Education is vital for getting ahead in life and is key in opening new opportunities for a person. Some opportunities include the chance to attend better universities, which in turn can lead to better paying jobs that also have better benefits.

In an article posted by americanprogress.org, an article in which I recommend everyone reads (https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-k-12/news/2020/07/08/487386/fighting-systemic-racism-k-12-education-helping-allies-move-keyboard-school-board/), they highlighted how African Americans were facing a systemic injustice in the education system. In that article they discussed three ways in which people can help combat this systemic injustice which was to advocate for equitable funding, advocate for less policing and surveillance of students, and to advocate to end de-facto segregation through school and district boundaries. In this entry I am going to focus primarily on advocating for less policing and surveillance of students, but you can read about the other two with the link above.

Following the deadly school shootings that have been going on across the country in recent years there has an increased focus on preventing gun violence in schools. This focus has led to an increase in policing and surveillance in schools, yet there is evidence that this does not help address the threat of gun violence. Instead, this increase in policing has had different effects. In fact, “According to data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, Black, Hispanic male, and American Indian students face higher rates of school disciplinary consequences such as suspension and expulsion than white students, and they are also subject to more interactions with police in schools in the form of contraband sweeps, interrogations, physical restraints, and arrests. Black students are also more likely to be subjected to social media surveillance and the use of biased artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology”.

This data helps illustrate that this increase in police and surveillance is really causing more harm than it is good. Although it is definitely important that the issues regarding school shootings needs to be addressed, increasing police and surveillance is not the answer. In fact, “legislatures in 26 states allocated nearly $960 million for security upgrades and the addition of police officers to school campuses”. This is a tremendous amount of money that could be going into other areas that could not only correct the systemic injustices that are going on in our education system but could also improve the mental health of all school children in general. As stated in the article, “Approximately 1.7 million students attend schools with police officers but no counselors; 3 million students attend schools with police but no nurses; 6 million students attend schools with police but no psychologist; and 10 million students attend schools with police but no social workers”. This statistic illustrates another area that this money could go to where it could be beneficial to all school children: nurses and mental health staff.

In a way this situation reminds me of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s concept of a single story. This is because if you looked at this increase in surveillance and policing of schools from the perspective of someone who does not experience this injustice, there seems to be no downside to this increase. It is only after you consider the perspective of people such as African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indians that one can see that this increase is causing more harm than it is good.

In order for this systemic injustice to be corrected, and for the mental health of children to improve, people must start advocating more for this funding to go elsewhere rather than to policing and surveillance. People must start advocating for this money to go toward increasing mental health staff such as counselors or psychologists which are often nonexistent at certain schools. In doing this it will correct this systemic injustice in which certain people are forced to go to school in fear of being unfairly mistreated, and also improves the overall mental health of students which in turn could also lead to less school shootings as well.

Works Cited

Chatterji, Roby. “Fighting Systemic Racism in K-12 Education: Helping Allies Move From the Keyboard to the School Board.” Center for American Progress, 24 Sept. 2020, www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-k-12/news/2020/07/08/487386/fighting-systemic-racism-k-12-education-helping-allies-move-keyboard-school-board/.

“Data and Statistics on Children’s Mental Health.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 15 June 2020, www.cdc.gov/childrensmentalhealth/data.html.

A systemic injustice that I would be talking about is white supremacy and how much of an impact throughout the years it has done throughout the other races. The reason why I would be discussing this specifically would be that it is a very important and critical subject to be discussing, as well as it connects to systemic injustice because it is within the topic of systemic racism that affects a positive society into a more negative direction within an organization or society. Through that, it would connect to every aspect of an individual’s health care, employment, education, etc., decreasing the bond between races.

This would also connect to a topic that was talked about in class with Story of My Body by Judith Ortiz Cofer, where she has gone through a hate crime throughout her time in America before her impact during her college years. An example of a hate crime from her story would be when she was in her first experience of prejudice in Paterson, New Jersey where she was only about nine years old in the toy section of a store where she would get supplies for her mother daily, and when looking trying to learn to pronounce some of the labellings, there was a butcher and some brothers who would define her as “colored”. Finally, she was at the store and saw a schoolteacher doll and before she can touch it the butcher chased her out, saying “Don’t come back here unless you gonna buy something. You PR kids put your dirty hands on stuff. You always look dirty. But maybe dirty brown if your natural color.” (StoryOfMyBody).

