Month: March 2021

Yo, Is This Racist? Podcast – Sam Faingold & Paige Kern

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Transcript

Sam: Hello, hello, hello! Good morning, good afternoon, good whatever time you are listening to this special guest-host edition of “Yo, Is This Racist?” I am Sam Faingold… 

Paige: And I am Paige Kern, and we are here to talk about racism.

Sam: Everybody’s favorite, most comfortable topic that two white women should absolutely be discussing with much authority. Um yeah, so we are white, so I – I don’t experience any racism. I mean, you know, and I – I think one thing that I really took for granted about my white privilege, especially as a child, was I see myself on TV all the time. You know? That’s something that’s come up a lot is a lot of representation in media, and that’s something that that I was focused on in my diaries. Uh, what did you think about that Paige? I mean you see yourself too. 

Paige: Yeah, I mean, like, in the media, like when Black people are talked about, they’re always villainized as criminals or something else like that; and as a white person like, I always saw myself represented like in princesses, even in like Disney, like though the first Black princess didn’t come until 2009.

Sam: Like, shout out Tiana, but that’s too late. 

Paige: Yeah, exactly. Like, I grew up seeing myself on the screen and that’s different for a lot of other people.

Sam: Yeah, that’s something that that I was focused on in my journals, because I’m a communications major I’m really focused on the media. Yeah, so we had Matt James was the first Black bachelor and we’re on season 25, which is absolutely crazy. There have been black bachelorettes before, including Rachel Lindsay, who this story is going to be a little bit about later. Rachel Lindsay has this podcast now and she had, um, Chris Harrison come on. Chris Harrison is, I shouldn’t say obviously, because it’s not, he’s the host of The Bachelor, or he was. We’ll- we’ll get into that later. Um so this season, um Matt James – black bachelor – he ends up picking a white woman to be, you know, his, his match, final rose, I don’t really know the terminology, but white woman’s name is Rachael Kirkconnell, and photos came out after they’d wrapped filming, but before the like last few episodes had come out, where she was at like, Antebellum parties and she was like at plantations, and it was, it was really problematic, and it was like, people were not happy about it. So Rachel Lindsay – 

Paige: For good reason.

Sam: For a good reason, yes, 100%. But so Rachel Lindsay had Chris Harrison on her show to talk about it. It just went downhill. So he –  my favorite quote, my favorite pull quote that’ll just summarize the whole thing is, “Well Rachel, is it not a good look in 2018, or is it not a good look in 2021? Because there’s a big difference.” That’s what he said about the pictures of her like, at the plantations.

Paige: You gotta like, take a step back, like is there really a big difference, it’s, it’s still the same problem.

Sam: I’m also like, it’s not like it was you know, 1930, not to excuse any of that either, but like, this was three years ago. There’s really not that big of a difference in terms of what is socially acceptable.

Paige: Except there wasn’t as much media over it then as there is now.

Sam: Exactly, which is, which is what we’re talking about, which is very important. And you know, Chris stepped down after that. Well stepped down. I don’t really know, he’s not gonna be hosting it anymore. But obviously, there’s, there’s a lot of issues in media representation, and that’s just reality tv, that’s not talking about you know, characters. I was talking about specifically like black figures Black people versus white people in the spotlight.

Paige: And a lot of it is like, white people trying to talk about Black people’s experiences, which is –

Sam: Which is not their, not their place. Not our place.

Paige: Not our place, exactly. So I, in my journal, I talked about the um prison and police systems, how and that created injustices in the Black community, and um a lot of politicians like literally are aiming to like lesser, lessen the Black community and make them a second class citizen and take their rights away. And the 13, in the documentary, documentary the 13th –

Sam: Oh yeah. Ava DuVernay. We love her.

Paige: It was a very good documentary, so good. Highly recommend. Definitely. The 13th amendment was abolishing slavery, but now there’s so many loopholes to it, that you’re free unless you’re a criminal, and now all these politicians have been putting things in place to make Black men in particular, criminals, and taking their votes away. Like it starts like, with Nixon um, pinning crime, raising crime rates against the Black community.

Sam: Oh yeah, war on drugs, yeah. Let’s go there.

Paige: War on drugs. But it was all pinned against community – communities of color and the Black community.

Sam: Yeah, Nixon’s advisor, they, they got him on tape, remember? He was saying, I’m not going to say verbatim, because I – I should not and also I don’t remember the exact quote but he was like, ‘yeah we couldn’t make being Black illegal, so we just associated Blacks with, with crack and, some other group, the hippies with marijuana.’ They were criminalizing ways of life they didn’t agree with, which in particular was like, a race. Black people. ‘A race.’ We’ll, we’ll use race but, that’s a social construct, but, but keep going.

Paige: Yeah, exactly. Yes, but the war on drugs like, like you said with crack, like crack cocaine was more used by the Black and um minority communities compared to like, just straight crack. And, they had different –

 Sam: Yeah, the 101 sentencing rules. Yeah, yeah, because white people use cocaine and Black people use crack.

Paige: Yeah exactly. So like they’re the same thing, like why are they –

Sam: You add baking soda and heat.

