For my Text Review Assignment, I read Eli Saslow’s Rising Out of Hatred, Derek Black goes from white nationalist son of former KKK Grand Wizard and the creator of Stormfront, Don Black, one of the largest white nationalist websites in America, to an antiracist political figure who defies his family and history to stand up for what he believes in. Simple enough, his transition from Neo-Nazi to who he is know came from something as small as Friday night Shabbat dinner. The book chronicles Derek’s college adventures and touches on the dinners he attended with his Jewish counterparts in college only shortly, but to me this had an immense impact. Derek allowed people he disagreed with to see him, and more importantly, he allowed them to change him. These dinners represented so much more than just eating or a friday night college hangout. Shabbat dinner was a communal gathering where Derek was not held to a better standard for being a white man, something Derek had grown up with, and preached most of his life. It seems ironic that of all people that began Derek’s journey it happened to be from a culture he was taught to be against. This kindness offered through Shabbat dinner was something so minimal yet became something powerful enough to change the entire narrative of one man and dismantle his hateful views on different cultures and people. This book focuses on how the father of Derek is initially the “one”, and Derek is the “other” to vise versa. Derek defies the “one” and does not be what he is expected to be. Rising Out of Hatred focuses on a question asking if it is justifiable that platforms like Stormfront exist where uncensored extremist ideas and opinions foster hatred and potential violence? This book inspires those in similar situations to do what they believe is right, regardless of what is occurring around them.
Antigua was initially first “discovered” in 1684 by Sir Christopher Codrington. He was interested in creating a large-scale sugar cultivation, similar to the other islands in the Caribbean, and was successful. It was eventually known as the “gateway to the Caribbean” because of the control it had over sailing routes to the different wealthy islands in the Caribbean. Similar to the sugarcane cultivation in the Caribbean, Africans were brought over as slaves in the 1670s in large numbers to Antigua, soon becoming the largest racial group in each country. Antiguan slaves were emancipated in 1834, but remained reliant on their plantation owners due to difficulties in obtaining labor.
In 1967, Antigua became an associated state to the United Kingdom, meaning it was fully self governing concerning all internal affairs, but when it came to external affairs and defense, the UK was in control. In the 70s, under Prime Minister George Walter, an independence movement surged but soon died down when he lost in the 1976 elections to Vere Bird, who stood by regional integration. By 1978, the country reverted back to the want for independence, achieving it by 1981.
In more recent years, the main form of corruption occurring in the country regards the government’s involvement with the banks and being known as a “lax tax haven”. The country gained independence from the UK in 1981 with Prime Minister Vere Bird, being succeeded by his son Lester Bird in 1994. Ten years later, Lester Bird was defeated by Minister Baldwin Spencer, who formed a new government and has been ruling since.
Similarly to many freshly independent countries worldwide, a new government allowed for untroubled corruption. There was always suspicion when the country was under the Bird ruling, with the family accepting money for political favors and different forms of abuses of power. The country is a host of major internet gambling sites, and has enacted legislation for strict bank secrecy. They are also deemed untrustworthy because of their encouragement to be used as an offshore financial center for banks and international companies. In 2009, the country’s economy suffered when Robert Allen Stanford, one of their largest investors, was charged with fraud.
Bak, Mathias, et al. Overview of Corruption and Anti-Corruption in Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Guyana, Jamaica, St Lucia, and Trinidad and Tobago. Transparency International, 2019, www.jstor.org/stable/resrep20499. Accessed 11 Apr. 2021.
Clarke, S. (2011, January). Antigua and Barbuda: History of corruption and the Stanford case. Retrieved April 11, 2021, from https://www.loc.gov/law/help/ag-corruption/stanford.php“History of Antigua and Barbuda.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/place/Antigua-and-Barbuda/History.
Jessica: Okay so I saw this video on youtube and it was about a year ago at the beginning of the pandemic and two black men were being escorted out of Walmart by the police for wearing face masks. They said it was against Walmart’s policy, but other customers were wearing them and they were just a simple surgical mask obviously for their safety. And they were forced out of the Walmart, but because they were black, I mean, other customers were wearing them too.
And I just thought that was an injustice, because a lot of black people are being targeted by the police and profiled, they weren’t doing anything suspicious or disruptive to other customers, or anyone’s safety. And I think that’s just happening a lot recently. A lot of people, innocent people, are, I mean they’re lucky, all that happened was that they were escorted out, you know, like there’s a lot of worse things happening, but it doesn’t make it okay, no matter what happens.