The imagery that is presented is three Asian women standing up for what they believe because a sad event is occurring for Asain hate crime that was started by the pandemic of Covid-19 lasting this long and the negative impact it has occurred to everyone near or obtaining it; losing many lives and causing a shift of chain reactions of problems from it. The events of supremacy keep on changing and targeting different races and harming the bond with a new change in a positive way of moving forward. The negative impact that this can have would be to destroy a bond that was placed, lose many more lives besides the pandemic that has been occurring for over a year, increase the lack of view for understanding creating the situation to grow exponentially, and affecting Asian Americans and Asian individual’s way of living and not feeling safe. Throughout the whole crime, there has been stating that “in this case Asian Americans, do not belong. It is rooted in racism, white superiority, and xenophobia…”(Harmful effects).

Finally, another reason why the Asian hate crime would be by “shared characteristics … or other cultural markers” (Ted), how bad the hate crime progresses it can lead to the attack on that specific community; through this, it can create a permanent scar that would be difficult to heal tainting their trust together.

Work Cited

Imagery – https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheconversation.com%2Fracism-is-behind-anti-asian-american-violence-even-when-its-not-a-hate-crime-157487&psig=AOvVaw28mHInVxcWr_YGTAY7xMB0&ust=1616975398666000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCPiPpvfU0e8CFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD

Harmful effects – https://www.verywellmind.com/mental-health-effects-of-racism-on-asian-communities-5072783

Ted Talk – https://www.ted.com/talks/shahnaaz_khan_killed_by_hate_how_hate_crimes_attack_identities?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare

OrtizCofer_StoryOfMyBody – In class PDF reading

 NBA Asian American player Jimmy Lin is called Covid-19

Jeremy Lin is an Asian-American who studied at Harvard University and is an NBA professional basketball player. He won the NBA championship with the Toronto Raptors in 2019. He is the idol of all basketball fans in Asia, but Jeremy Lin claimed that he was called Covid-19 by other players in the game this season. This is a very serious issue of racial discrimination, and it is also an undoubted systemic injustice. And Jeremy Lin also voiced in Instagram, hoping that Asian Americans can bravely resist their discrimination.

https://newtalk.tw/news/view/2021-02-26/541813

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYxjtFuNJCo

Because some media used Wuhan virus, Chinese virus, or even Asian virus in the news because of the initial outbreak of Covid-19 in China without evidence, a large number of Americans believed that the virus came from China. , Or from Asia. In fact, the World Health Organization went to China last month to investigate the origin of Covid-19 and issued a document acknowledging that Covid-19 did not originate in China. However, there are still a large number of American media who have not stopped using these discriminatory words, because these media and companies believe that the Wuhan virus or the Chinese virus can bring them more exposure and popularity.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55996728

The latest statistics released on March 16, local time by the US non-profit organization “Stop AAPI Hate”, which is committed to anti-discrimination of Asian-Pacific descents, show that from March 19, 2020 to February 28, 2021, the organization received a total of 3,795 There have been reports of hate crime incidents targeting Asian-Pacific descent across the United States. Among them, 68.1% of the victims were verbally harassed and 11.1% of the victims were physically assaulted. Among them, Chinese were the ethnic group that suffered the most hate incidents, accounting for 42.2%. This is followed by Koreans (14.8%), Vietnamese (8.5%) and Filipinos (7.9%).

http://m.news.cctv.com/2021/03/17/ARTIe0bfaFXk81xhFcB0uBaw210317.shtml

Regarding Covid-19, racial discrimination has caused more and more Asian Americans to suffer mental and physical harm. The source of this harm comes from systemic injustice. Some politicians and the media did not tell the truth to the American people. They chose interest between truth and interest and deceived the American people to use Chinese virus, Wuhan virus and other terms to mislead a large number of Americans. This makes a large number of Americans discriminate against Asian Americans without knowing the truth. So this is undoubtedly an example of systemic injustice. These selfish politicians and the media have become the cause of this painful discrimination in order to gain more exposure and hot topics. What we need to do is to speak out as brave as Jimmy Lin and tell more people about the unfair treatment we have received. Only in this way will more people begin to understand the truth of the facts instead of believing some false statements.