Paige: Disproportionate. Yeah exactly, exactly, exactly. Like oh my goodness, but next Reagan continued this incarceration of the Black community by giving mandatory minimums, which is like with the crack stuff, um and it’s very disruptive, because now Black men are being locked up at a higher rate and for a very much longer time. Like in the stat that I saw, it said that one in 17 white men will likely get arrested in their lifetime, while an overwhelming Black – amount of Black men, one in three will get arrested in their lifetime, which is it’s crazy to me, because when you look at like the comparison of them, like white men are the majority, so why is it so much less that they are the ones being incarcerated? Like, black men only account for 6.5% of the population but they’re 40.2% of the prison population. Like that like, makes me take a step back. Like, they’re not inherently more violent than white people. They’re not like, they’re just always pinned as criminals, and like, to pin a whole community as like super predators like that takes a toll, and it’s not – it’s just really hard against them. 

Sam: Right, and if you keep seeing that on tv like, or in the radio, or however you’re getting your information, like if you keep seeing that, especially when on the news, our news is so focused on you know, criminals and crime now, which creates this phenomenon like, I don’t know. Communication scholar jumping out, like mean world syndrome, we think that everything is scary and if we are seeing that these people who are being arrested, who are committing all these crimes are overwhelmingly Black men, we’re going to believe that they are the ones being criminals and we will then generalize that as a stereotype that black men are scary, and they’re criminals and whatever other rhetoric we’re fed about them.

Paige: Yeah, it also like blows my mind how like, a Black person doing something that a white person could do without any like, thought is seen as suspicious, like walking down the road with their hands in their pocket. Like I’ve done that many times and not thought a thing, but –

Sam: No, no. I’m a tiny white girl, nobody thinks I’m doing anything. If I was taller and my skin was darker, who knows, like and that’s, that’s absolutely ridiculous, I just happened to look like this.

Paige:  Yeah, exactly. That’s what it looks like, what makes me mad, like I happen to be gay, but like I’m able to hide that in certain situations where I feel uncomfortable, and like I always think about it, and I’m like if I were a person of color like, that’s not something that they can just hide or change like, you have to live with that every single day.

Sam: It’s outward expressing. 

Paige: I don’t even understand like how hard it is for them. Like I can try, but I will never understand what they go through on a daily basis.

Sam: Okay, so, so how do we fix, how do we fix this larger issue of misrepresentations or just people being left out of, of media, of being able to tell their stories, being able to, to kind of fix this issue we have with presenting which stories?

Paige: There’s this new like, no, I wouldn’t say new, but white fragility is very like, I’d say predominant right now in conversations about racism, and I think as white people, we need to be open to listening and hearing other people and like trying to learn, really like learning information on our own, like there’s so many places where you can learn things that you don’t need to like be oblivious to this and not know your stuff.

Sam: Right, and I think a big part of that right now is that, thankfully, we are moving towards more people of color, more people of different identities and backgrounds being able to tell their own stories. Obviously we’re not in a good enough place, but like, we talked about Ava DuVernay earlier who’s doing like 13th, When They See Us presenting these really great stories that have, you know, history and that they’re educating people and people are paying attention and she’s a Black woman telling the story of Black people.

Paige: I think that’s really important and then I think something to point out is in the documentary the 13th like, um a lot of the speakers in it were people of color, so they’re speaking from experience not just from an outsider white person perspective trying to speak on the topic you know.

Sam: Right, and we, we’ve encountered that I mean, in the class that we’re doing the podcast for, we, we’ve come in contact with, we read um, is that Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe.

Paige: Yeah, I think like something to point out also about Okonkwo’s story is like, at the end of Things Fall Apart is the white colonization guy, he says, ‘I think this can make a good paragraph in my book.’ Like we just read a whole book about this guy’s life and a white man is going to say, ‘I think his death would make a good uh like yeah part of my story.’

Sam: He is distilling his entire life down to one little anecdote that he can fit in the greater white story.

Paige: Yeah, like what blows my mind is like, he doesn’t even realize like why this happened, like that he was the cause of death, like –

Sam: He’s just so so blatantly unaware of his own whiteness and I think now we’re running into a place where white people are having to confront that sort of privilege and the power that they have, you know, historically given themselves by doing awful things to people of color, and that’s what’s, what’s generating this white fragility and people just being so defensive, kind of like Chris Harrison was, where he’s like you know, ‘is it a good look?’ I don’t know, it’s not a good look. Yeah, but I think now just, just making sure that we have these I mean we’ve been talking about you know Black people in particular, so Black creators, or people of color, or trans creators, like being able to tell their own stories and get their messaging out, so that we can listen, so that we can listen to them and be able to fix –

Paige: Raise their voices, and make them the ones that are being listened to.

Sam: Exactly, we just need to, we all just need to shut up and listen. I think, I think that’s a great um, step in the right direction. Uh yeah, of listening to other people. I uh, I think we’re, I think we’re out of time. I think we, yeah I think we talked this one out. I mean, there’s much more to say, but I – I think – 

Paige: We could go on and on. 

Sam: Yeah, join in next week, there will not be uh next week, but uh yeah. Thanks, everybody for, for coming to listen. I have been Sam Faingold…

Paige: I’m Paige Kern.

Sam: And this is it. This is it. This is it. Goodbye, everybody.

 

Works Cited:

Gramlich, John. “Black Imprisonment Rate in the U.S. Has Fallen by a Third since 2006.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 6 Aug. 2020, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/05/06/share-of-black-white-hispanic-americans-in-prison-2018-vs-2006/.

