Is this a racist_Ruitao Chen

(Word document with photos)

Ray: Good evening everyone, welcome to our podcast! It is my honor to have Mr. Chen as my guest for this conversation. As you know, that though the technology is developing rapidly and the society becomes much stabilized than past, issues among races are still a widely debated topic. There are also a lot of discrimination based on the bias and stereotypes. How do you think about the existence of these cases?

Mr. Chen: Yeah, you know, I’m also quite concern about these phenomenon existing in our present society, but I think we cannot solve the problems unless we know its origin and people’s mind behind it.

Ray: Wow! You seem really know a lot. When preparing for this show, I’ve read some academic papers on analyzing discrimination. I’ve noticed an interesting term in explaining it, which is called Systemic Racism. Have you heard about that term before?

Mr. Chen: Absolutely, well, firstly I would like to explain the meaning of racism. Racism is based on the comparison among different races. These races may show different physical appearances, religions, cultures. Racism is the mind of superiority of hierarchy when comparing to people of other races with different traits. Systemic Racism, also known as Institutional Racism, can be categorized as a form of racism performed as normal practices within a specific type of organizations, societies, or even groups.

Ray: So you mean that systemic racism does not target to one person or several people, instead, it focuses to a group of people, right?

Mr. Chen: That’s correct! Recently I’ve seen a piece of news from New York Daily reported that some African – American woman say a worker in Harlem eatery racially profiled and falsely accused them of dining. One of the women, named Fitzgibbon, walked to a bar with her friends. As they ordered the drink, an employee asked them how they pay for the dish. The employee shouted at Fitzgibbon and said that she was in the restaurant last week and slipped away without payment, while according to Fitzgibbon, she remembered it was the first time she came to this bar. She was confused by the hostility and felty dehumanized. After the closely scrutiny check on the recording, the result showed that the woman who slipped away last week looked totally different from Fitzgibbon. Not only black people in cities, but also black people in rural area are receiving unfair treatments. USDA is a kind of programs which help to improve the economic conditions and living standards of rural Americans. However even today, black farmers are still treated unfairly in this USDA program. Recently House Agriculture Committee started to hold a testimony to the unfairness received by black farmers during their interactions with U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday. What is more astonishing is that this issue has remained unresolved for more than decades. Committee’s chairman Scott said “This festering wound on the soul of American agriculture must be healed”. Some data shows that only 0.1% of black farmers has received economic help in Trump administration USDA program, which is much lower than levels of white farmers.

Ray: Why do you think that black people, I mean as a whole race, are receiving unfairness and discrimination even in the present society?

Mr. Chen: Well, I think everyone who lives in the society has his or her own social identity, and the identity is a kind of measurement for constructing a person or a group of people. To be more specific, a psychological identity is how a person models itself, while a social identity is the identity of this person in the society. It determines which social group does this person belong to.

Ray: But how do these identity conceptions relate to racism?

Mr. Chen: Just as I said, social identities define people’s belongings to social groups. This implies that people with different identities will be united, or bounded, to different groups. For instance, we can use the simplest cultural backgrounds as identities to divide people into different groups. Imagine there is an Asian boy who born in America speaks English, play with American friends, and read U.S. literature in his lifetime. He will regard his identity as an American though his parents may be immigrants from Asian countries like Korea. Just like the Asian boy case, a person, or a group of people’s identities, are hard to change in others’ perceptions. From a historical perspective, black people, as a whole group, has the identity of subordinate race in white people’s impressions, since they were imported as slaves and were suppressed by the white local landlords. This fact might be quite tough, but I think that’s the origin of racism in U.S. society.

Ray: You mentioned that subordinate race in white people’s perception is one of the identities of black people, but besides the historical aspects, do you think that there are other factors that contribute to black people’s identities which implicitly lead to systemic racism in present society? Because I think as the society develops and time goes on, the influence of history to a race is gradually disappearing, so there must be some other causes.

Mr. Chen: You mentioned the development of society. Yeah, as the time goes on the identities of races are also changing. I do think the historical factor is the most reason which build black people’s identities, but I also think there are some social reasons which causes black people still receive unfairness and injustice nowadays.