In the end, I think Jimmy Lin’s story of being called Covid-19 tells us that “Single story” will cause ambiguity and misunderstanding, and may cause distressing racial discrimination. So it’s the same as the “many stories matter” we learned before. People should learn more about it before we define a thing. For example, when we know that Covid-19 does not come from a certain race, we can avoid similar incidents of discrimination. Therefore, “many stories matter”.

citation：

BBC News. (2021, February 9). Covid: WHO says “extremely unlikely” virus leaked from lab in China. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-55996728

新頭殼 newtalk. (2021, February 26). 厭倦亞裔刻板印象 林書豪嘆在球場上仍會被叫「冠狀病毒」. https://newtalk.tw/news/view/2021-02-26/541813

“There’s hate crimes… “Jeremy Lin speaks on violence against Asian-Americans 林书豪为亚裔发声: 我曾在场上被叫“新冠.” (2021, March 1). [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYxjtFuNJCo

For my Diary of Systemic Injustice presentation, I would like to talk about an injustice that I encountered in my History of Art class. We were tasked with reading an article that discussed how polychrome and white statues perpetuate racist beliefs in our modern western society. To briefly summarize, the beautiful white marble statues that we see today were not always that way. In fact, they were once filled with bright, vivid colors, but after millennia of being exposed to the elements, they have become very pale and white. While this may seem like a mundane and unimportant detail at first, many scholars have brought up the idea that these statues have helped to facilitate the beliefs of white supremacy in our current society. The majority of these sculptures were made by the Romans and Greeks whose empires spanned from North Africa all the way up to pieces of modern day Scotland, so naturally these groups were very diverse; however, this idea may not be understood by the average onlooker. When an observer is surrounded by highly esteemed sculptures, and they all happen to be white, they may consciously or subconsciously believe that the creators of these pieces were also white. Throughout the 19th and even 20th century the idea of polychrome in these sculptures was dismissed and was often regarded as an issue not worth discussing, and “the accidental destruction of the ancient coloring” had been “exalted into a special merit, and ridiculously associated with the ideal qualities of the highest art” according to classical scholar Alfred Emerson. A proper historical context will help us to realize that these racist and white supremacist beliefs associated with these works of art are simply illogical and fallacious. I am most closely able to relate this injustice to Persepolis. In Persepolis, Marji was forced to feel like an outsider and someone who did not belong solely due to her looking differently and having a different culture to those around her. Likewise, these white statues have caused some people to believe that they do not deserve to be talked about in history books and that they are different for no reason other than being a different color or of a different culture. In conclusion, it is very important to be aware and literate of the world around us so that we do not either consciously or subconsciously take part in perpetuating a systemic injustice. 

Works Cited:

https://osu.instructure.com/courses/94425/files/27564788/download?verifier=dBewlfFm93B8XxDp92sM1CQSrHQBAww96ed2Ychx&wrap=1

https://www.forbes.com/sites/drsarahbond/2017/04/27/whitewashing-ancient-statues-whiteness-racism-and-color-in-the-ancient-world/#248f62fc75ad 

There is a systemic injustice against the indigenous peoples of Canada. For a long time the indigenous community has fought for equal rights and still are working toward them. Colonization has put the community at a disadvantage because they have systems working against their interests. It has gone so far that “Canada’s treatment of its indigenous peoples has been described as a ‘cultural genocide'” (Rees).

There are activist trying to stop the trans U.S.-Canada oil pipeline: Line 3 which will be very harming to the community. “Houska and other activists say any spills would cause “irreparable” harm to bodies of water where local tribes fish, harvest wild rice and hold treaty rights” (Tigue). There is a way to prevent so much damage but politicians are more willing to please a party rather than help the people. Biden wants to stay friendly with the Republican Party and the Canadian Government so he has still not decided whether to stop the pipeline building or let something so destructive be continued.

Indigenous people of Canada who live on a reserve do not own the land they live on; Under the Indian Act they do not own their land and instead it is held by the government, this causes the people living at these reserves to not have the same rights as any other Canadian citizen. They cannot buy and sell their land which would lead to them gaining wealth and building equity, Bains says, “…full property rights on reserves… it’s shown to promote prosperity and social and economic wellbeing for those who need it most” (Bains). They also go on to say “In Canada today there are three groups of people who cannot legally own property: children, the mentally incompetent and First Nations people who live on a reserve” (Bains) this creates a disadvantage to the community because they are considered unable (like children or mentally incompetent people) to have control over what should be their own property. This is systemic because like what happened to the Black community when they were prevented from buying houses it causes a long term effect for generations on the wealth of the families. More recently for First Nations to own their own land they have to qualify to see if they are truly considered indigenous or not, this decision is one that shouldn’t be made by an outsider, it shouldn’t be a job to say if someone is indigenous or not.

https://youtu.be/7GmX5stT9rU This link will take you to a video covering a lot more systemic injustices occurring in Canada and likewise the U.S. I highly recommend taking the time to watch this, it elaborated on a couple of the things I touched on.

