Zhuoer: Hello Everyone, thank you for taking time to read our podcast. My name is Zhuoer Xu. 

Chenlong: Hi I’m Chenlong Li.

Zhuoer: Today we are going to talk about how racism and sexism intertwine to afflict Asian-American,especially Asian-American women.So Chenlong, did u know the shooting in Atlanta a few weeks ago?

Chenlong:Wow, of course. I’m completely shocked after hearing what happened.On March 16th, At least eight people were killed after shootings at three spas in the Atlanta  

area. Seven women and one man were killed, and six of them were Asian.  

Police said video evidence leads them to believe the suspect, Robert Aaron Long, was the prime  

perpetrator in all three shootings. The suspect told police he was a “sex addict” and carried out the shooting at the massage parlor  to “eliminate temptation”. Many said the massage parlors mostly offered illicit services, and that these Asian  women were suspected of being illegal sex workers. However, the police have no evidence of  illegal sex at the spas of the crime. None of the businesses involved had any previous  convictions and were “legally operating”.

Zhuoer: What do you think of it?

Chenlong: For me , I think this is typically racism against Asian Americans. The definition of the racism is prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized. In this case, the victims are almost Asians who definitely belong to minority groups. And during the covid-19 pandemic, some people will blame Asians for the virus. That is a bias because no scientist  has confirmed that the virus originated in Wuhan,China. Besides, Asian Americans have nothing to do with the spread of the virus. This way, the shooting is more likely a hate crime against Asian Americans which is definitely racism.

Zhuoer: I believe a big part of the reason there is so much animosity towards Asian is that former President Trump has been making hateful comments about China on Twitter. So there are a lot of innocent Asian-Americans who have been insulted and even hurt just because of their race. New data has revealed over the past year, the number of anti-Asian hate incidents — which can include shunning, slurs and physical attacks — is greater than previously reported. Federal hate crime data for 2020 has not yet been released, though hate crimes in 2019 were at their highest level in over a decade. 

Chenlong: You are totally right. So did you face any racism during the outbreak?

Zhuoer: Yeah, I have met racism. It was a bad memory. I was shopping with friends in a supermarket. There were two young guys shooting videos at us, and suddenly they ran over and touched our shopping cart. And then they ran away shouting ‘ I got covid!’ It all happened so fast I didn’t even have time to say anything. I was really angry, and many of my female friends also had similar experiences.

Chenlong: Well, that’s really ridiculous. Do you mean that Asian women compared to men are more likely to face hate crimes?

Zhuoer: that’s what I want to say! A recent analysis by a group called Stop AAPI Hate, which collects reports of hate incidents against Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities, said that out of nearly 3,800 incidents recorded in 2020 and 2021, more than two-thirds of the reports came from women.According to the data, Asian women report hate incidents 2.3 times more than men. A further examination of the submitted reports showed that in many cases, the verbal harassment that women received reflected the very intersection of racism and sexism. The same is true of this case.

Chenlong: Wow, that is something I never think about. But why do you think this shooting case also belongs to sexism?

Zhuoer: It’s because that in this case of shooting, I found out that the discrimination is related to the stereotypes of  Asian women. Many people are under the impression that any massage parlor or spa with Asian  women working in, is a place where has illegal sex service. The suspect, who claims to be a  sex addict, also chose these Atlanta’ spas to shoot, suggesting he had the same impression.  Many Asian immigrant women do not have special skills, so they have to do relatively simple  manual labor to earn money for their families. So we see a lot of Asian women working in a  variety of Chinese restaurants or household service. There is no denying that  some of them may be engaged in some illegal trade. Whereas, people should not discriminate  against and prejudice the majority of Asian women who work hard for supporting their  families. They deserve respect as much as anyone else. 

Chenlong: Yeah, you are right. Stereotypes do play an important role in these crimes. The most common stereotypes of Asian women is that they are all submissive.movie portray  And this submissive could actually embolden aggressors. Because aggressors will think Asian women are vulnerable. that can’t fight back. 

Zhuoer: So when I heard reports that this man said these shootings to “eliminate his temptations, I feel so angry.  I thought that he completely dehumanized these women, right? He labelled them as temptations that should be eliminated and killed. I mean, they are human, right? He is the one with the problem. But he treats these women as the problem? I mean, his idea is so ridiculous. And as an Asian woman, I feel it’s totally dehumanizing. 

Chenlong: Now I understand why this shooting case should also be sexism. Because he holds the stereotype of Asian women that they are all submissive and can’t fight back. He treated them as  objects instead of live people. And now we can conclude that those Asian women suffered from both racism and sexism. In another word, these Asian women experienced multiple marginalization, suffering from their intersection of being both Asian and women. And these multiple marginalization also make them become the subaltern. Because unlike those Asian Americans who faced discrimination can make their voice be heard through the protest, these Asian women who died in the spas can never make their voice be heard. This way, they become the other to the other. a subaltern.

Zhuoer: Like you said, actually, these situations that we’re talking about can also be related to what we’ve learned in class. Stereotypes of Asian women are also a kind of ‘single story’. Their labels are completely defined by the Western world. It’s a very narrow view. But their true label should be defined by themselves. People shouldn’t hold one opinion about them. Just like we learned in class, one should not judge a family, a clan, and a country based on a single story. As Adichie said, many stories matter. 

Chenlong: For nowadays society, racism and sexism are both serious problems. For some groups, they may experience both types of discrimination, but they may not realize it. Hate crimes against Asian women are almost certainly under counted, and one reason is that those with a sexual dimension tend to be classified as sex offenses, in effect erasing the racial aspect. And only when we realize the true problems they are facing, can we have a better chance to solve them.

Zhuoer: So that’s all for today. Thank you for listening. I hope that our podcast has given you some insight into something that you might not have thought about before. See u guys, have a good day. 

Chenlong: Bye guys

Word Cites

https://www.adl.org/racism 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism 

https://cn.nytimes.com/usa/20210319/racism-sexism-atlanta-spa-shooting/dual/ 

 https://scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&context=bridges_contemporary_connections 

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/24/us/san-francisco-asian-woman-attacked-racism-donation-trnd/index.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/there-were-3-800-anti-asian-racist-incidents-mostly-against-n1261257

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56218684

Yo, is this educational?

      Hola my fellow readers! My name is Jose Burgos and I would like to welcome you to my podcast where we would be discussing about the education system and the effects that it would have in the long run. Topics that I would be talking about within this podcast would be the social construct of “normal”, how the education system has changed throughout time, how different race/ethnicity/culture would be treated differently, it is just a very wide range of topic that would have always acquired my interest to talk and think about. Before we go more into the whole podcast I know that everyone has a different or similar mentality with the education system, this is just my point of view of it and what I have seen over the years. Leave a comment after all this because I would love to read and know the experience of what you have gone through or seen with the education system that would make the wider in conversation.