Ray: Can you talk more about those social reasons?

Mr. Chen: Sure! Continue my description of the black farmer news. Despite black farmers are receiving injustice and unfairness, neither the society and government care about their rights and voices. The majority are not the victims, so even if they know the injustice to black people, they still consciously ignore the issue. That is the reason why the issue remained unresolved for decades. Since the issue is ignored, some white people nowadays still hold stereotype toward black people. Furthermore, the government even does not care about the black citizens, just because black people are not the majority comparing to white people and will not harm the government’s domination. This inequal treatment is not to one or several black people. Instead, this inequality and injustice is to black people in every city and every village in U.S. as a whole group, which illustrates the Systemic Injustice. We should not deny that the majority in U.S. society are white people, but I don’t want to see that black people are viewed as the so – called “other” group by white people. Just as Aijaz Ahmad mentioned in his article, when the conception of “otherness” is formed due to race, religion, or ethnicity etc, there will be no kindness or friendship. Instead, oppression and revolt will appear.

Ray: Wow you do give very professional analysis to reasons of systemic racism. We all wish the society to become a much more fair and better place for every member in it, but as you see, the resources and opportunities nowadays are still very unbalanced among different races. If we can eliminate racism, bias and stereotypes within people’s minds, do you think our society will become more cooperative and fair?

Mr. Chen: Sure! I think the rise of the conception of othering is the basic reason of dividing people into groups, while the systemic racism is based on the conflicts among various divergent groups. In order to build a better society, we must firstly downplay the consciousness of small groups within people’s minds.

Ray: So the first step is to erase the systemic racism society within present society, do you have any suggestion for the solutions?

Mr. Chen: Well I think firstly we must let people know that it is unnecessary to be racists. Changing young people’s minds is the first step. Since when they teach their children, their children may not have the concept of being a racist. If the group of racists no longer exist in future through education, the systemic racism will be eliminated. At that time, everyone will start to know that we are all same because we are all human. No matter what race we belong to, we share many identical physical traits, so there is no need to discriminate others. Besides, changing the social system is also very important. We must let our next generation enjoy the same rights of receiving education. We can do this by lowering the interest of college loan to a very low percentage at around 0.001% and offering a long time span for returns. By giving more chances of education to black families who cannot afford the tuitions, we can see more intelligent black youth enter the best universities in our country, and these youth will be the force that breaks the boundary of the hierarchy of society in the future.

Ray: After hearing your suggestions, I feel more confident to our society. I can’t wait to see what will happen if everyone become friendly and kind to each other! Just as a social activist named Martin Luther King once said: “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” At last, thanks for your presence to this live chat Mr. Chen, and that’s the end of our podcast. See you next week!

Reference:

Institutional racism. (2021, April 01). Retrieved April 05, 2021, from

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

Ahmad, A. (1987). Jameson’s rhetoric of otherness and the “national allegory”. Social Text, (17), 3. doi:10.2307/466475

Ariana Figueroa, V. (2021, March 26). House agriculture PANEL probes ‘systemic’ USDA discrimination against black farmers. Retrieved April 05, 2021, from https://www.virginiamercury.com/2021/03/26/house-agriculture-panel-probes-systemic-usda-discrimination-against-black-farmers/

Sommerfeldt, C. (2018, April 07). Black women say harlem Eatery staff RACIALLY PROFILED, falsely accused them of dining and dashing. Retrieved April 06, 2021, from https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/manhattan/harlem-restaurant-staff-accused-racially-profiling-black-women-article-1.3830000

PS: Individual submission

https://anchor.fm/katrina-tran/episodes/Yo–is-this-Racist–Podcast-Assignment-euagr4

Transcript:

Hi, my name is Katrina Tran and I am currently a second year social work major here at OSU. This podcast today is going to cover and discuss the recent events concerning anti- Asian hate. Over the past year, this is a topic that has been seen numerous times on the news and social media as anti- Asian hate and anti- Asian hate crimes have risen an enormous amount. So let’s get into it.