Works Cited:

Bains, Ravina. “BLOG: Property Rights for All Canadians: the First Nations Issue Forgotten by All Federal Political Parties.” Fraser Institute, 19 May 2020, www.fraserinstitute.org/blogs/property-rights-for-all-canadians-the-first-nations-issue-forgotten-by-all-federal-political-parties.

Rees, William. “Canada’s First Nations.” History Today, 9 Sept. 2018, www.historytoday.com/history-matters/canada%E2%80%99s-first-nations.

Tigue, Kristoffer. “Urging Biden to Stop Line 3, Indigenous-Led Resistance Camps Ramp Up Efforts to Slow Construction.” Inside Climate News, 12 Mar. 2021, insideclimatenews.org/news/16022021/biden-line-3-minnesota-enbridge-pipeline-indigenous-resistance/.

Black Bottom was a neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan thought to be named for the region’s dark and rich soils (Detroit Historical Society). The neighborhood was home to a predominantly Black population that migrated during the early 20^th century from southern states in an effort to escape Jim Crow era restrictions and start a new life in Detroit (Stateside Staff). Black Bottom would continue to grow in size and population as more people arrived and new businesses were started. The area was hit especially hard during the Great Depression but rebounded by the 1950’s as a “mecca” of Black-owned businesses, restaurants, and night clubs (McFarland, Detroit Historical Society). The neighborhood also boasted an incredible music scene in the commercial area of Paradise Valley, attracting performances from Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and multiple other notable musicians (Hunter). Black Bottom, however, began to face a housing shortage with an ongoing increase in its population (Crawford).

A view of the Paradise Valley Theater preparing for an upcoming show. Black Bottom Archives.

A late view of the Black Bottom area. Dated March 19, 1959. Detroit Historical Society.

Despite the neighborhood’s active businesses and historical ties, the City of Detroit began condemning the land as early as 1946 for demolition as part of an “urban renewal” project. Subsequent federal legislation, including the Housing Act of 1949 and the 1956 Highway Act, gave the city the necessary funding to demolish the neighborhood. Residents were required to leave their homes, often without the support of the government to relocate. Both the historical neighborhood of Black Bottom and the well-known area of Paradise Valley were destroyed to be replaced by a freeway (Detroit Historical Society).

A view of the freeway replacing Black Bottom. Dated November 29, 1961. Detroit Historical Society.

At first, this may not appear to be a form of systemic injustice, as existing buildings are demolished quite often for infrastructure improvements. The story of Black Bottom, however, is just one of the many Black communities that was targeted for removal by the aforementioned 1956 Highway Act. Black communities were disproportionally targeted for removal in favor of constructing new highways, leading to frequent displacements of people from their homes. Oftentimes, decisions to demolish Black neighborhoods and communities were made without the input from Black citizens living in them, as was the case for Black Bottom (McFarland). It is this consistent pattern of targeting Black communities for demolition in favor of other projects (some that resulted in gentrification as predominantly white communities were established) that constitutes a systemic injustice. Governmental leaders, using an established system of power, repeatedly targeted Black communities for demolition without offering or providing just compensation.

I believe that the story of Black Bottom and the larger injustice of targeting Black communities for demolition can be connected to de Beauvoir’s One and Other theory, in which government officials (typically white at this time in history) use their perceived status as the superior One to impose their will onto Black communities, which had been established as the inferior Other. Targeting these communities enabled government officials to exercise a sense of power and superiority over Black communities, contributing to their perceived definition as an inferior group.

This system can still be employed today, however, it should be noted that there are ongoing movements to reform this practice (McFarland) with a goal of re-establishing communities and preventing mass demolitions from occurring in the future.

Works Cited

Coleman, Ken. “Black Bottom and Paradise Valley: Detroit’s Lost African American Communities.” Detroitisit, 5 Oct. 2017, detroitisit.com/black-bottom-and-paradise-valley-communities/.

Crawford, Amy. “Capturing Black Bottom, a Detroit Neighborhood Lost to Urban Renewal.” Bloomberg CityLab, Bloomberg, 15 Feb. 2019, www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-15/photos-detroit-s-black-bottom-before-urban-renewal.