Something to think about would be is, how effective is our education system? When you think about it when we are young we do not really see the negative or harmful things in a sense because we are young and we could forget stuff down the road. Over the years we slowly start to see change within whichever school system you have gone through and adapted to the changes to think that they are normal. What I mean by “normal” within the school system would be that the younger students would adapt to what they see from the older classmates, adults, or public figures and slowly pick up their characteristics of what is being presented and create a social construct of “normal”, while seen by others it could be wrong or weird what happens within another education system’s school/facility.

At the start of my education, I started in Buhrer, which is a dual-language school so it was a mix of English and Spanish speakers and a very diverse range of students and faculty alike. I never picked up clues but thinking about it now some students were treated unfairly and not right, an example of this would be within my second-grade class there was me and two other of my friends and we would always be targeted for something that we did not do like interrupt the classroom or cause trouble. Within that situation, we were categorized as the trouble makers and I would get yelled at by the teacher; I realized thinking back it was mostly white students within the classroom including the teacher while I and my friends are Latino. Through this it made me think about the diversity of the education system and how unbalanced it is actually. Throughout my high school years, I saw individuals picked on to the point of dangering themselves and others because of their placement within education and with everyone around them. This is something that we need to take into consideration within the education that even though we are all strangers we have to look out for each other and spot the differences to make that change.

The way that I see it would be that the school system carries a lot of power and it is something that would be difficult to change and can impact the social construct of the mind of young students trying to find their footing in society and making a change within their generation. It all started from the K – 12 system where it really hits the mind of individuals even in high school that is where students look for the most guidance because they would reach their adulthood and slowly go towards independence; living the lives that they tried to acquire in the long run. When it comes to the difference in race/ethnicity/ culture it does play a huge impact because I have seen over time that families and individuals who are in less amount of race within the education system have a lack of resources, financial aid, accessibility to acquire the education that they need, and can harm their education within society for the long run that it could also harm their families in the future.

There is also something important to think about and that would be the little things that would slowly influence the way that we think and process information. The way I see it some would take it as random information that would not mean much but what is in the class but actually, it does play a huge impact. That would be the terms of structure over the years with children, what I mean by this would be how each grade, each subject is structure differently and for students it is also structured different, this could connect to the teacher liking or hating a student but in secret and treat them that way. Another one would be who they hire because the background of the teacher or any faculty can play a role in the eyes of the children and can affect the way they behave around others and treat them negatively depending on race/ethnicity/culture. Finally, another one would be textbooks what they read and learn because information can always be altered and they would not even know it because they would think that it is the right information

When I was thinking about this I thought about a story in a class that was discussed but even though it was different by the style is kind of off-topic from education it ties in because it is knowledge of understanding and trying to make an impact within society from the education that was emplaced. The story that I am talking about would be, The Story of My Body by Judith Ortiz Cofer, the way that it ties in would be within the racial impact since within the education within her time was mostly white because I have done some research and she was born near the end of segregation with the battle of Brown v. the board of education so the impact of white race being superior to others still lingered around throughout her start within America; through this, also tie in with race and the change in direction with education.

At the start of education between all race, it was separated and it created a horrible experience for the race that was inferior to white because they during that time were the better race. The impact that it created was the lack of education, jobs, financial aid, being able to survive, and health care; education plays a tremendous key within every single person in this world because we are devoted to learning something new and something that is interesting that would develop incredible skills within that individual and pass it on. An example of this would be that I am catholic and my church has a school system before mass that would teach young children about our church and about God; I participated in being a teacher and it was an incredible experience because they were devoted to learning and wanting to learn so much before they grow up. Any form of education is very important because it is what would lead society into the future and continue an incredible progression of new finding and creating new and advanced technology all from the basic elements of education to high advanced materials.

Overall, the way that I see the education system from where it was to now is a ginormous change in a more positive route. There were times where the education was in a horrible position but it is all about the people that create the education system, that gives out what they have learned or what they have access to and passes it on to the new generation of children to continue and evolving to an unknown outcome of knowledge and discovery at the end of all this. Within the past they were limited by technology and education and a huge block was racism, unequal opportunity, shutting people who were not the right race out; but we are in a generation where those barriers are almost out but are still harmful within the younger children. The way that I can fully interpret in education is such a sensitive subject that it can make a lot of people tense and cause their actions to be non-logical and unjustly because it feels like they deserve it more and there is so much that plays into and the inequality plays a huge impact into it from what we talked about already. Education should be an equal opportunity relationship with everyone why wants to make a change within the world and should not be afraid of who they are to pursue what they want to achieve in their future career. In the end, something needs to change and quick for the education system to be equal and justly. Before I sign off from the podcast I was want to thank you for your time to listen and understand my ideas and my question to leave off would be what do you thinking about our education system over the year? Thank you.

Transcript can be found at this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jQWykXFS3NSxdSMFoMNmFcqOrtNDHutbJuWT-ieojEk/edit?usp=sharing

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello, my name is Nattaani Daba and this is the first episode of “Yo is this racist or prejudice?” podcast. Today, I will be talking about three different situations that are examples or could be debated as examples of racism and/or systematic injustice. The first example I will be speaking too will be racism and prejudice when it comes to real estate. In one of my “Diary of Systematic Injustice” entries, I wrote about racism in real estate because I went through a situation with my uncle. We were talking about how he plans to sell his house and what are the logistics that come into play when you sell a house. He was telling me there’s one major detail that his realtor told him that he would have to make sure would be done or this could de-value his whole home. That main thing was pictures, videos, or any images of him or his family or any friends will have to be taken down in the listing before they sell the house. I asked my uncle why you would have to do that. Does it really matter honestly as long as they get clear pictures of the property and every angle/room of everything they need to see? He told me no because when you are African American, your house is de-valued and the property is appraised at a lower rate than if no one knew what race you were or if you were Caucasian for example. I asked why that is and he said it goes back to the term redlining. Redlining is where different real estate people would mark off communities that had high concentrations of minorities and people of color to show that these places have lower value because of that reason in particular. The other neighborhoods that were predominantly Caucasian for example, were not red-lined. They would be left as is or be marked as green. This practice is racist because it follows the textbook definition of racism, which is prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized. That in itself is a prime example of racism. It shows that just because you’re a specific ethnicity or racial group that you will be targeted systematically as well. This is a rule that is placed through all real estate in America and is not an isolated instance. There has not been much passed in legislation or laws to curb this and it is an ongoing issue that needs to be solved.  

Another example of racism that I wrote about in my “Diary of Systemic Injustice” assignment was when I was in the Short North area and I was invited to go to the bar with my friends. When I got to the bar and got to the front, I was told that I could not come in. I asked why that is and they told me that based off of the clothes that I was wearing that I would not be allowed inside. It attracts the patrons that they do not want at their establishment. I thought about it for a second and the clothing that I was wearing would be considered urban. Urban is technical jargon for “black” or African American. I saw the flyer the man was referring that showed the dress code for the area. It showed that I could not wear my Air Jordan 1s, my camo shorts, and certain plain colors because they said it represents a gang affiliation. Honestly, it was just to filter out African American patrons from coming to the facility. It did not matter to the person that I was bringing extra people there, I had my girlfriend, her friends, and my friends as well. They did not care about that, they said they could come in but me and two other people could not come in because of the clothes we were wearing. This is an example of racism because without saying it, they are saying “If you are black, you cannot come in here”. If you don’t adhere to a certain code, we will not allow you in and will not allow people that wear this clothing or bring this vibe to our establishment. That is a prime example of racism and is systematic because it is a rule placed by the establishment and not one instance of an individual, maybe a woman wearing something to scantily clad or a man wearing something to scantily clad. This is a prime example of racism and is systematic because of that reason.  