Why was there a spark in anti- Asian hate you may be wondering? Let’s travel back to 2020 for a little bit.

2020 was a year of the unknowns. It was a time where questions were being asked constantly, with little to no answers as the coronavirus first hit the United States. As quarantine went on, the Black Lives Matter movement hit the news and social media and topics including systemic racism and social injustices sparked uncomfortable conversations. The media played a big part in how events were portrayed and let’s just say, matters became worse as the president al election was looming in the distance.

The first spark that contributed to this anti- Asian hate culture stemmed from the pandemic, as Donald Trump explicitly called the coronavirus “the Chines virus”. Let’s take a moment to baffle in this statement. As the year went on, racial slurs and offensive language were all ways of verbal abuse to those in the Asian American community. The pandemic was hitting us all hard, but caused the Asian American community to feel a sense of additional hatred in a time were people all over the country were suffering. As the pandemic continued and people begin slowly getting back to a normal- as- can-  be life, a turn of violence and hate crimes starting spiking around the United States.

The Black Lives Matter Movement sparked a lot of uncomfortable conversations, that personally, I think people never thought about when speaking about racism. The topics of social injustice, systemic racism, and xenophobia, all very important topics, but again, the lack of education on these topics were what propelled people to speak about them to help the community. This goes for the Asian American community as well.

Social injustices are not specific to any one race, gender, or group of people, it happens all around us, even in little ways that we may have never thought about. The Asian American community has been looked at as a “model minority” as people like to say for a very long time. What are the constraints of this so called “model minority”? Why is the Asian American community label as a “model minority”? These are all questions that arose during this rise of Anti- Asian hate. This stereotype was based in a way that people wanted other races to act like how Asian Americans did so that is where this label had come from.

So let’s talk about some of the recent hate crimes. A 84 year old Thai immigrant died after being shoved to the ground on a walk in San Francisco. A Chinese woman was slapped and then set on fire in New York. A Filipino American was cut on his face with a box cutter on the subway in New York. And the shooting in Atlanta, where 8 people died. All of these hate crimes targeted toward the Asian American community, all of them tragic and stemmed in hatred. It doesn’t just stop with violence however, people being verbally attacked when out in the community, at restaurants, just living their normal lives. How can any of this be acceptable? Short answer, it shouldn’t be.

Let’s dive into these uncomfortable conversations a little more. Asian Americans have experienced racism, but in different ways than other races may have. Mircoaggressions are a huge way that Asian Americans experience racism. I want to speak on an article written in Google’s diversity and inclusion section by the marketing analytics and operations director. She spoke about the time she was in the Houston airport where she was being asked “where are you from” constantly from a strange man. She never answered the first time he asked, so he continued asking. He starting listening off different countries in a hopes she would tell him and even spoke loudly and slowly in English assuming she did not understand him. A women ended up answering for her, saying “how about American?”. She speaks about these mircoagressions, small phrases that are used about Asian stereotypes, to explain how no matter how hard she worked towards the so called “American Dream” that she would never be viewed or feel like a true American. This struggle of finding one’s identity between their culture and America is one that many people experience both in and out of the Asian American community. She also speaks about a topic that we have discussed throughout this course of the “One” and the “Othering” and her story is a great example of it.

I think this is a really great explain of verbal harassment towards the Asian American community. This story helps give insight to how different Asian Americans are being treated by strangers. I want to take a minute to discuss my own personal experiences.

As an Asian American, my parents were both immigrants from Vietnam and settled down in a small, pre- dominantly white community in Northwest, Ohio. After I was born in Ohio, I spent the first four years of my life back in Vietnam before I came back to Ohio to start school. As I grew up, a lot of my culture disappeared, disappeared from various parts of my life as I tried to fit in with my classmates. Different microaggressions were used constantly, even by me. I did not think at the time that I was offending myself or my Asian roots as I distanced myself from it to fit in. I did not know this was happening at the time, but once I came to college, the experiences and uniqueness I found about myself inspired me to realize that my culture was actually a big part of who I am. Microaggresions like “oh do you eat cats”, “can you see since your eyes are so small”, and many more were phrases that I was asked constantly.