Longeretta, Emily. “A Timeline of Chris Harrison and Rachel Lindsay’s Interview and the Fallout.” Us Weekly, 4 Mar. 2021, www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/pictures/chris-harrison-and-rachel-lindsays-interview-fallout-a-timeline/.

Yo, is this Sexist?

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“Yo, is this Sexist?” Transcript

Hello guys, my name is about Abby and I am going to be discussing school dress codes! So now, if you guys are like me, I’m sure just saying those words leaves a bitter taste in your mouth because many of us have been victims of the sexist rules of dressing in high school, middle school, and some, unfortunately even in elementary school. So just for fun, I decided to pull up my own school districts school dress code in the twenty or- in the 2018-2019 parent/student handbook, which was from my senior year of high school and I read through it and I just wanted to share a few things I found to be quite interesting. So, to start, they prefaced the section by saying, “The Board will not interfere with the right of students and their parents to make decisions regarding their appearance, except when their choices interfere with the educational program of the schools.” Which, that sounds expectable, but then I kept reading and saw what they considered to be “unacceptable.” So, in their long list of inappropriate items, I found: “Halters, midriff tops, crop tops, spaghetti strap tops, open mesh garments, garments with open sides which expose skin or undergarments, and muscle tops” So, let’s just pause for a moment because some of these I can see where they could possibly be distracting, like open mesh garments because, maybe, we don’t need to see- maybe we don’t need to be wearing all of our Friday and Saturday night attire to class. But items like halters, crop tops, and spaghetti strap tops are clearly targeting a certain 50%, give or take, of the students. So, my research didn’t end here. I actually went back on my school district’s website and found the dress code in the handbook from the year before, 2017 to 2018, and they had a section of questions students should “consider” when getting ready for school. I actually laughed when I read few of these because they are absolutely ridiculous, but my two favorites were: “Would I interview for a job in this outfit?” and “Am I dressed appropriately for the weather?” Yeah, so who in the world goes to school every day dressed like they would for a job interview? I mean that is absolutely ridiculous, talk about “distracting attire in the classroom,” who in the world would be comfortable and able to focus with everyone dressed like they’re trying to beat you out for a job. And the question regarding the weather is actually my favorite because during this time, my like- during this particular school year, my school was doing renovations, so there was no air conditioning and at one point, one of my classrooms was literally 88 degrees. Yet, if I had tried to show up in a spaghetti strap top, which in my opinion would have actually been appropriate for the weather, I would have been sent home. Which actually did happen to me in the second grade. Yes, I did say the second grade, and yes, I was an eight-year-old child. I showed up to school in my new High School Musical tank top thinking I was the literal queen of fashion, just to be sent to the office after thirty minutes in the building and told my tank top was inappropriate because my shoulders were exposed and that was distracting. I mean literally what is that? What is so sexy about an eight-year old’s shoulders? Let me repeat that, an eight-year-old. No one even questioned that, maybe, it wasn’t my clothing at fault in this situation, but instead the ideals society has ingrained in our brains. My favorite dress code story, though, was in seventh grade when I was walking to the bus after school wearing a t-shirt and those Nike shorts that literally every girl under the sun owned back in 2013. Yes, I know you know exactly what I’m talking about and I’m sure you also owned a pair. But, anyways I walked out of the building and I saw my assistant principle who was so notorious for dress coding people and I did my best to avoid her, but, unfortunately, she did see me and called me over and told me to put my hands at my side. I can almost feel the eyerolls that just caused because I know so many of you listening right now hated the fingertip policy just as much as I did. So, anyways, I know you guys can’t see me right now, but I have incredibly long arms, um, my wingspan in actually 2 inches longer than my height, so there was no way I was getting out of this. She then proceeded to tell me that my Nike shorts, yes, let me repeat that, Nike running shorts, were incredibly inappropriate and I was not permitted to wear those to school again. Yeah, so, let’s talk a little bit about the damaging effects sexualizing the female body can cause. So, I did a bit of investigation and I read some articles about other girl’s experiences with dress code “violations,” and let me let you there were so many articles, I just had to pick a few because I started to get information overload. So, one article that really stuck out to me was an article written in The New York Times by Kayley Krischer and it’s titled “Is Your Body Appropriate to Wear to School?” Yep, let that just sink in for a moment. So, the article focuses on a seventeen-year-old girl named Lizzy Martinez and basically, she had a sunburn and wearing a bra was really painful on her skin, so she decided instead to wear an oversized, dark grey shirt with no bra underneath for school. And I’m choosing to tell you what she wore because even she was conscious of the restrictions imposed on her body in school and did actually make a conscious effort not to draw attention to herself. You can probably see where this is going, she was dress coded and forced to put on a top, that was not her own, and when the administration decide that that wasn’t enough, they made her put adhesive bandages over her nipples. I think her mom said it best when she was interviewed at a later time about the situation and said, “‘the fact is that she wore a long sleeve T-shirt that was not see-through. It wasn’t even flattering,’ ‘So to say she was trying to be a distraction is absolutely absurd.’” One thing that pretty much every story I read was about was sexualizing female stud- was schools’ sexualizing female students’ clothing that isn’t even meant to be “sexy” and for these administrators to continue this trend is incredibly dangerous and damaging. During my research I stumbled across an article on the National Education Association website that’s written by Kira Barrett. The article is titled “When School Dress Codes Discriminate.” In her writing, Barrett talks about Shauna Pomerantz, a girlhood expert working at Brock University, who brings up an incredibly important point: that dress coding is essentially a form of victim-blam- victim-blaming, and the more you think about it, the more you begin to agree it and you realize that this idea actually makes a ton of sense. In an article written by Laura Bates in Time, titled “How School Dress Codes Shame Girls and Perpetuates Rape Culture,” she brings up the point about how girls are conti- continuously told that if they- that they need to cover up because they’re distracting boys or making male teachers “uncomfortable.” I personally get so incredibly frustrated when this “excuse” is used because they are missing the entire point. Instead of teaching boys to respect female bodies, they’re teaching them that if females choose to show skin, then “she’s asking for it,” which further justifies their actions and keeps them from being held accountable. It’s basically like saying that if a gas station sells candy bars and I steal one because I want it, tha- that the gas station is actually asking for me to steal the candy bar because they chose to sell it. The only difference between these two scenarios is that in the latter one, the person at fault is actually held accountable. It’s no wonder that one in five women are sexually assaulted during their time in college. The school dress code becomes ingrained in peoples mind and soon enough people are saying things like “oh well her top showed a lot of cleavage” to justify that fact that a woman is brutally raped and then murdered. Clothing choice should never, ever, be a justification for violence against women. It is time for accountability and to stop the objectification of the female body. Laura Bates made such an important point in her Time article when saying, “I can’t help feeling there is a powerful irony in accusing a girl of being ‘provocative’ – in projecting that societal assumption onto her adolescent body – before she is even old enough to have learned how to correctly spell the word.” Instead of preaching body positivity and self-worth in classrooms, our first exposure in education teaches young girls to associate their own skin with embarrassment and shame. Without action, this vicious cycle of female oppression will continue and I. for one, do not want to get a phone call in twenty years from my future child’s school telling me to bring her a new pair of running shorts because hers are distracting to her male peers.