The last example I will be speaking on today will be one of the situations I went through as well when I was on the west side of Columbus. I was going through the area and saw that there was a checkpoint. At the checkpoint there were numerous police and could see that there was I.C.E as well. I.C.E is the customs agency that works for the United States government and they work as a taskforce for immigration. They’re there to basically to make sure everyone in their area has their papers and is a “legal” citizen. I saw that if you were Caucasian or a person that had name that was American you would be let through with no issue and there would be no extensive check. If you were someone who was Latino, especially Latino, or someone that had an unusual name that had an “ethnic” background, to it, they would pull you aside and run a more extensive screening on you to see if you had your papers. They are targeting a particular group, I don’t have to say much because it speaks for itself. Law enforcement is targeting specific groups of people, mainly minorities and people of color because they are trying to “keep their country safe” and to make sure that everyone that is here is here legally. Which in a literal sense is the right thing to do but that is not what they are doing because everyone they are stopping is a certain ethnic group and race or fit within a certain group which is the minority group. All these people are tax paying citizens, they contribute to the economy, they pay their bills and they do everything that every other citizen does and are being targeted since they do not have their papers, usually those who do not have their papers or is having a long process to get them are people of color. So it is a systematic rule or systematic way of trying to filter out certain groups from staying in America and that is looking at it from a bigger scale. It looks like they are doing their jobs from up close but if you examine the situation, you see that they are targeting certain groups which is an example of racism as well that is also systematic. All these examples are systematic because they are infrastructure-based rules or laws that target specific groups and use those rules/laws to either incarcerate or to hold down these groups in general from trying to get access to resources or to have higher social, economic, or financial standing. These are racist laws and should be lobbied against and should be edited since the demographics of this country are changing and more minorities enter everyday. The American dream is what the immigrants, minorities, and people of color are doing. They represent the American dream because the American dream is coming to a different place to have a better life for your family and friends. Changing generational issues or problems that you went through in your original country and coming here to start fresh and trying to build through hard work and determination. Even though these groups of people such as Latinos and African Americans abide by this and work hard just like every other citizen, they are targeted by specific laws and regulations. These laws and regulations that are targeting them and their progress are examples of racism. They follow the textbook definition and should be addressed more but they are not addressed because these are the ideas that the country was brought up on. Even though they are making progress, there is still a long way to go. This is the first episode of the “This is Racist” podcast, its Nattaani Daba and I’m signing out.  

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11TEvMzfpcCHGQTNDCUkH7ayAWL0HWs_m/view?usp=sharing

(included link to mp3 on google drive because embedded mp3 was not working correctly)

I’m Colby Kramer, and today I’m going to be talking on a new podcast of mine, which is the “Yo… is this educational inequality?” Podcast. Today, we are clearly living in a time of great distress. The Covid-19 pandemic has changed lives all around the world. One instance of change that I would like to address is the multiplying negative effects that this coronavirus pandemic has had on inner-city schooling. I’d like to start out with a story of one student who is named Shamar, who is from an inner-city. Shamar, like many of the students his is peers with has had a rough home situation in his past. The mom, who battles a drug addiction, and he also has to bounce from home to home to his grandmother to his mom to his siblings which often leads him to experience absences from school due to a lack in transportation. And… these absences have been multiplied by the recent coronavirus pandemic. Once everything was sent to be remote, he at first did not even have a laptop, but was eventually provided with one… actually by church funding. And even with this, he doesn’t always have internet access. He struggles to find a good place to do his class and is often up late with his mom watching television or something of the sort. Essentially, he’s just struggled. And he is not finding that escape that he used to find at school from his home life. He’s not alone in this being his escape. Many of these students that live in these areas need school to get out of these rough home lives. It’s just… something that is essential to their life and their well-being. And… one just tragic part of this is that it’s often hard to see these stories especially in these current times because they are occurring being closed doors: they are private. People are not moving around as much with the pandemic so you can’t… they aren’t in these schools; you can’t see them struggling as well as you might want to. They are often times not even showing up to class so you can’t see them at all; as a teacher or as an educator you can’t help them. One teacher, Ryan Hooper, who is a social studies teacher from Cleveland who teaches in Massachusetts actually reported that only about 1 or 2 of his students were showing up regularly for a class of 10. This is clearly an alarmingly low rate. And… it doesn’t make these teachers feel too good; it’s not what they are trying to do… they are trying to make a difference in these kids lives, and it’s nearly impossible if they are not there. And… he actually attempted to alert child protective services for the students who were not showing up, but Baltimore essentially did not take any action against this, largely due to the fact that students were not being penalized for not doing their work at this time. This was… right after the pandemic began, and these students were seen to be as going through a rough time and they thought that they couldn’t penalize them for not participating. The thing is… these students needed this. Like I previously mentioned… it’s their escape. They… need school, and if they are not getting school, they’re falling behind in metal aspects, with their home life, as well as the learning aspect of it because they are just falling further and further behind without getting any teaching. This is clearly a problem, and one previous occurrence that kind of shows the future impacts that this could possibly have on these students was actually Hurricane Katrina which showed that about 6 months after the Katrina incident, only 20% of students from New Orleans were not enrolled or missed 10 plus days of school in a month. This is kind of similar in a way to what we are seeing today. Students aren’t showing up. This has been going on and it will continue until we are able to get fully back into school with the vaccines and such, but currently this is what is going on and one almost terrifying fact from this is that a 7-year-old from New Orleans during Katrina was found more likely to be unemployed than all but 2 cities in the US from kids that were the same age. Which… clearly displays a direct correlation to negative effects of kids not being at school and them seeing this in their future. 10 years ahead of this… there is a clear impact, and it is the same thing that is happening in inner cities all across the United States right now. Our entire educational system is being set back and there needs to be action taken. This setback is a setback to a system that was previously already not performing. Another study that I looked at from Education Week, which was titled “Study Lays Out Grim Statistics on Urban Education”, actually displayed… I mean these negative effects were already there. Less than 15% of these students took the ACT/SAT from 30 out of the 50 cities that were studied and in addition to that only… well 1 out of 4 students from the 9^th grade in the beginning of the study graduated in 4 years when it was looked back upon in 2015. And… this is… just a clear fault in the system. This is not the statistics you would see; they are better in suburban and rural areas, but these cities are being neglected and the funding… it’s not enough right now. It’s just clearly not enough. These students… they are not receiving the funding that they need. And… as a direct result of this, they are not going to succeed in their futures. And going back to current times, just one story that I would like to address… it was a Cleveland news story from wkyc which is just a local news network there. I’m just going to play a quick clip for you guys here…