“Encyclopedia Of Detroit.” Detroit Historical Society – Where the Past Is Present, detroithistorical.org/learn/encyclopedia-of-detroit/black-bottom-neighborhood.

Hunter, Branden. “How Much Do You Know about Black Bottom Detroit?” The Michigan Chronicle, Real Times Media, 7 Dec. 2018, michiganchronicle.com/2018/12/07/how-much-do-you-know-about-black-bottom-detroit/#/?playlistId=0&videoId=0.

McFarland, Matt. “Highways That Destroyed Black Neighborhoods Are Crumbling. Some Want to Undo That Legacy.” CNN, Cable News Network, 27 Feb. 2021, www.cnn.com/2021/02/27/cars/buttigieg-highway-removals/index.html.

“Paradise Theater – Detroit, MI.” Black Bottom Archives, 15 May 2015, www.blackbottomarchives.com/blackhistory/2015/5/15/paradise-theater-detroit-mi?rq=paradise+valley+theater.

Staff, Stateside. “How the Razing of Detroit’s Black Bottom Neighborhood Shaped Michigan’s History.” Michigan Radio, NPR, 11 Feb. 2019, www.michiganradio.org/post/how-razing-detroit-s-black-bottom-neighborhood-shaped-michigan-s-history.

When looking at many of the larger cities in America, gentrification is an issue that on the surface seems to cause much improvement, but behind the scenes causes an impact on many people. Gentrification is the “process in which a poor area (as of a city) experiences an influx of middle-class or wealthy people who renovate and rebuild homes and businesses and which often results in an increase in property values and the displacement of earlier, usually poorer residents” (Merriam-Webster). Within Columbus we see gentrification, and Scott Wood of Columbus Alive even compared gentrification to a game of Monopoly (Woods). He compared the previous, poor area as Baltic Avenue with green low-middle income houses. As gentrification or “development” begins in these areas, more red hotels which symbolize upper-class housing or businesses are introduced and in turn cause a decline in green houses in the area. This causes an increase in housing prices due to the influx of more wealthy people coming into the area to build businesses or renovate houses. This all comes with a price that affects the previous residents of these areas.

While reading The Leavers by Lisa Ko, we see that Peilan and Deming live in New York City, which is a hot spot for gentrification. Stacey Sutton explains in her TedTalk the impacts of gentrification, specifically within New York. She highlights the different forms of displacement that happen when gentrification occurs. One form, exclusionary displacement, focuses on the group of people that are not forced to leave but leave due to the fact that where they live now does not fit their lifestyle (Sutton). Peilan and Deming, being immigrants in New York City, could have been victims of gentrification and either direct displacement or exclusionary displacement. When gentrification occurs, many of the cities affected lose much of the culture that developed in those cities. Being an immigrant in a new place, Peilan and Deming valued the culture within places like Chinatown and would have ultimately been affected negatively if these areas were gentrified.

Gentrification causes many issues for the residents living in these areas because the cost of living within these areas rises as gentrification proceeds. Many of the residents are not able to afford housing within these areas after developments are made. Another issue gentrification brings to attention is the neglect many of these areas face until they are further developed by an outside wealthier source. Many of these areas lack proper care from the city, like policing and street repairs (Woods). Care from the city, which should have been present previously, finally becomes present after gentrification. Systemic injustice is present in gentrification through the displacement of low-income residents and the neglect their area faced before gentrification. By giving more attention to areas that are at risk of gentrification or developing these areas to fit the needs of the residents, the issues gentrification brings can be eliminated.

Works Cited

“Gentrification.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gentrification.

TEDxTalks, director. What We Don’t Understand about Gentrification | Stacey Sutton | TEDxNewYork. YouTube, YouTube, 15 Jan. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqogaDX48nI.

Woods, Scott. “The Other Columbus: Gentrification – The Monopoly Version.” Columbus Alive, Columbus Alive, 11 Sept. 2019, www.columbusalive.com/news/20190911/other-columbus-gentrification—monopoly-version.

Today I will be showcasing the inequalities in Covid-19 cases and deaths between different demographics. The African-American and Latino communities have been disproportionately affected by Covid-19 compared to other groups. The reason this issue is a systematic injustice is because of the many different infrastructure problems that are lingering factors causing this phenomenon to occur.