 

Works Cited:

“9-12 Resources.” Resources – 9-12, www.foresthills.edu/resources/9-12.html.

Barrett, Kira. “When School Dress Codes Discriminate.” NEA, 24 July 2018, www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/when-school-dress-codes-discriminate.

Bates, Laura, and Everyday Sexism. “Everyday Sexism Project: Dress Codes and Rape Culture.” Time, Time, 22 May 2015, time.com/3892965/everydaysexism-school-dress-codes-rape-culture/.

Krischer, Hayley. “Is Your Body Appropriate to Wear to School?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 Apr. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/style/student-bra-nipples-school.html.

“Yo, Is This Discrimination?” – Kelsey Knudsen & Kim Merrick

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“Yo, Is This Discrimination?”

Kim: At this point, we all know what COVID-19 is and how it has affected many lives. But what people don’t know is the origin, but many have tried to say it was by no accident. The Coronavirus has been around for over a full year now and there are many phenomena of how it came about. 

Kelsey: Yes it is definitely a hot topic in today’s news, and it is sad the way it affected people and shut down a lot of things. There are many sources that provide some good insight on where and how the virus came about. A poll of over 1,195 people concluded that “a 57% majority of Americans describe the coronavirus pandemic as a natural disaster. And that is believable, but when we look at what the other 43% said…

Kim: …we can see that  43% of people say that they believe a particular organization or people group is responsible. In response to an open-ended question, most in that group specified China, comprising nearly 1 in 4 of the total survey”. 

Kelsey: This statistic is insanely high, how can people just believe this without proof? There are so many questions that can be asked as to why and how? If you look at the virus it is in fact a lot like the flu. In an article that was posted by OSU, it conducted an interview that said that “It turned out that the stereotypes and beliefs that people already had about Asian Americans were more powerful in predicting stigmatization than other factors”. 

Kim: This statement goes well with our understanding of the danger of a single story. When people only believe one side and don’t try to understand all perspectives things like this pandemic escalate. For instance, we have this quote posted from our president, who added to the heat of this dilemma and is promoting this hatred. Someone who is of a high authority like the example below should not be one of the people to be spreading this rumor. 

Kelsey: Yes, there have been many instances where our former president added some hatred comments on this topic that were directed toward the Asian community. If we look at this video quickly we get to see his actions and comments on this subject.

https://youtu.be/7DbgSMD847Q

Kim: It is now over a year later into the pandemic and many Americans are still continuing to blame China and the Asian community for the outbreak. How sad is that?

Kelsey: Exactly, and imagine how their community is feeling after all of the attacks against them and all the hatred they are facing. 

Kim: Another instance of their community being attacked is right under our noses. In my neighborhood, there was a house that was shot at 17 times, and it is believed that it’s because an Asian person is being hosted there. A new study that is based on the police department statistics across U.S. cities found that “there was almost a 150% increase in anti-Asian hate crimes in 2020, while overall hate crimes fell by 7%.” These numbers reflect a growing trend of discrimination against Asian Americans during the coronavirus pandemic.