This investigation looking just at the data for the start of this fall semester suggests that problems still persist in Cuyahoga County, as suburban schools scored higher than inner city schools in one key area: attendance. “It’s good… it’s an adjustment, but it’s working out.” In suburban Parma, where Abby Maloro goes to school, the district has seen near perfect attendance. 97% logging in at her school Normandy high and 98% at Parma high school. 3 news found similar results at Shaker Heights High School and Beechwood High School. “I say fair… it’s going fair.” But Cleveland Metro Schools, where 37,000 students have been in virtual classes since March… 3 news found roughly 5600 students not regularly logging on. “Sometimes a Chromebook goes out, and we’ve been up here twice to get new Chromebooks because this one will go dead.” While Cleveland Metro schools has given students Chromebooks and hotspots, Brenda Cook Weems says her son Thomas often has problems logging on. “How many times has that happened?… twice, this is the second time.” And perhaps even more troubling is Cleveland’s High School attendance. The most recent data available shows only 63% of students logging on at Thomas’ school, Glenville High. On par with the 64% average at John F. Kennedy and 66% at Collinwood High School. “Yes I am… very disappointed… 63% is not good.”

So, this attendance aspect of things which we are seeing with the coronavirus pandemic… it’s… highlighted, it’s clearly much worse, but it’s a problem that already occurring as I mentioned earlier with stories like Shamar who have rough home lives and struggle to find the transportation they need in order to get to school. Beyond that, the previously mentioned funding… there’s actually… for urban students in these districts, they receive about $2,100 less per student in funding compared to suburban areas and ultimately $4,000 per student less than rural areas. This is largely due to local control and self-funding in these districts, which often lead there to be a higher per student funding for smaller districts and… another aspect that has caused these deeply rooted issues in the education system has been racial segregation and redlining, which have led to concentrated low-income communities of color in these urban areas which is displayed by the fact that about… per student kids of color receive about $1,321 less than their white counter parts even in these cities. So, it’s not just a problem from cities to suburban areas, it’s actually within these cities you are seeing separation/segregation, and this essentially leads to a perpetuation of poor education and it leads many of these students to drop out, possibly go to crime and that does not set them of for the future of success that we are looking for. There is clearly, a problem with the funding formula that exists in these cities and everywhere… there is just not an equal balance of this education system. It’s not providing students from different areas with the same equal opportunities that could possibly lead them to maybe go to college, and possibly beyond that there are systems of scholarships and such set up so that some of these students can have that opportunity, but the education system in the root needs to give these students an education that will provide them with future success. And essentially to go towards that, the stories of these inner-city students just need to be heard. Stories like Shamar, he’s not alone. All of these students’ stories need to be heard, and once they are heard, there can be an uproar and people will see that the inequalities seen in the education system are completely alarming… and they are also absolutely unacceptable. They need to be addressed to the highest degree, and we need to see change in the policies that exist in our current climate.

Jacob Weiler 0:00
Hello, my name is Jacob Weiler. And this is my podcast for comparative studies 1100. For this podcast, I’m going to be discussing a diary of systemic injustice that I created earlier in the semester. And while I do that, I’m going to go further in detail with it, and try to make it more listenable in audio. For my diary of systemic injustice that I picked, it happened to be my third one, which happened to focus on discrimination against Asian Americans that have happened throughout our American history.

Jacob Weiler 0:33
While I’m not exactly the like, I don’t have first hand experience with this type of stuff, as I’m not an Asian American, I have done quite a bit of research as this was my diary systemic justice number three, and it was my diary of systemic injustice showcase I did earlier in the semester. So for a brief intro on this topic, the day that I decided to pick the systemic injustice, I looked at Twitter, and just to find some ideas on the topic of what I was going to do, because I tend to struggle but I, I came upon a hashtag. That was hashtag executive order 9066,

Jacob Weiler 1:12
which I just thought was a political trend of the day, which I tend to stay away from. But I clicked on out of curiosity, and I learned what the true meaning of it was. Executive Order 9066 was the order that was signed when America during World War Two, and it happened to imprison 1000s of Asian Americans into internment camps. If you don’t know what internment camps are, they are very comparable to,

Jacob Weiler 1:42
to like camps and Holocaust and things like that, while maybe not as extreme as that it’s on the same level, at least.

Jacob Weiler 1:51
And it was something that is a huge scar in the American conscience and reading about it was something that wasn’t exactly a pleasant read. But it was some It is something very educational.

Jacob Weiler 2:08
Now I’m going to try to give a brief history on the order. As I stated before, it was something that was signed right as America during World War Two, it was signed by President FDR and there really wasn’t anything done about it up until 1976, when President Gerald Ford made an order to prohibit prohibit anything like this from happening again. It was just an executive order, though. So technically, a president can overrule it. But history right now is showing that no president will because it’s just if you do, you’re just going to look like an absolute racist.

Jacob Weiler 2:45
And then there wasn’t a formal apology until 1988 when Ronald Reagan issued a public apology on behalf of the government and gave reparations to those who were put in internment camps along with their children. And this is from history.com, if you want to look it up or anything like that. And before this even went through the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court actually decided that it was okay to do which is baffling to me that they would ever think that this would be not something against human rights and against our freedoms as Americans. But they upheld it, which goes to show that not everything the Supreme Court says is always the best. But that’s why we have checks and balances, and the Congress and the President and all that stuff, yada, yada, yada. But

Jacob Weiler 3:35
on the other hand, that’s kind of the end of the history with it, there’s obviously still going to be some effects through families. But in terms of things that government has said about this, it’s been something that they’ve stayed relatively quiet about, as they are with many issues dealing with the government doing something against minorities in some way.

Jacob Weiler 3:55
But for me, this was something that was covered for maybe three days in my high school classes, and I was lucky enough to even hear about it because I had a good enough history teacher that who cared who literally just cared about this topic and wanted us to understand that the US government doesn’t always make perfect decisions, and that life’s a little more complicated than it seems. I realize that I definitely was in a lucky position to hear that because not many people I think I’ve heard about this and the fact that it was trending on Twitter just to give people some education on the subject really shows that not many Americans know about this. It’s similar to many other things that America did during World War Two and many other countries during World War Two where no country was really safe from doing something terrible. It just they happen to be overshadowed by the Nazis, obviously, who did the worst out everybody. Well, this tends to deal with the past. The reason I chose this for my

Jacob Weiler 5:00
systemic injustice at the time was it that was right around the time when the shooting at the spa happened in America, which was a big shock to me.