Jake: Yeah, and I remember seeing an article about around the same time when like mask mandates were starting to come out, with some African Americans voicing opposition to it because they were afraid of being targeted or seen as criminals, because of not showing their face.
Jane: Yeah, and it’s kind of, it kind of brings light to how the pandemic has brought out different forms of hate to minorities that we never thought that we would see before.
Jake: Yeah, because with that, there’s been a lot of targeting, like, Asians, for people who have blamed them for the pandemic, which is crazy, but I mean that goes all the way up to our former President calling it like, like the China virus and everything. And so this, this really is systemic because some of these things have been said by the leaders of the top, and if, if we’re going to change something, that can’t continue to happen.
Jessica: Yeah, I actually wrote about that too for one of my diary entries, and this whole idea that we’re using to blame, Asian Americans for the pandemic is when they started immigrating to the U.S in the 1800s and, you know all the people living there at the time said that they were stealing their jobs so then they started saying that they were dirty and diseased, to try and stop people from hiring them and we’ve kind of still just used that, you know, wrong idea. And we keep using it to progress discrimination against them.
Jane: Yeah, it was kind of, I was looking into the different excerpts that we’ve read over the course of the semester, and Hegel kind of talks about how like between like the master and the slave, and I saw that, I kind of thought it connects but what I was kind of more seeing, is he talks about how people think of themselves as how they want other people to think of themselves so it’s kind of like with Trump calling the Coronavirus the Chinese virus, it’s almost like he wanted to put our country and put him, like on a pedestal kind of, and just bring other people down, and it’s just crazy how we brought in, like we’ve found different forms, to like, hate, not us but people have found different forms to hate different groups throughout the pandemic in ways that we weren’t expecting before.
Jake: Yeah, I agree and I think that’s a good connection to Hegel because it’s it’s not, because when I read it, the big idea was just the master slave dialectic, but there was a lot of, little things about like how people create that relationship that I haven’t thought about as much, but you’re totally right, he’s just trying to distance, our country, from the like shifting the blame off of us to somebody else. But one of my diaries was about the vaccine rollout and some other stuff about the healthcare system in the United States. And so part of this goes back a long way to when we had very segregated cities and that was due to minorities grouping together for safety and realtors like not selling houses to different people. And so while these policies have been changed. The impacts are still here in our physical landscape. And so there’s a lot of areas that don’t have, like, the healthcare infrastructure, that other areas do just because of wealth, or because of just that’s just how it’s been, and that’s how our cities have been created. So with the vaccine rollout, in particular, there’s certain areas that might have a lot, a high minority population that just aren’t close enough to hospitals or infrastructure to distribute the vaccine. So, I was, I got my vaccine today and i’m very happy I was able to do that, but I mean I’m on campus, I walked to the Schottenstein Center to get my vaccine and not everyone can walk to hospital, or if they do have transportation, it might be harder to find a time and a place to do that. And so, when I was looking for a vaccine before I got mine scheduled at the Shott, I was looking at other places, and I couldn’t get there because I don’t have a car. And while I’m not a minority, other people have that issue.
Jessica: And also minorities work jobs that don’t give them sick time so they can’t take off, and they can’t afford to take off, to even go get the vaccine.
Jane: Yeah, especially dealing with the aftermath of the vaccine and the symptoms people have. Another thing that I was kind of thinking about. I was reading, I don’t know where I was reading this, but a lot of Ohio was doing the vaccine solely based on age, and there’s a lot of minorities who come into the country and they’re not treated the same as us and so they tend to have just generally speaking, some will have lower paying jobs, like, and Ohio was doing the vaccine solely based on age, but it wasn’t, they weren’t doing the jobs like grocery store workers and people that were even though they weren’t in like the medical professional field.
Jessica: Yeah, a lot of people and minorities are like essential workers like you said like grocery stores, And they have a lot of public contact, and they weren’t served for the vaccine like they should have been protected. And I think it gets kind of interesting because a lot of the times the US will intervene in other countries, but it’s always when we have our own personal interests. And so when it comes to helping these people for the greater good of just helping them, because it’s a horrible disease. We won’t intervene and we will prioritize ourselves only in cases like this.
Jake: Yeah and I think that relates to the self from the other article that we read, And so we are kind of like a wealthy country prioritizing itself over other people. And so I think that that really relates to that article and so, so does, the rest of the issues we’re talking about.