Kelsey: Wow, who would do that to an innocent family, and destroy their home just because the shooter believed a rumor of the origin of the virus. Looking into it the people that live there have been residents for many years and have never been known to have any enemies until they started to host an international student who happened to be from China. It was concluded that they were targeted for allowing the enemy to reside among them. This shooting definitely added to that statistic above, which is way too high for any community. 

Kim: I agree, if you think about it even if the virus started in China, people here in America or other countries that are Chinese or Asian have nothing to do with the virus. So why should they be disrespected and looked down upon?

Kelsey: If you think about this, they are being put down constantly and hated upon every day for a virus that is going around. If it was me, I would feel like I am an “other” or a subaltern.

Kim: That is just what I was thinking, we have been studying. Many people are treating a lot of Asian/Chinese people as the other because they are believed to have created this inconvenience and everyone hates them for that. As being an “other” they have not had the chance to try and rebuttal all these assumptions and acquisitions.

Kelsey:  It is as if the community has dehumanized them. People are concluding that the Chinese are the “others” and that Americans are better. There is a lot of hate right now that possibly started from a single source, that has now spread like a wildfire. 

Kim: Exactly, this reminds me a lot about a topic that we covered in class. The dangers of a single story. 

Kelsey, I agree, look at how fast this whole pandemic spread, took about a year to get a hold of it, but yet the assumptions and rumors are still going. 

Kim: That is very sad, and if you look, the people who shot the house are believed to be troubled white men who have previously had an encounter with the police. This is discrimination and violence against all Chinese people, no matter where they came from or who they are.

Kelsey: Wow, so these people were singled out and are being forced to take the blame for a virus that is global at this point. And has no proof of being started in their “community”

Kim: This not only makes it where certain people are against the Asian/Chinese community but the whole world has many of these people, nearly 50% of people were quick to blame one community.

Kelsey: It is the sad truth, that this is happening in our community, and across the world, and it is getting worse, we need something to put an end to this.

Kim: It is difficult to find people who will stand up against a whole crowd but when there are I have hope in us. I was reading a news article that said “Senate Mitch McConnel said that “Committing a crime against anyone because of his or her national origin or race is deeply wrong and antithetical to our founding principles”. This was addressed after another mass shooting that seemed to be a hate crime against Asians.” 

Kelsey:  The impact of these people being shot at and being targeted shows how much hate is centered in the world against the Asian community. 

Kim: I can see that when this behavior is allowed and promotes this blasphemy it strengthens the hate community and enforces their behaviors and actions against the Asian/Chinese community. 

Kelsey: Looking at all of the hate and how people are getting treated sickens me.  

Kim: We know the systemic injustice in America upon the Asian American community is prevalent, however, there have also been many instances in other countries where the Asian community has experienced the same hate for the start of the COVID-19 virus. 

Kelsey: Yes, this is unfortunately accurate. For instance, when the pandemic initially began to break out, according to BBC News, “Anit-Asian racism has been reported in the UK and elsewhere, and now French Asians have complained of abuse on public transport and social media” (BBC News).

Kim: This is unacceptable behavior. There needs to be a changeset in motion in order to stop this discrimination from happening. The woman on the left is crying because she attended a rally that was organized to help spread awareness for this Asian hate and the violence, as we can see it has been a traumatic and emotional discriminational situation. 

Kelsey: You are absolutely right. In fact, as the hate crimes in the Asian community continues to intensify, actions by the government need to be carried out to help protect the Asian community. Enforcing legal punishment is one step the government can take to help stop hate crimes in the Asian community across the globe. 

Kim: I completely agree, and I feel it is also necessary that the government begins to advocate on behalf of the Asian community to help others understand that blaming the COVID-19 pandemic on Asians is completely unjustified. 

Kelsey: Yes, I believe that advocating for the Asian community and highlighting the consequences of these despicable actions will allow members of the Asian community to feel more at ease and protected by the government. 

Kim: There are community leaders that are calling for “greater enforcement of existing hate-crime laws, better connections with local police departments charged with investigating hateful incidents, and other Americans to consider the impact of their words and actions”. This was stated in an article that was focused on how the Asian hate community needs our support. And just a simple thing as watching what we as Americans spread with our words is very important. 

 

                                                                                 Photos from:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/12/covid-19-fueling-anti-asian-racism-and-xenophobia-worldwide

https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2021/03/18/amid-rise-in-anti-asian-attacks–advocates-call-for-black-and-asian-solidarity-

Reports of Asian American hate crimes rose nearly 150% in major U.S. cities last year – CBS News

Resources

Abdollah, Tami, and Trevor Hughes. “Hate Crimes against Asian Americans Are on the Rise   Here’s What Activists, Lawmakers and Police Are Doing to Stop the Violence.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 4 Mar. 2021, www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/02/27/asian-hate-crimes-attacks-fueled-covid-19-racism-threaten-asians/4566376001/.

“Mitch McConnell Says Asian Americans ‘Should Not Have to Experience Discrimination.’” Yahoo! News, Yahoo!, news.yahoo.com/mitch-mcconnell-says-asian-americans-211838977.html.

Page, Susan. Exclusive: 43% of Americans Say a Specific Organization or People to Blame for COVID-19, USA Today, 22 Mar. 2021, 9:00AM, www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/exclusive-1-in-4-americans-have-seen-asians-blamed-for-the-coronavirus-in-recent-weeks/ar-BB1eO5ig#image=BB1eOf9N|4.

