like this, we need everyone to be in support of them and help spread the message that it sends. This type of action shows that society still has a long way to go for full equality of all people without any discrimination or implicit bias. This is a systemic injustice as these types of actions are deeply ingrained in society and there are still many people who don’t believe in the true equality of all and will try to bring others down. The vandalism of this statue is very upsetting and shows that there is still work to be done to eradicate systemic injustices like these. Overall, this is a systemic injustice that I have seen in my daily life and one that needs to be addressed and changed to improve the lives of certain groups of people and ensure that everyone is treated as equals within our society. This systemic injustice can relate to Simone de Beauvoir’s theory of othering. Her theory describes how different aspects of society like culture, politics, and economy are what create instances of inequality and lead to the “othering” of certain groups of people. This act against the George Floyd statue represents this theory as it shows how African Americans as a group are being completely “othered” by society. The white man who vandalized the statue is an example of someone othering African Americans as he didn’t accept what the statue stood for and felt the need to vandalize it out of pure discrimination and hate towards African American people. 

Link to news articles about the vandalism:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/actor-charged-george-floyd-statue-vandalized-nyc-rcna4015

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/manhattan-man-arrested-in-latest-george-floyd-statue-vandalism/3349613/ 

Citation:

“Actor Charged after George Floyd Statue Vandalized in NYC.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 28 Oct. 2021,                       https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/actor-charged-george-floyd-statue-vandalized-nyc-rcna4015.

NBC New York. “Manhattan Man Arrested in Latest George Floyd Statue Vandalism.” NBC New York, NBC New York, 25 Oct.           2021, https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/manhattan-man-arrested-in-latest-george-floyd-                  statue-vandalism/3349613/.