Jacob Weiler 5:10
Even though there has been quite a bit of shootings in America recently in general, which is terrible, but the shooting at the spa, many thought that it was racially motivated. And even if it wasn’t, it was a big,

Jacob Weiler 5:26
big thing that happened against a bunch of Asian Americans who all happened to be from the reports and everything, just regular day Americans who were just getting by and trying to feed their kids, which makes it even more horrible that this even happened. And if you don’t know I happened, it’s some guy went into a spa that was full of Asian American immigrants who had children, most of them, they’re mostly all women. And he happened to kill, I believe it was nine, I don’t have the exact numbers up on the screen. But it was eight, I just looked at it. But it had eight American, Asian American woman killed at a spa. And most of them were single mothers.

Jacob Weiler 6:12
I have a quote from Eric Park, which is the son of a victim who said that his mom was a “single mother who dedicated her whole life to providing for my brother and me,” which that story tends to be something that many Americans resonate with, because it’s kind of the American dream, quote, unquote, to fight for what you want, and to make money and to get your kids into a better place than you were in.

Jacob Weiler 6:41
But this leads to the bigger discussion that’s been happening around this is the endless amounts of racism towards Asian Americans in America.

Jacob Weiler 6:51
And towards Asians, in general, to anybody who looks Asian or anybody who is Asian tends to have some sort of stereotype put towards them, or in some more extreme cases, have just flat out racism, and of all types, like slang terms and all that stuff thrown towards them, which is especially ramped up in 2020, due to the Coronavirus and the remarks towards China. And for some reason, some rather stupid people, correlating

Jacob Weiler 7:28
China to all Asian people and their decisions to all Asian people, which tends to be something that is a very fringe idea, but there are definitely some that I’ve seen on the internet that think that and there’s some clips that you can look up online, of people saying this stuff, you can look it up if you want, but it’s it’s disappointing to see in the least, it’s something that’s not particularly, at least I don’t think not particularly it’s not good picture of most of America. But there is a real racism problem when it comes against Asian Americans. And most of the topics against about this shooting has been about what can we do to combat racism, racism, and the world, which has been not even just for Asian Americans. It’s been a topic for the past 2,3, 4, past 60 years, that America has been dealing with, with the skeletons in our closet, so to speak. And it’s something that

Jacob Weiler 8:31
has been getting, obviously better depending on which

Jacob Weiler 8:36
goggles you put on that day. And it’s something that will continue to hopefully get better with better education programs in schools.

Jacob Weiler 8:46
I think in my personal opinion, that is the only way to combat it is to if you’re gonna have racist parents, you gotta have something in school that teaches children to think Usually, the best way to make a racist person not racist, isn’t to flat out call them racist and say the wrong it’s more to open up their mind. And to,

Jacob Weiler 9:09
to think critically about what they’re just about the situation in general and why they shouldn’t be thinking like that. While this isn’t the fastest solution to the nation’s problem, it is one of the more effective ones when it comes to stopping it from creeping back up again. But I feel like in my opinion, and some other people would agree with me too.

Jacob Weiler 9:31
There definitely is a thing in our brain where we’re just some people at least are just wired to hate other people, which is something that would be very hard to get out at everybody. But I right now, I believe most of the of America, like the majority is not racist, but there’s a sizable chunk that happens to have some negative connotation against a certain race and the shooting at the spa kind of shows that there’s a lot of work to be done.

Jacob Weiler 10:00
on that front end, a lot of

Jacob Weiler 10:01
a lot of decisions need to be made. I don’t know whether the government should step in and start saying stuff. I think the government has definitely said a lot when it comes to that. And there can be arguments that the government and in the past four years has led to some of the negative connotations towards Asian Americans, especially, just due to how what Trump has said and things like that, which hasn’t been particularly enjoyable to hear. While he might not be racist, depending on what you look at definitely some, some conversations about it, that he had were not the best for people who are racist and definitely could be taken as ammo against Asian Americans. And

Jacob Weiler 10:52
hopefully, less situations like the ones that just recently happened at the spa. That hopefully stop happening, it’s just talking about just makes me kind of disappointed at this point. It’s just sad.

Jacob Weiler 11:07
So that’ll be the end of my podcast. Talking about this has made me very disappointed, and I’m kind of sad now. So, on that note, have a good day.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

19:07:34 My name is Jackie Groeschen, I’m a marketing major in Fisher at Ohio State, and I took this class because I wanted to learn more about the world and the people in it, because I think

19:07:52 that everyone could always benefit for more information and getting more insight and a lot of different perspectives. Definitely, um, my name is Grace Rudzinski.

19:08:04 I’m a business finance major also in the Fisher school at Ohio State, and I took this class because I feel like especially right now and.

19:08:13 Over the summer there was a lot of riots with black lives matter I just feel like there’s so many important topics that arose in 2020 and 2021 that made me want to learn more and like you said get more information on all those topics so, yeah, I think

19:08:29 this class is a great way to like, learn more about those.

19:08:34 And yeah, yeah.

19:08:37 And this is our podcast, yo, is this racist. Today, we will be covering education and redlining environmental racism and also hate crimes. And we think that all of these definitely come together under the umbrella of injustice regarding race, and where

19:08:59 people are from.

19:09:01 So we’re really excited to get into it, for sure. So you wrote a really good systematic injustice.

19:09:08 Little writing about the school zone lines. Would you like to talk about that at all. Yeah, absolutely. So this was definitely the first like initially when I read about the project I knew that I wanted to talk about this, I think that I learned about

19:09:25 this when I was in high school, and some of my classes. And basically what it is is different public school systems, create their zones, based off of what school that area will be going to.

19:09:41 And they draw these quote on quote red lines that can exclude people or put different groups and neighborhoods into maybe a worse school districts, stuff like that.

19:09:54 It also goes into people getting mortgages for their houses.

19:09:59 And that isn’t always exactly fair. A lot of that plays into race, which I learned about a little bit but I came from a private school. So this was not prevalent in my background, but we learned about it which was super cool and I thought that it was

19:10:17 very mature of my teacher, to be able to talk about this in front of her classroom and her students, which was awesome. So, Did you have public schooling or private school.

19:10:41 finish out all my school and public school, and I came from a wealthier town. Yeah, I’m from Springboro, Ohio so I can’t quite understand what some of the kids, you know feel when they are from less wealthy backgrounds.

19:10:52 But I think that it’s so important that we look into it and realize how people may be feeling when you split, put a line in between, who can go here and who needs to go somewhere else.

19:11:04 For sure, but one quote that I found from an article said that at Lincoln Elementary School, 16% of the students come from low income families and over 80% are proficient in reading the school shares an attendance zone boundary with Manierre elementary

19:11:23 school where 99% of students are low income and only 11% are proficient in reading.

19:11:30 So it’s just crazy that, and the same neighborhood, they have such different levels of reading and it’s just, it’s unfair at the level of education that they can get where they come from.

19:11:44 Yeah I think so too. I think that just reading those statistics like, I realized how thankful and like how lucky I was to be able to go to a good school, and then be able to go home and have the resources to study and have a quiet environment and have

19:12:02 parents that were supporting me. So I think that that’s a big part of these huge gaps in the schooling is you know what the students are going home to, and then how the school is actually helping them.