The Ohio State University. Study Reveals Why Some Blame Asian Americans for COVID-19, The Ohio State University, 23 Oct. 2020, news.osu.edu/study-reveals-why-some-blame-asian-americans-for-covid-19/.

“Trump Defends Calling Coronavirus ‘Chinese Virus’ Because It ‘Came from China’ after ‘WH Official Calls It Kung Flu’ – The Sun.” Hot Fashion News, 18 Mar. 2020, hotfashionnews.com/world-news/trump-defends-calling-coronavirus-chinese-virus-because-it-came-from-china-after-wh-official-calls-it-kung-flu-the-sun/. 

“Coronavirus: French Asians Hit Back at Racism with ‘I’m Not a Virus’.” BBC News, BBC, 29 Jan. 2020, www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51294305.

Diary of A Systemic Injustice- Human Trafficking

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As a volunteer GAL (guardian at leitem) for CASA I have to represent children in court that are dealing with being in the children services systems for multiple reasons. Primarily they are there for abuse or sex trafficking. With this organization we have to spend some time training and getting continuing education credits. This week we had a week long seminar on sex trafficking and its victims. Which brings me to the systemic injustices of sex workers. From this seminar I heard from victims, police, judges and senators. This made me think of the incident with Cyntonia Brown. At the time she was 16 when she was arrested and tried for murder for killing an adult man that was having sexual relations with her. After spending 15 years in jail there were then movements in hoping to release her which were eventually successful. However, can we take back those years of abuse? Can we fix the fact she spent all those years in prison?

What I concluded is that due to our current justice system we are failing victims and systemically oppressing sex workers. If I thought about our reading Can the Subaltern Speak? I think of how we negate and remove the voices of those being oppressed and force our own views of what we believe they should feel and how they should be treated. Many sex workers are forced into the lifestyle from abuse, homelessness, kidnapping, grooming, and forced drugs. Which later on causes drug dependency. However, due to our current justice system the sex worker is the one that is being criminalized and not the people seeking the arrangement. Since the seeker is not being penalized they can continue to thrive and succeed in life. However, the victim worker is forced to serve jail time. They end up with felonies that prevent them from working. Since they cannot get a regular job due to their criminal record, they remain or become homeless. Thus leading them into another situation where they depend on people who place them back into sex work. Where they get arrested again and go back to jail and end up with new charges. Thus creating a cycle they can never get ahead from. By decriminalizing sex work and putting the charges on the correct people (the seeker) we can potentially limit the amount of demand people have for these victims. Hopefully giving them more opportunities to have better lives after already suffering the way they have been. However, until changes are made the system is not set up to help these victims and but keep them oppressed.

 

 

Below I have attached a link to NPR which goes on to tell her story.

https://www.npr.org/2019/08/07/749025458/cyntoia-brown-released-after-15-years-in-prison-for-murder

I have also added a link to 10 facts about human trafficking.

https://www.humanrightscareers.com/issues/facts-human-trafficking/

 

 

Citations

 

10 facts about human trafficking. (2019, December 10). Retrieved March 27, 2021, from https://www.humanrightscareers.com/issues/facts-human-trafficking/

Allyn, B. (2019, August 07). Cyntoia Brown released after 15 years in prison for murder. Retrieved March 26, 2021, from https://www.npr.org/2019/08/07/749025458/cyntoia-brown-released-after-15-years-in-prison-for-murder

Diary of Systemic Injustice – Gender Income Inequality

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One of the lingering problems in the United States is the gender wage gap. According to a 2018 study by the Census Bureau, women earned only $0.82 for every $1 men made. In addition, there are only 37 women CEOs in the Fortune 500. How could this be? Well, there are many factors that can cause this including working in different industries, hours worked, and years of experience. However, there is without a doubt a wage gap between men and women when comparing specific industries. Recently, the proposed $15 minimum wage is said to reduce the income gap between men and women. This is definitely a good start, but I do not think it is enough to change the core issue.

Figure 1 The gender wage gap is more significant for most women of colorFigure 2 The average 2018 earnings gap for a woman balloons over the course of 40 years

In this figure above and to the left, it is obvious how wide the wage gap is between all races of women when compared to men. It gets even more dramatic in the figure above and to the right. The income gap over a 40 year period is staggering when added up. Hispanic and Native American women miss out on, on average, over $1 million over the course of their career.

Furthermore, there have been many pushes in the past to narrow the wage gap including the Paycheck Fairness Act. This bill was first introduced in 1997, and has been revised multiple times since. The bill enforces companies to set wages based off qualifications and not gender. It also compels companies to be transparent when reporting pay. This bill has been revised many times to try to shrink the gap, but the issue still stands to this day.

The gender wage gap issue has been around for decades. There have been countless bills passed in order to narrow the wage gap and make it illegal to pay based on gender. However, the gap still seems ridiculously wide. Companies need to be held accountable for their employees inadequate wages. The laws that have been passed just seem too vague and passive because companies are easily able to side step them. There must be a real fight for change, otherwise the gap will stay stagnant indefinitely.

This issue has surfaced over a number of novels and short stories throughout the semester. The controversy of women and how they can be treated poorly in certain countries. They may be viewed as caretakers and not able to work a “man’s job.” The United States is the most developed country in the world, and the wage gap is still this significant. It is scary to think how bad the income inequality is in some under-developed countries.