The first issue is lack of access to adequate healthcare. This is an issue that has been affecting all Americans for a long time but it is a much bigger issue with minorities such as African-Americans and Latinos. Reasons for lack of healthcare can be traced to different reasons such as families having lower levels of employment and financial standing. These issues are generational as well as a product of their environment. Another issue is the lower levels of education and access to resources to allow them to get the treatments they need. They are more susceptible to misinformation being spread on Covid-19 and overall lack of access to the facts on the issue.

One of the most important reasons on why the disparities in cases occur between minorities and other Americans is due to lack of trust of government institutions. The African-American and Latino communities have been a target of discrimination and inequality for much of their history in the United States. This is another generational issue that has been effecting the communities for a long time. This long-term lack of trust of government institutions is leading to uneven Covid-19 rates because they might not trust the treatments or vaccines that are being distributed by said institutions.

Here are two graphs, one illustrates the disproportionate amount of cases between African-Americans, Latinos, and Caucasians and the other graph shows with amount of cases between various groups:

All of these different issues are all connected and lead into one another. Despite the systemic nature of these issues, they can be fixed with continuous focus on them as well as providing more resources and educational tools to alleviate some of the damage that has already been done. Overall, these issues can be fixed even though they are embedded in the infrastructure of this country but they will take time to change and will need the effort of all Americans.

Works Cited:

Fox, Nick. “COVID-19’s Disproportionate Impact Across Racial Lines.” LHSFNA, Laborers Health & Safety Fund of North America, July 2020, www.lhsfna.org/index.cfm/lifelines/july-2020/covid-19-s-disproportionate-impact-across-racial-lines/.

Jacob Schott

3/27/2021

A couple of days ago my girlfriend went to go workout at the gym. She put on typical workout clothing which consisted of a pair of leopard print leggings and a tight-fitting T-shirt. Afterwards she needed to stop at the grocery store to pick up a few things and on the way in a guy made a very forward comment about her leopard print leggings. She said similar things happened two more times while she was shopping inside the store that day. She left the store feeling mentally abused and disgusted with how she was being looked at. When I asked her what she did about it she replied “nothing.” Had the situation escalated to a physical interaction I hope she would have at least had the courage to speak up, and if need be, defend herself. However, I think the public setting she was in paralyzed her from speaking out and making a scene.

Her situation is extremely relevant to Spivak’s story from week four and how Spivak spoke of the relationship women have with silence. I questioned her on why she didn’t say anything to these rude men, and she said that because they didn’t try to physically do anything, she didn’t feel like it was necessary. However, she clearly and a negative experience from the whole ordeal and it made her uncomfortable enough where she had to tell me about it. The situations definitely warranted action of some sort. I believe the underlying reason for her not speaking up was because it is an example of how women continue to remain silent because they feel as if they cannot make their voices stronger than a man’s. This is a prime example of how the oppression women faced decades ago still carries on today and how this silence/willingness to put up with instances like this further perpetuates the injustices towards women.

After listening to her digress over the situation that unfolded at the grocery store, I began to ask if there were other instances of this happening to which she replied, “all the time.” Luckily for her she has never had a situation escalate to becoming physically assaulted, but she spoke about a few of her friends who had been. The worst of which seems to happen in the workplace. A shocking 54% of women who participated in a poll by inc.com indicated that they experienced some sort of unwanted sexual attention. Those women also reported that 95% of the perpetrators go unpunished as seen in the graphic above. Decades of oppression that women have faced have made them feel as if they do not have a voice when it comes to speaking out about these issues. This is part of the reason why these statistics remain so high. However, on a positive note the #Me Too movement has gained a lot of traction in recent years which will hopefully break the women’s silence as described by Spivak. As you can see by this graph from vox.com there is a lot of positivity and hopefulness surrounding the movement and the future treatment of women going forward.

Works Consulted

BLOXHAM, ELEANOR. “Workplace Harassment: A Complex Issue.” Phi Kappa Phi Forum, vol. 98,

no.1,Spring2018,p.21. EBSCOhost,search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=129399693&site=ehost-live.

Cassino, Dan, and Cassino, Yasemin Besen. “Race, Threat and Workplace Sexual Harassment:

The Dynamics of Harassment in the United States, 1997–2016.” Gender, Work &

Organization, vol. 26, no. 9, Sept. 2019, pp. 1221–1240. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1111/gwao.12394.

“Stop Sexual Harassment Women Demand.” Women’s International Network News, vol. 22, no.

4,Sept.1996,p.54. EBSCOhost,search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&A

N=9611115424&site=ehost-live.