19:12:16 So, you know, the schools they get funds for like after school care or summer camp, or even just like Homework Help knew what schools are getting funded more for sports and all that stuff, it all goes.

19:12:30 It’s really wild, how you know different like these different areas can be when they’re so so close, for sure.

19:12:42 Okay, all right. You want to segue over to our next topic. Yeah, for sure. Okay.

19:12:49 So I also found some research on the environmental racism which I never, that was one topic that I just I never really thought about because that one’s one that’s very new to me too.

19:13:02 Yeah, yeah, I feel like in, you know, you just think of like the environment. Oh, everyone has the same environment. Everyone lives on the same planet like, you know, it’s the same but what I found was that different like water supplies were, like, had

19:13:20 lead in them and Flint, Michigan. And so, that water that was contaminated very much went to the poor areas of Flint, Michigan, versus the more wealthy areas.

19:13:34 Yeah.

19:13:37 Yeah. No, that’s crazy to me because we’re all people you know and it’s like we all need a few things to survive like the bare minimum necessities would be like food, water, and I mean shelter but water so it’s like you can’t be giving certain people

19:13:55 water just because they’re poor you know we all need it, so like it’s literally something we need to survive. So yeah, that’s, that’s crazy.

19:14:03 Yeah, I think, and especially like in that example like it was, it was all over the news like everyone knew about this huge issue, but like I feel like at least from my perspective when it was actually happening.

19:14:19 I just assumed oh you know their whole entire town like it’s it’s everyone, but it wasn’t, it was you know the poor areas that like then couldn’t stand up for themselves.

19:14:31 Right. Say yeah and like the town of Flint is 57% Black 37% white and 4% Latino. And so that, like, primarily black residents in this town and they don’t have environmental safety, but, you know, maybe a predominantly white neighborhood nearby does, right,

19:14:51 is just, you know, weird and shouldn’t happen but at the same time, you have, I just feel like situations like these, like, it’s important for everyone to be super transparent with the information that they’re giving to the media.

19:15:06 Absolutely.

19:16:07 This, I think, has a good connection to the topic that we’ve learned a lot about in class about the one and the other, and just this whole situation of othering and finding this example of how, you know, in this case the white people were the one and

19:16:26 they decided that, you know, everyone else was the other way. Yeah, exactly. Yes, like they weren’t the main focus of this like disaster that was happening.

19:16:38 And so I think that that is like a big overarching like theme within racism is like the one in the other and who is deciding that they, you know, belong, or are better than someone just because of their skin tone.

19:16:54 For sure it’s like who, who gets to say that, you know, we are whatever and this person’s the other, it’s like, how do they feel about you know it’s like where do I come from and why does something good to say that.

19:17:08 Yeah, it’s, it’s super interesting too like this town is predominantly black. Yes, from what I’ve read which could also, you know, who knows, it was one source, but it does seem like people that have a white skin tone decided, you know like

19:17:28 the board was mostly white and like stuff like that so it is very interesting that like that is that just kind of privilege and, but everyone is a resident of this town everyone you know as legal, they vote they are in the town you know they’re members

19:17:43 of the town but they still could be the other. Definitely. And I think it not only goes for people who are black but there’s people have so many other races that feel like the others well you know there’s Chinese immigrants in New York that on a daily

19:18:00 basis struggle with feeling like the other. Um, there’s a lot of Asian hate crime that has raised since the pandemic.

19:18:10 Um, so many people are feeling like this, and it’s just, again, who are we to say who gets to feel like the other, right. So you wrote one of your diary is on the hate crimes, do you want to talk about that a little bit.

19:18:24 Yes. Um, so, I found this one very interesting I actually started seeing it on Instagram so this one, became really prevalent pretty recently, but it’s about the rising or the increasing number of hate crimes towards Asian Americans.

19:18:40 Since the start of the pandemic there’s been a big surge in Asian, or yeah Asian attacks across the country.

19:18:50 Um, I found one article that said that there are so many incidents that haven’t been reported, because a lot of these people are afraid to speak up, or there’s like a language barrier that prevents them from being able to say anything.

19:19:04 So I don’t have the exact number of attacks that there have been and I don’t think there is an accurate number of attacks that have been reported because so many of them go on reported.

19:19:14 Yeah, but yeah that that’s really like just scary because you know you want to think that if something is happening that’s wrong, you’ll be able to speak out, stand up for yourself and get it fixed.

19:19:27 Yeah, absolutely.

19:19:30 Yeah but, um, there’s one occasion that I found or one incident. A man was walking in Koreatown in LA, and he was attacked by two men, things like this happen all the time but not only was he attacked but people go through the neighborhoods yelling like

19:19:46 all Asians need to die like things like that.

19:19:51 And it’s just, it’s really saddening.

19:19:52 Yeah. And it also like as much as the whole situation is terrible. I do think that because it has happened during the pandemic. a lot of people are online more, some people still, you know, haven’t gone back to even going to a restaurant or anything like

19:20:11 that and so a lot of things have been on social media. And I’m not saying at all that everything on social media is true and accurate and all that but I do think is it it has been a great eye opener to start to get people to look into issues like this.

19:20:29 As much as you know, the pandemic has been so terrible I do think that this is one of the very few like good things that has come out of it. Yes, and I yeah 100% I think that everyone being inside more not going out as much as much as that stinks but

19:20:46 it has helped spread awareness to issues like these like all the ones we’ve talked about today.

19:20:53 Um, and I mean we’re nowhere near like solving all these issues but I think that bringing attention is one of the biggest things that we can do to take steps forward and solve issues.

19:21:03 Yeah.

19:21:05 So I do think we are running out of time for our episode today so we’re going to wrap it up. Do you have anything you want to say to close it off grace.

19:22:15 Okay that is all we have for today thank you so much for listening to our episode, we loved talking about the school zone lines, racism from all races, and environmental racism.

19:22:32 So, thank you so much. Thank you. Bye. Bye.

What’s up people! Today I wanted to talk about and give an in depth analysis on a sort of buzz-word that everyone hears often, but don’t really know the ins and outs about. And this thing is Affirmative Action, both in college and the workplace. A lot of people have some big opinions on this topic, without fully understanding both the benefits and drawbacks that it offers. Some people think it provides the ultimate equalizer for admissions into different areas, and some think it is ignoring too many people that try hard but are disadvantaged because of affirmative action. So now I want to try my best to only provide the facts, since it is such a divisive topic. So first off, here is the history:

Affirmative Action is a set of policies or legislation that aims to increase equality in education and employment based on gender, race, sexuality, and nationality. Most policies under this umbrella want to increase diversity, bridge inequality, and correct past harms. The first policies like this were enacted in 1961 by John F. Kennedy through Executive Order 10925, with future policy increases occurring later on. Some examples of this are the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Executive Order 11246 an 11375 by Lyndon B. Johnson. In the past 20 years or so, more and more people have brought up the questionable constitutionality of the acts. In the Supreme Court case Grutter v. Bollinger, it held up in court that public institutions can factor race into college admissions. States like California, Michigan, and Washington have banned the use of affirmative action, and instead want to focus on socio-economic status when adjusting college admissions. Let me emphasize that not only were these actions important, but they were absolutely vital for the inclusion of people from all walks of life to get a fair shot. Without these various orders and bills being passed, minorities might be even further behind then many are today. However, today these policies may create more division in this country than they are worth, especially in colleges. One of the biggest indicators for success later in life is having a college degree, so the fact that college admissions may not be currently handled correctly is a huge problem in present day America.