So where do these stem from? I think a lot of it has to do with stereotypes that have been thought about the Asian American community for a long time. With the recent hate crimes directed toward the Asian American community, what’s the next step.

Protests on stopping Asian American hate have been very popular as people are standing up against these injustices. Famous actors are speaking up on social media about their experiences. Lana Condor for example was a huge actress that spoke about her experience as an Asian American and the struggles she has faced in Hollywood as an Asian American actress. Social media has been a place to share stories, information, and more on the the events occurring, what we can do to stop Asian American hate, and awareness about some of the things that happen to the Asian American community and people’s experiences.

I think that as we look at social injustices, it is all around us. Microagressions are just a small way that it is happening. Social injustices aren’t just seen in the Asian American community. Look at the Black Lives Matter Movement, it’s happening to so many different races and what are we doing to stop it?

I think that education is a huge step in the right direction. Education about hate crimes, systemic racism, social injustice. All of these things are present in our society, but have we taken the time to learn about it. Systemic racism was never an issue I personally was educated about until it became a popular topic of conversation during the past year. I never knew I was experiencing microagressions until it became a topic of conversation with the spike of anti- Asian hate. These are all things that are occurring, so now is the time to educate ourselves and others on these topics. Education can be found through reliable social media and news sources, from personal experiences and recognition of specific things, and many other ways of accessing information. I personally have found that I enjoy reading Skimm, an unbiased source that discusses current events that I receive once a week or so.

This is the time for us to speak about the issues in society, not just about race, but about all social injustices towards different groups of people. We all have the responsibly to take action and speak about what is happening within our society. All of these issues have been happening for decades, and everyone seems quite fed up that change is not being made. It takes a lot of self- reflection, I have found to be able to understand why education and speaking on uncomfortable topics are important. So the big question is, what can you do to help make change in your life, your community, and in society?

Works Cited

Cai, Weiyi, and Audra. Punched, Kicked, Shoved: Documenting the Anti-Asian Violence. 4 Apr. 2021, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/04/03/us/anti-asian-attacks.html.

Cabral, Sam. “Covid ‘Hate Crimes’ against Asian Americans on Rise.” BBC News, BBC, 2 Apr. 2021, www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56218684.

Transcript:

Hello, Welcome everyone, I’d like to welcome you to the yo is this racist podcast. Now for some background My name is Gabriel Craig and I’m a sophomore currently studying business operations management at The Ohio State University. Throughout today’s podcast, we’re going to be going through many different topics in society and discovering is this in fact a racist, a systematic injustice? Or is it just society and humans being humans? Now one common practice in our society that I would like to talk about today would be tipping. Every time we go out to eat, there was always an unwritten rule that the server at least 20% and some people always tip less, more or not at all. Now, tipping is the compensation for many industries and many careers throughout our world. When a kid mows your lawn out front, you tip them. When a valet takes your car you tip them when someone delivers food to help you tip them. Now, tipping has been around for many centuries, but it has a very dark past and a dark origin that many people do not know about. Now, after slavery ended, many freed slaves were free able to go and work whatever jobs they wanted to try and build their own income. But white supremacists did not want freed slaves to be able to build up their own personal income and generational wealth. So what they did is they implemented tipping in many African American professions to stop them from earning a fair wage. When you create tipping the laws and minimum wage laws don’t apply to the wage, the person being served controls how much the person makes, and in many times, African Americans and many freed slaves did not get the right compensation compared to their white counterparts. In fact, many of them were not even tipped at all. This made it so that newly freed slaves could not build up the generational wealth they needed for their offspring to have a better life, leaving a constant cycle of them staying in the service jobs and being caught by the tipping loophole. Now, this phenomenon was not happening just in olden times, this was happening in our grandparents period, our parents period. And right now, Washington Post reported that black Restaurant Servers are making less than their white counterparts during the pandemic. These problems do not disappear with the same system we have in place, and we need to make a change in the restaurant industry. And make it so that fair wages given to all workers of color. So I would come to the conclusion that tipping is in fact racist. Although normal people tending every day are not racist. The dark ties behind this are significantly hurting the minority population in the workers industry.
And we need to make it so that all minorities and every worker, in fact, make an hourly wage to abolish tipping and prejudice. The next topic I would like to talk about are drug laws and prison reform. Now, why is it more common for a minority to be in prison? We all have the same laws to follow and they should all apply equally? Well, in our society. This is not true. And certain laws were created to lock up certain people of color, and not white people. Believe it or not, before 1971 most guns were illegal on the street, and did not have prison time or mandatory minimum sentencing. And you may think, Well, why did these laws change because people were being hurt, like the health department must have wanted to step in to make sure people weren’t getting hurt? Well, no, this isn’t true. The reason why drug laws were created were purely political reasons. In 1971, Richard Nixon declared drugs public enemy number one, and the ones I was convinced, many people think, was to make the public a better place. But that wasn’t true. The creation of drugs was helped the Nixon agenda, the Nixon campaign in 1968. And the Nixon white house after that had two enemies, the anti war left and black people. This is from former Nixon domestic policy chief john anchorman. This is what he told Harper’s writer Dan bomb, you understand what I’m saying? We know we can make it illegal to be either against the world or black but by getting the public to associate the hippies, with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily. We could disrupt those communities, we could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their communities, and ruin their lives. So a richard nixon White House cabinet member just admitted to creating drug walls to lock up minorities for political reasons. And you may think, Oh, this happened in the past and must be over now. But no, that’s not true today. minorities are four to five times more likely to be arrested for the same crime and serve a longer prison sentence than their white counterparts. All for nonviolent drug crimes. So yes, drug crimes are racist. They were created with malicious intent to lock up a part of our population for political gain, and no one can convince me otherwise. As you can see, so far in the podcast, we’ve talked about two societal norms that both have dark racial past. that many people don’t truly know about. And that just says a lot about our society. And we also have to think what other things in our society have dark racial past just like these innocent ones. Now let’s move on to a lighter note, I would like to be talking about certain terms that many people may go, Oh, is that racist? Now referring to a black person as black is not racist, only referring to black people as African American is, in fact, racist. This is because not all black people are from Africa, or have genetic ties to Africa, for example, South America, Jamaica, many other islands that are no connections to the continent of Africa. So what everyone is referring to the black population as the African American population, they’re doing an injustice, they’ll like be afraid to all white people as Eurpeon. all white people are not from Europe, there’s Australians, there’s a million other countries. It’s the same thing with Africa and black people. They’re not all from Africa. Many people think it’s taboo to say black and even cover their mouth. And they think they’re doing the right thing by saying African American, but many people would even prefer the term black because African American, it just sounds too extra to them. So I would say you are not racist if you do do this. But I think it is important to educate yourself and realize what your words may mean to someone who is not even genetically tied to that continent. Now the next topic I want to talk about on the podcast is this racist would be colorism in the media and Hollywood. And it has become almost too obvious to me at this point. And I think February Black History Month really showed me how the Hollywood feels about the minority population. So I first really noticed colorism really noticed it as a trend when I saw this one Disney Black History Month appreciation video, and it was showing all of his name black actors, and appreciating that it was really nice to deal with a good wholesome feeling. When you really looked at all the actors. They were all light skinned mixed actors. There was very little dark skinned actors on Disney screen at Disney’s like, hey, look, we have blacked actors. We have black actors, but only the ones we approved because they’re mixed with being white.
And I can see why dark skinned people can be very frustrated with this because they’ve been asking for representation and media. And then they get this whitewashed version of it. And although mix people are still black as well, you’re missing the main part of the minority population who has been arguing for this. And then when you look at colorism as a systematic injustice, you realize how much deeper it gets than just the media. colorism was created by white society to pit black people against each other and to make them discriminate by Oh, the lighter the skin tone you better you are when that is really not the case at all. Now Caitlin greenbridge from the Guardian, she writes that colorism shows up and even Starker ways the difference in periods between darker skinned and lighter skinned men, mirrors differences in periods between whites and blacks. darker skinned women are given longer prison sentences than their light skinned counterparts. This discrimination starts very young to if you’re a dark skinned girl, you are three times more likely to be suspended from school than your light skinned peers. And these are all people who are considered the same race. And just because their shade is a slightly different skin color is created this hierarchy. And this hierarchy was created by white supremacy in our society that has been systematically infecting it’s almost a virus is unconstitutionally changed how a certain part of our population has thought. I remember my girlfriend shared a story with me that stuck with her for the rest of her life. She is a darker skinned girl, but her sisters are a lighter skin complexion. And one day she was saying in middle school, and some lighter-skinned boys said, Hey, back in slavery, you would be a field slave and your sisters would be house slaves And so would we because you’re so much darker skinned at us. And she said it literally broke her heart and changed how she felt about the whole world. Because someone who she thought was her own race could be so hurtful to her. Now why did these boys say this to her to put her down? I don’t know. But I truly believe that it is deeply rooted in our society. And it was created by white people with a lighter complexion you are the more higher you on the hierarchy. And that is not correct and as even infected the own minority populations. I think a way we can combat colorism is support affirmative action programs to put more people in color and power and to put darker-skinned models on the face of media to show people that they are being represented. Alright guys, thank you for listening to the podcast. That is all I have for the yo is this racist podcast. I hope you guys learned something today. The biggest takeaway I want you to have is that even things we take for normal in our society can have an extremely dark past and someone can still be being hurt because of it. It is important to always be aware of your own prejudices. So I want everyone to have a good day.