 

Source: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2020/03/24/482141/quick-facts-gender-wage-gap/

Pakistani Persecution After September 11th

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The Reluctant Fundamentalist tells the story of Changez, a Pakistani man who moved to the United States to attend college at Princeton. Throughout his time in the United States he created different relationships, however the largest being with a women named Erica. As he tells his story, a clear depiction of the changes he goes through as he sees the way the United States truly sees foreigners are shown.

As Changez tells the story of his time in the United States he explains how Princeton created a sense of value to him through US patriotism, engraining the thought that he was valued as a member of the American society and how he will one day use his gifts and knowledge to give back to the country. However, after the events of September 11th, he had quickly gone from being a “valued” member of society and possible future American beneficiary, to a potential future threat.

The persecution of Pakistani Americans quickly took over Changez life, and his eyes were opened to just how situational American tolerance towards foreigners is. His relationship with Erica is hurt, as well as his career and social life.

The persecution of Changes tells a lot, including how the persecution was able to effect all social classes and age groups, however some more than others. From research it is shown that most likely from his economic status, Changez, as a higher member of society, was most likely effected less than those of a lower social class.

After the attacks of September 11th, people groups of the Greater Middle East living in America were treated with great disrespect and injustice. Pakistani students were harassed by teachers, and employers treated unfairly from their employers.

In Salt Lake City on September 13th, 2001, a Pakistani owned restaurant was burned to the ground by a man who later plead guilty to the crime. Again on September 13th, 2001, a man set fire to multiple cars outside of an Islamic Mosque. A group of four were all arrested after threatening and plotting to attack an Islamic Education Center.

These crimes were not only committed to attack individual Middle Eastern and Islamic peoples, but used as a way to drive out an entire culture from the actions of few. For many, including the character Changez, these actions worked, and were what ultimately fueled his Anti-American teachings back in Pakistan.

The United States has shown that people are only accepted when they have something to offer, and when something goes wrong rather than combat the problem with competency and reason, simply make a scapegoat of an entire people group.

This form of treatment is what drove Changez away from the United States and fueled his anti-American agenda back in Pakistan. Both the character Changez as well as the American view of Middle Eastern foreigners changed throughout the story.

Works Cited

Combating post-9/11 discriminatory backlash. (2015, August 06). Retrieved March 27, 2021, from https://www.justice.gov/crt/combating-post-911-discriminatory-backlash-6

 

Systemic Racial Injustice in the NFL – Diary of Systemic Injustice Showcase – Owen Sinning

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This year, the NFL endorsed the phrase “End Racism,” to help combat the systemic racial injustice in the police force. Despite this, the NFL has failed to address the systemic injustice in their own league. When I first wrote about this topic, there were only 3 minority head coaches in the NFL. Now, after firing and hiring, there are still only 3 minority head coaches. While the first ever Muslim-American head coach Robert Saleh shows that there is some progress being made, the NFL still has a way to go. Not only is it harder to get a head coaching job, but if a minority is fired, it is harder for the minority coaches to get even an assistant job in the NFL. Todd Bowles was fired after coaching a poor New York Jet team, and was only interviewed by one team, despite his success on defense.

 

Eric Bieniemy

(Offensive Coordinator Eric Bieniemy, Kansas City Cheifs)

For two years in a row, Eric Bieniemy, was passed up on by teams looking for a head coach by less experienced, white coaches. Despite helping to lead the Kansas City Chiefs to back to back Super Bowl Appearances, he remains in Kansas City. For some coaches, all it takes is one year of success to get a head coaching job. Head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals was hired after being the Quarterback Coach of a team that appeared in the Super Bowl. Head Coach of the Arizona Cardinals was hired after having done a mediocre job at Texas Tech. In the NFL, minority coaches have become the “other.” Bieniemy not being a current NFL coach is disrespectful to him and shows that there is a reluctance to hire minority coaches in the NFL. This problem, does not stop at the head coaching level, as there are even less (2) minorities in the General Manager Position. Below is an image of how many first time minority coaches have been hired in a certain period in the NFL.

Staggering' numbers show NFL's minority coaching failure - Rooney Rule, Tony Dungy

The refusal to hire minorities has become a big problem in the NFL. Older, white owners are scared to hire someone different from them and give the power of their team to a minority. While the NFL has taken action to address this like the “Rooney Rule” (require NFL teams to interview at least two minorities for Head coach and one for General Manager) the NFL still has to do more in order to combat the Systemic Racial Injustice in the NFL. I believe that this is a systemic injustice because the only reason successful minority coaches like Bieniemy are not a head coach, is because they are a minority. This relates to John Lewis and his book “March” and Martin Luther King’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail.” Activists like Lewis  and Kind spent their whole life advocating for equality, yet America and the NFL lacks equality. The NFL gets millions of views per year, and addressing the systemic racial injustice the King and Lewis fought against in the NFL will lead to systemic injustice being addressed nationwide, by all Americans.