Well how does it work in college admissions? That is a very loaded question to answer. Well, it does indeed do what it intends, and allows many more minorities to get into college programs that otherwise likely would have been turned away. It corrects for Black and Hispanic people to be more likely to make it into a competitive programs, while making it marginally less likely for White and Asian people to get in. In most colleges, they don’t turn away many people and their acceptance rate is very high, so there are not many people Affirmative Action can hurt. However, in the more prestigious organizations, they use it way more often in their admissions. This lets certain people get in, but often leaves the possibility that someone just as deserving of the spot can not get into their dream college. Take ACT results for example, Black and Hispanic people receive “boosts” to their scores while White people’s remain the same and Asian’s scores are artificially lowered in this current system. Some people’s admissions rates are drastically increased while others chances go down. With the rising hate crimes occurring against Asian Americans, the fact that most of the best colleges in the country actively treat Asian applicants differently than others is an even worse look than it normally is. There have already been numerous lawsuits that have been filed against these colleges on the behalf of Asian Americans, with most not having concluded yet. These current policies end up helping people that don’t need the help as much more often than not. The largest beneficiaries of current policy are upper-middle class Black Americans, not poor minorities. As it should be to no one’s surprise, families that have more money can spend that money on their child’s education, therefore giving their kid a head start in life and leading to a better chance at success. The reason for this being that these people already had the resources to succeed at the high school level and have a greater chance of getting higher test scores because of their socio-economic status, as well as getting a boost from Affirmative Action. This not only gives a boost to people that don’t need the artificial help as much as others, but leaves out poorer Americans that would really need the help to get ahead, regardless of race. This does not even factor Legacy students, who have a much higher chance of being admitted simply because a relative has already gone to the school. Not only is this a terrible concept to begin with, it helps those who already have had the means and resources to previously succeed at a university instead of a family that could be sending their first person to college. Affirmative action today is treated more as reparations for slavery than actually helping people that desperately need it to get ahead in the broken system we currently live in. As some states have already suggested, if we instead focused on adjusting for a families income when talking about college admissions, it would be way more likely to help those that could actually need it. This would still mostly benefit minorities that have been historically disenfranchised, but actually impact those that are the furthest behind the most. While admissions focusing on socio-economic status is currently lacking, at least programs like FAFSA account for expenses for disadvantaged people once they get into school. I personally think that Affirmative Action was absolutely essential to the proper inclusion of all different types of people, but there are better ways of tackling the problem of inclusion in our current society when it comes to college admissions.

Title IX is another divisive piece of legislation related to Affirmative Action, that directly relates to trying to end gender discrimination in colleges. Title IX is part of the Education Amendments of 1972, which helped end sexual harassment in education and the workplace. Another part of this act was promoting more women to join athletics, so public colleges need to have equal amounts of male and female athletes and programs. While this has been super effective at getting more women involved in their school’s athletics, it has resulted in a multitude of negative side effects for males. Title IX has resulted in hundreds of colleges cutting several of the men’s sports programs, most commonly cross country, track, golf, and tennis. Colleges only have so much money to go around, so they want to keep the male sports that bring in the most revenue, which are football and basketball at most colleges. These sports also have the largest rosters, so many of the spots that a college gets to use for male athletes only go towards ones that bring in money for the school. This results in many males getting turned away from the possibility of being able to compete for their school at the next level, which would happen less often if not for the male athletes cap caused by Title IX. There has to be a way to still promote women joining more sports at their respective school, while not punishing men for also enjoying athletic activity.

I have dragged Affirmative Action for long enough, its time to focus on the major good that it has caused in the workplace. Contrary to what some think, it does not cause quotas or throw out the use of merit-based hiring. It has helped both women and minorities not only get hired, but it has helped them be treated more fairly than they had ever been. More than half of the United States work force now consists of women, immigrants, and minorities. Affirmative Action causes business not to hire people based on the total population, but in proportional numbers to the pool of qualified candidates. While there is still the huge problem with lack of women and minorities in leadership roles, this has been moving in the right direction since the programs have been introduced. This is one area that I would for sure push back on people that disagree with Affirmative Action, because it is becoming increasingly important that there is no lack of diversity in the workplace because it can only serve to benefit everyone involved. While every piece of the law has an issue, it is not worth getting rid of Affirmative Action in the workplace.

So, is Affirmative Action racist and/or classist? Yes, and no, depending on what area of life we are talking about. In college, I think that it causes more harm than good. While at many schools their acceptance rate is so high that it often doesn’t come into play, at the highest level schools it hurts too many people that still deserve to get in. And with the inclusion of Title IX, I think policies like this often overstep their bounds and create a bridge where there doesn’t have to be one. However, Affirmative Action has been beneficial in the workplace since its inception, and will only serve to improve workplace diversity in the United States. Affirmative Action in all areas has increasingly been pushed back against by the public, so it will be very interesting to see what will be done with it in the coming years. So anyways, thanks for reading my article today and I hope you can take away something from it that you didn’t think about before. Not everyone will agree with my point of view, but that is okay because we all get our chance to share our perspective on what effects all of our lives.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action 

https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2017/08/07/look-data-and-arguments-about-asian-americans-and-admissions-elite 

https://hr.uoregon.edu/employee-labor-relations/affirmative-action/affirmative-action-myths-and-realities 

https://blog.collegevine.com/sibling-legacy-college-admissions/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_IX#Equity_in_athletics 

“All of my status characteristics screamed ‘competent’, but nothing could shut down what my blackness screams when I walk into the room” was once quoted by Serena Williams (Cotton 1).

The United States is known for its ‘land of the free,’ but does that free include equality for all? Can someone receive different treatment in this country just by their ethnicity? The quote from Serena Williams written in TIME magazine helps shine a light on these questions as we dive deeper into this analysis: Is the United States health care system racist towards pregnant African American women?

An African American woman shared her birth experience in an article written in TIME magazine. Her story first began with her bleeding at work while being four months pregnant. She called her husband to pick her up from work to take her to the hospital to ensure that nothing seriously horrific was happening to her or her baby. After calling ahead and explaining the condition she was in, she still had to wait 30 minutes in the waiting room, where her condition was so serious to the point where she bled through the chair. After the husband confronted the nurse about moving to the back, the nurse eventually was able to get her a room. Once when she was in a room, she was able to meet up with her doctor, where they announced to her that the  spotting was normal and could be due to her being fat. She was then sent home with no help or other input from her health care providers (Cottom 1).