Transcript:

Hello and welcome to the “Yo is this Racist?” podcast as part of the Comparative Studies 1100 course at The Ohio State University.

For this segment, I am your host, Tom Weber. I am currently a senior studying Aerospace Engineering and will be graduating next month at the time of this recording – so, May of 2021.

Today I want to discuss an instance of injustice in more depth that I have already covered briefly for my second Diary of Systemic Injustice entry – and so I’ll jump right into that.

In the Spring of 2018, I was fortunate enough to be an engineering intern for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, more commonly known as NASA.

I interned at NASA’s John F. Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida from January of 2018 until May of that year. When entering the space center every morning for work, employees must drive through a guard station checkpoint that is staffed with Kennedy Space Center, more commonly referred to as KSC, police officers. The KSC police check employees’ identification, so their security badges that they have for the space center, before granting access to the space center, kind of similar to – you might think of military police or MPs at military bases, and how they check your IDs.

Occasionally at the checkpoints, either for reasons of suspicion or randomly, drivers are pulled aside to have a search performed of their vehicle.

During the second month of my internship at Kennedy Space Center, in February of 2018, an internal email was sent out to all NASA KSC employees detailing statistics on these searches being conducted at the KSC security checkpoints.

The data presented in the email made it glaringly obvious that people of color, specifically black men, were being pulled aside at the checkpoints for “random” – and you can’t see it but I’m using air quotes here – random searches. These drivers were shown in this data to be singled out at a much higher rate than other, predominantly white drivers, entering the space center.

The KSC police officers appeared, from the statistics presented in the email, to be singling out drivers based off the color of their skin.

So, this brings me back to the original question and title of this podcast – “Yo, is this racist?”

Obviously, the answer in this case is yes! No if ands or buts.

The Kennedy Space Center police officers were assuredly not conducting random searches and basing a vehicle search off a driver’s skin color was a flagrant misuse of their authority, which had been given to them by the federal government. So, the KSC police force is part of the federal government since it is contracted by a federal government agency, which is NASA, to do security for the premises of the facility. So that is worth noting, and I’ll get to that in a little bit.

The data of the vehicle searches presented in the email indicated that the racist policy utilized by the KSC police was a systemic issue within the entire police force. And that’s why I chose to write about it for my diary. I thought it was a really good example and something that I had experienced in my own life. This isn’t something really that you would see come to light, you know, in the general media since this was sent as an internal email within the government agency itself. So, I felt like that was a great example for this assignment.