 

 

 

 

Article-  https://www.nfl.com/news/tony-dungy-on-nfl-s-lack-of-minority-head-coaches-owners-need-to-be-looking-for-

Article- https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/02/black-coaches-see-the-limits-of-the-nfls-racial-reckoning/617943/

 

Hill, J. (2021, February 05). ‘Some team has to want me’. Retrieved March 28, 2021, from https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/02/black-coaches-see-the-limits-of-the-nfls-racial-reckoning/617943/

Maya, A. (2021, January 06). Tony Dungy ON Nfl’s lack of minority head Coaches: Owners ‘need to be looking for leaders’. Retrieved March 28, 2021, from https://www.nfl.com/news/tony-dungy-on-nfl-s-lack-of-minority-head-coaches-owners-need-to-be-looking-for-

Sando, M. (2016, July 19). Rooney rule in reverse: Minority COACHING hires have stalled. Retrieved March 28, 2021, from https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/17101097/staggering-numbers-show-nfl-minority-coaching-failure-rooney-rule-tony-dungy

Dairy of Systemic Injustice – Systemic Racism Against African Americans

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In the week reading the letter by Martin Luther King, we talked about the idea of systemic injustice. Something first came up in my mind is the death of George Floyd, which causes huge attention at that time. At the beginning, he was crying in his car for his mother’s death, the police officer reached him for suspicious activity of using counterfeit and insisted him getting out of the car. When Floyd was explaining what happened, one of the police officer suddenly pulled out the gun without any reason, which scared him quite a bit. Then Floyd began begging and kept saying “I’m sorry, don’t shoot me”. After he came out of the car, the police officer handcuffed him and tried to put him into the police car. While Floyd showed his resistance and insisted that he was claustrophobic. Then the officer named Chauvin decided to let him on the ground and put his knee on Floyd’s neck. The police officer didn’t react at all when Mr. Floyd kept saying “I can’t breath”, which leads to the death of him in the end.

The whole thing shows clearly the police brutality in African Americans. Why would the police officer pull out the gun even though Floyd did not do anything wrong? The reason may be that African Americans are more likely to be suspects and are affected through every stage of the criminal justice system. The status by US census bureau and Statista shows that African Americans are facing much higher chance of being fatally shot relative to their overall numbers in the US population( 14% of the  population accounts for 23% of the fatal shootings by the police). As for the criminal justice system( law enforcement, courts, corrections), one out of every three Black boys born today can expect to be sentenced to prison, compared 1 out 6 Latino boys; one out of 17 white boys. All these statistics shows that African Americans are facing systemic injustice. But what more important is that the one who killed Floyd is not punished at all, which makes me believe that this is an example of systemic racism. The system is supposed to protect people with their rights no matter what races they are.

Just like Gayatri Spivak defines what a subaltern is–those are completely separate from the One and Other, the other to the other. George Floyd was also a subaltern. Those oppressed African Americans are able to make their voices be heard through protests or other activities like march. However, George Floyd couldn’t make his voice be heard because he was died. And this injustice will definitely bring lots of impacts as well. For example, when the police brutalities against Black people are more frequent, people from black communities will lose their faith in police systems and less likely to cooperate with police officers. And when they do not trust police systems, they will less likely to report the crimes, which make them more hard to participate in the society. And when they are less participating in the society, a natural “segregation” will show up. To solve the problem, I think the first thing is to acknowledge that the racism actually exists. Only when we begin to face up the problems, can we have a possibility to solve the systemic racism and make all races unite as one.

 

work cited

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52877678

https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/

Diary of Systemic Injustice – Rocky River High School

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This past week an incident in my hometown occurred that brought me to the realization of how prevalent systemic injustices are even in small town America. Three teachers were put on administrative leave, one of the teachers was supposedly fired for allegedly having incriminating photos of underage girls, specifically, one of his students. The other two teachers were found talking about the situation and what to do about it, this is what plagued my mind, how could two adults know this information about another person and not do something to protect the student? We are meant to go to school to learn and better ourselves but instead even at school, a place that is supposed to be safe, does not let women escape from the everyday cruelty. This situation seems to happen over and over again, a man takes advantage of a young impressionable girl and bystanders, even the administration does nothing to stop it. Yes, the teacher was allegedly fired but this is a rare scenario and this problem was uncovered on accident, other people were aware of the illegal ongoings and just allowed for them to continue, they asked themselves, “what do we do with this information?” as if it is not blatantly obvious that the man who decided to violate a students boundaries should be held responsible for their actions, but then again when are they? Just this past week a young woman was kidnapped and killed in London by a police man while she was simply walking home from a friends house. Everyday it seems as if women cannot even do simple things such as going to school or walking home without being put into danger by yet another man who never reaps the consequences necessary for change. 

Since when I wrote this, there has been no criminal charges brought on to the teachers, but the original video of the teachers discussing the student has been released. In the video, they humiliate the student by saying she’s “not a good student”, “well put together”, while also calling her “smoking hot”. The fact that these teachers have no charges against them and may keep their jobs when they talk about their students in such a way is unacceptable. This injustice against children and young adults is disgusting and needs more attention brought to. When our teachers and those in charge of students are predators against us, with no punishments for wrongdoings, it only teaches them that they can get away with more than they think. This scenario reminds me of Spivak – can the subaltern speak? Throughout the entire investigation, everyone believes the young girl who was humiliated was completely underrepresented. 

 

the released video to the public from cleveland.com

Rocky river High school