Later that night, she felt extreme pain in her butt to the point where they had to call the nurse. The nurse stressed that since her back wasn’t hurting with her butt pain, it was probably due to constipation. The pain hurt so badly that she was only able to sleep about 15 minutes out of a 70-hour time span. She decided to go back to the doctor’s office, where the doctor’s reassured her it was probably due to something she ate that was bad. The doctors then hesitantly decided for an ultra-sound to be performed, where it was found that there were two tumors present in her uterus bigger than her unborn child. The doctors also found out that she has been in labor for the past three days and blamed her for not telling them. While she was in the labor room, she asked for pain medication, but the anesthesiologist replied that he wouldn’t give it to her unless she would quiet down. After the first couple of minutes of her child being born, the little infant passed away. The nurse replied, “Just so you know, there was nothing we could have done, because you did not tell us you were in labor” (Cottom 1).

According to Merriam-Webster, racism can be defined as “the belief that race is a fundamental determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race” (Merriam-Webster). So, let me ask, was this rooted to racism?

Let’s dive deeper into an analysis of this situation. When the four-month pregnant women first presented her situation to her medical care, she explained to them that she had a severe bleeding problem, which should have been a concern. The doctor explained to her that it was normal to spot while being pregnant and completely brushed off the situation. This first encounter was not handled correctly due to the fact that this woman was not just spotting if she was bleeding enough to go through a chair. This would be considered as a heavy bleeding and she should have been examined right off the bat to ensure she wasn’t having a miscarriage, or any other serious condition. When she was sent home and started to be in pain, the nurse’s only input was that that she was constipated and should try to go to the bathroom, since it was only her butt that was hurting. With the women experiencing severe pain not long after going to the doctor for bleeding, she should have been asked to come into the office for an examination. Instead, her pain was brushed off as if she didn’t know what she was talking about. When she finally went to the doctor’s again for her pain, two tumors were found, and it was expressed that she had been in labor for the past three days. The horrific part about this is that the doctors were extremely reluctant to perform the ultrasound in the first place. If it wasn’t for the ultrasound, they wouldn’t have found the tumors and wouldn’t have realized she was already in labor. The doctors seemed very careless and hesitant to help the women figure out what was wrong with her. It also seemed as if they knew nothing was wrong with her but decided to do an ultra-sound to prove to her that she is over thinking the situation.

If she was examined in the first place, her situation could have been caught sooner. When she went into the labor room to give birth to her baby, she was in so much pain, but the anesthesiologist also acted hesitant. Normally when doctors are hesitant to give women in labor pain medication, it is due to how far in labor they are, not because of them being loud. This comment from the anesthesiologist was extremely uncalled for and unprofessional. This woman has not only had the pain of labor, but she is also dealing with two huge tumors that have been causing her extreme pain in the first place. It seems as if the anesthesiologists thought she was exaggerating the pain she was feeling by making noises and screaming. Even though she was receiving terrible treatment from her care team, the most painful part about this women’s story was that the nurse put the blame of her baby’s death on her. To say they could do nothing to prevent the death of the baby because she didn’t tell the care team that she was in labor was monstrous. The women had presented her problems and concerns to the doctor’s several times and what did they do to help her? Nothing. So, let’s ask, was this racist?

“Like millions of women of color, especially black women, the healthcare machine could not imagine me as competent and so it neglected and ignored me until I was incompetent” (Cottom 1). People in the healthcare had prejudice thoughts about the pregnant women and assumed she was not knowledgeable, skillful, or fit for understanding what was happening. These prenotions put her and her child on the line, which in the end, was inhumane. Her medical team felt superior over her capabilities, leaving her defenseless and helpless in a time when she needed them most. If she was a white woman, would her care team have acted on her situation quicker? It’s horrible to say that this can also be an example of an intersectional identity to where this woman not only had to deal with the fact of just getting care as an African American, but she was also getting the quality care of being a woman in general. There is a greater chance that if this woman was white, she would have received better care. With the health care team believing that white women are competent, they would have examined her sooner and could have potentially changed the outcome of this situation.

Just like this women’s story, these situations are not rare in the United States. It has been found that African American women have a higher maternal and infant mortality rate due the inequality in health care. Statistics show that African American women have a mortality rate of 41 per 100,000 births, where American Indian women have 30, and white women have 13 (Taylor 1). Not only does African women have 28 more deaths than white women, but they are also 11 deaths higher than another race. This shows that African American women have more complications and are receiving a lack of care compared to white American women and other races. It is extremely shocking and heartbreaking to find that the amount and quality of care a woman gets when she is pregnant is dependent on her race.

Not only are these women getting the lack of support they need in the medical field, but they are also losing care support from other programs. Many programs like Medicaid, nutrition assistance, and TANF are being defunded and have had major budget cuts (Taylor et al., 1). If African American women are being treated unfairly in the medical field and have other programs defunded, what will they do? Where would they go? Their support in the United States is so limited and it’s immortally wrong to put them in this situation, especially when it’s based off of the color of their skin.

So, let’s ask again, is this racist? It is evident that the amount and quality a pregnant woman receives in health care is dependent on their ethnicity. There are predetermined feelings, beliefs, and judgements on whether an African American woman is competent. These prenotions have increased the mortality rate for African Americans, which clearly shows there is inequality in the system. The way her care team treated her also portrayed de Beauvoir’s theory of the ‘One’ verse the ‘Other’ (Beauvoir 1). The care team thought less of the African American women and provided her mediocre care quality during her birth experience. The care team demonstrated power over her and made her feel incompetent, when she was.

It is extremely upsetting to say that lives are being put on the line due to other people’s thoughts and actions. With African American women receiving poor quality in the health care system and having other programs defunded, they are not being properly taken care of. It is crucial for a light to be shined on this systematic injustice, because there are 28 women for every 100,000 births who die that don’t have the ability to fight for their lives.

Figure 1. A visual representation of the amount of maternal mortality rates per 100,000 births of different races in the United States (Petersen et al. 762-65). 

Figure 2. A visual representation of the infant mortality rate per 100,000 births of different races (Petersen et al. 762-65).

Work Cited

Cottom, Tressie. “I was pregnant and in Crisis. All the Doctors and Nurses Saw Was an Incompetent Black Women”. TIME. 2019. https://time.com/5494404/tressie-mcmillan-cottom-thick-pregnancy-competent/

Definition of RACISM. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racism. Accessed on April 4^th, 2021.

Petersen et al., “Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Pregnancy- Related Deaths- United States. 2007-2016. “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 68, no.35: 762-65. Retrieved from https://tcf.org/content/report/racism-inequality-health-care-african-americans/?session=1

Taylor, Jamila. “Racism, Inequality, and Health Care for African Americans”. The Century Foundation. 2019. https://tcf.org/content/report/racism-inequality-health-care-african-americans/?session=1

Taylor, Jamila. Novoa, Cristina. Hamm, Katie. Phadke, Shilpa. “Eliminating Racial Disparities in Marternal and Infant Mortality”. Center for American Progress. 2019. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/reports/2019/05/02/469186/eliminating-racial-disparities-maternal-infant-mortality/