By searching the vehicles of drivers based off their skin color, among other factors, the KSC police created a situation that is very relevant for discussion in this class as well as topical for current events in the United States – given the uprising for racial equality that occurred over this past summer of 2020 – for racial equality.

In class we discussed the One-Other dynamic discussed by both Hegel and de Beauvoir and it can be seen in this case, that the KSC police created a One-Other power dynamic establishing the driver as Other and themselves as One – which isn’t probably too difficult to see in this situation.

Now, you may argue that any driver that is being singled-out – you know anyone, not even if they’re being singled-out for the color of their skin or another factor, but any driver being randomly singled-out by the police is an Other in the KSC police officers’ eyes which could potentially be true in an isolated example of a police officer pulling over a driver. So, you know, your run-of-the-mill you didn’t stop at a stop sign and get pulled over – in that scenario, maybe.

However, already possessing the implicit racial bias – whether it be the specific police officer that is doing the traffic stop, or in the case of the KSC police, the entire force – would appear to make the specific target of the injustice – the singled-out driver who is the subject of an officers’ bias – the Other in the situation uniquely.

In other words, I would argue that only the subject of the bias is the Other in this situation of systemic injustice and the police officer as well as any other driver not being targeted by the officers’ racial bias is the One.

But, you know, there is also another way you might look at this and connect it to something we talked about in class. So, you might take it one step further even as far as trying to classify the singled-out driver – especially someone singled-out for the color of their skin – in this situation. Hopefully, you remember the idea of the subaltern and their voice (or rather their lack of a voice) when we discussed Spivak’s reading of “Can the Subaltern Speak?”

A subaltern, as a refresher, is somebody who is so different from somebody else or potentially viewed to be lesser in terms of status or even intelligence – that they cannot be properly understood and are often described in terms and framed in a background that does not adequately or accurately encompass their life or culture. So, to put it concisely – they do not have a voice for all intents and purposes of this discussion, at least.

So back to the case here of a black man, for example, being “randomly” selected – and again I am deploying the air quotes – for a vehicle search by a Kennedy Space Center police officer. The officer has already decided, without the driver speaking or doing anything, that this person is deserving of an additional measure of security, based solely on this man’s skin color – and maybe the combination of being a male as well, but that’s a different discussion of intersectionality.

So, the person in this situation with power and authority, namely the police officer, has decided to act based off implicit bias and what they think of someone else without knowing or adequately understanding that person or allowing that person to speak for themselves. I think it seems as though the driver in this scenario, the black man that we’re using for our example – the racially singled out drivers shown in the email data, which was shown to be largely black men – may even be subalterns since the are not even capable of speaking for themselves. And so, in this proposal you would have the police officer at the guard gate of the space center as the One, the white or otherwise – you know not checking the bias boxes for the officers – as the other, and the singled-out drivers as subalterns. I mean, this is definitely an interesting thing to consider that would potentially be overlooked. So, it’s a point I wanted to bring up.

Something that I think is important to mention here is that many people think that systemic injustice in the United States, especially in the federal government, is a thing of the past.

The KSC police and their singling out of drivers is an example of systemic injustice present within a federal government agency – NASA is a government agency just like the FBI, TSA, or the postal service – as recently as 2018 – only 3 years ago.

And I am sure issues like this still plague various departments or agencies within the federal government. I say this, because how can meaningful change happen in society if the federal government that so many look to for guidance is plagued with the same issues?

To fully understand the nature of the issue here, too, I want to circle back to the institution of the guarded space center checkpoints in the first place. After all, they are not protecting UFOs and flying saucers at the centers … or are they?? – I don’t know.

The checkpoints were recommended to be implemented after the events of the September 11^th attacks in 2001, as part of broad-sweeping heightened security measures at federal government installations in the US. With that in mind, it probably would not come as a surprise to hear that the checkpoints have also had a history of xenophobic actions in terms of searching the vehicles of anybody appearing foreign or of Middle Eastern origins – another obviously unacceptable misuse of authority. And there was a lot of that that happened after 9/11, especially targeting Muslims or those of Middle Eastern origins.