Jane: And going off of what Jessica said kind of in a broad perspective. A lot of the time people will say like, go back to your own country, like when they see something that they don’t agree with in the US but a lot of the time, they’re here because they can’t be in their country because of what the US is going in for their own interests
Jake: In talking about the medical system in general, there’s like a large distrust of the medical system, among certain minority groups. And also, like, with, with people who have less money, they can’t always afford health care, since our country doesn’t have free healthcare for everybody like some other countries do. And so I read an article talking about how a lot of African Americans will not get tested for cancer, because they don’t, they can’t afford to get treated anyway. They don’t want to even know. And therefore, they’re are much higher rates of cancer in those communities that usually progress farther before it is found. There’ve been a lot of recent events like the shootings in Atlanta that I think are things really similar to some of the events in The Leavers with her at the nail salon getting brought back to Asia from there, And there is, if I remember correctly, it was not a very peaceful event.
When that happened, and so I think and we ended up reading that the same week that the Atlanta shootings occurred and I thought that it was really interesting.
Jessica: I kind of feel like all of these minorities that are underrepresented in healthcare are kind of like the Subaltern, because we can. We like all we just talked about all the ways that they are not being like, cared for and given the same treatment, but it doesn’t really seem like anyone’s doing anything to bridge the gap.
Jane: Connecting back to the leavers, and how, like with identities and leaving places, and keeping your identity. I wonder how it must feel for Asian Americans right now with all the hate crimes going on because like, obviously, like you can’t really change the way you look, but like in like things that you do and things that you practice if you want. Like you don’t like, I wonder if they still feel safe doing things that they identify with, and that they bring from their culture, because it almost makes them involved in our culture, which could cause more hate towards them. If that makes sense.
Jake: Yeah, and I remember a part in the book where they were, like she was talking about getting a waitressing job in Florida, and her boyfriend was like no, you might get shot like this one person got shot. Being like working at a restaurant. And so, and this book was set in, like, in what like the late 90s, early 2000s So, like this isn’t something new. But now, like, if that story were to take place now during the pandemic. Just imagine how many more obstacles, there would be for her, and like, how much more hate could be directed at her, which is not good, and to think that we’ve gone backwards. Since then, it is really frustrating.
Jane: And I remember, if I remember correctly, the hate crime that recently happened in Florida was at, it was at like a spa or something, where many like Asian Americans work there, which kind of singled them out which you don’t know if you want to still be going to work like being such as like, you know, in a place where a lot of people would like traditionally be Asian, if that makes sense. I don’t, I don’t mean to sound politically incorrect.
Jake: No, I think that’s correct. And, like, Pelean worked at a nail salon too. and in the story like most of her coworkers were Asian Americans. And so, yeah, yeah. And I think that goes back to the can the Subaltern Speak Like especially with an increase in hate crimes. And even when, if your president is, is, is participating in a little bit of that hate towards your culture and your group. What can you say and what can you do, and who’s going to listen.
This past week an incident in my hometown occurred that brought me to the realization of how prevalent systemic injustices are even in small town America. Three teachers were put on administrative leave, one of the teachers was supposedly fired for allegedly having incriminating photos of underage girls, specifically, one of his students. The other two teachers were found talking about the situation and what to do about it, this is what plagued my mind, how could two adults know this information about another person and not do something to protect the student? We are meant to go to school to learn and better ourselves but instead even at school, a place that is supposed to be safe, does not let women escape from the everyday cruelty. This situation seems to happen over and over again, a man takes advantage of a young impressionable girl and bystanders, even the administration does nothing to stop it. Yes, the teacher was allegedly fired but this is a rare scenario and this problem was uncovered on accident, other people were aware of the illegal ongoings and just allowed for them to continue, they asked themselves, “what do we do with this information?” as if it is not blatantly obvious that the man who decided to violate a students boundaries should be held responsible for their actions, but then again when are they? Just this past week a young woman was kidnapped and killed in London by a police man while she was simply walking home from a friends house. Everyday it seems as if women cannot even do simple things such as going to school or walking home without being put into danger by yet another man who never reaps the consequences necessary for change.
Since when I wrote this, there has been no criminal charges brought on to the teachers, but the original video of the teachers discussing the student has been released. In the video, they humiliate the student by saying she’s “not a good student”, “well put together”, while also calling her “smoking hot”. The fact that these teachers have no charges against them and may keep their jobs when they talk about their students in such a way is unacceptable. This injustice against children and young adults is disgusting and needs more attention brought to. When our teachers and those in charge of students are predators against us, with no punishments for wrongdoings, it only teaches them that they can get away with more than they think. This scenario reminds me of Spivak – can the subaltern speak? Throughout the entire investigation, everyone believes the young girl who was humiliated was completely underrepresented.
the released video to the public from cleveland.com