So I just wanted to give more background to the institution of these checkpoints in the first place – and they kind of had a history of this type of misuse of authority.

After the email was sent showing the injustice present within the KSC police force, a review board was formed to root out bias in the police force at Kennedy Space Center, as well as the checkpoints and corresponding security forces at all NASA centers across the country – there’s, I want to say, 15 to 20 NASA centers – I don’t remember off the top of my head, but these include Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX – you might all know this one from the movie Apollo 13 and Houston we have a problem – and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory or JPL in Pasadena, California – famous recently for the Mars Perseverance Rover.

And, you know, I’ll just conclude this by saying that:  While work is being done nationally to progress towards rooting out racial and other forms of bias, there is still much work to be done – I mean we saw that over the summer, just in American society, but including in the federal government itself – as exhibited here, with this case.

Anyways, that’s it for this segment “Yo, is this racist?” So, thank you for tuning in and have a great rest of your day.

Yo, Is This Racist…

mason.1009, sienko.4, and clements.172

Episode #1

Episode Transcript

19:16:33 Hey guys welcome back to our podcast of Yo Is This Racist, together I''m here with my fellow co hosts, and we're going to be diving in a little bit more about potential racism within celebrities and with Hollywood.
19:16:49 Now our first topic of discussion is going to be about Kendall Jenner. She recently launched a tequila brand, and she''s claiming that this is going to be the best tequila, ever.
19:17:01 However, she's gotten a lot of backlash within the media, and people are saying that she is appropriating tequila companies, and the Mexican culture.
19:17:11 So we're going to get started talking about this. First off, what do you guys think or what were your initial thoughts when you first saw that she released that tequila brand.
19:17:21 Well, I mean, one of the things I think about starting a business, especially in the context of a business that one might accuse of appropriating someone's culture is the fact that I mean with a business it relies on people buying their product.
19:17:37 So at the end of the day I mean if it's well known that this person is doing something that, in your opinion isn't doing a good job or is doing something that you consider wrong, I mean you can always not buy their product and in some instances the backlash
19:17:52 over this might lead to more people buying from traditional suppliers.
19:17:57 Yeah, I agree, I... when I first heard that Kendall Jenner was coming out with a tequila, I was kind of taken back by it because I only know her as a model and a personality.
19:18:11 So it made me question what made her get into this and she kept this a secret for so long. So I was very confused at first, about what would make her want to make a tequila, like tequila is known for being more Mexican; Latinos, they're the ones that make
19:18:29 these tequilas, and I even found a quote that said, "this is a joke for real to tequila makers," what Kendall did was literally make a bottle and found a bigger brand that bottles quote her tequila.
19:18:42 I found that by the writer Tyler Chin on gearpatrol.com, and it also said that a lot of people were angry that a non Mexican person was profiting off the Mexican product when so many Mexicans rely on making and selling tequila to support their families.
19:19:01 I suppose you could say that it's shameful. I mean we're used to celebrities doing shameful things to make money. And I'm not really surprised. I mean, you see it all the time you see you see a product line from a celebrity. I mean,
19:19:17 Justin Bieber had a clothing line. I mean, Tyler crater has a good clothing line.
19:19:23 But, I mean, it's not it's not uncommon for a celebrity to create and shill a product that is both terrible and something that they didn't even wholly create.
19:19:39 I yes, I guess, sorry, but I saw something that Kendall, since she's the one making the business, they're saying that she's going to be making so much money off of this, this particular company, but she was like, are these players who work in like the
19:19:56 the agave fields which are growing in Mexico normally like are these farmers going to be making more money because of her company, and people were talking about like, are they going to be getting any more benefits than just their CEO I guess is a millionaire,
19:20:10 you know what I mean. And also, I think another thing that is important to consider too is that since Kendall's...
19:20:19 I guess you brought this up earlier to have Kendall selling this tequila, who are the people buying and supporting this business and like I also feel like that could be a potential problem too is a lot of the time people just shop from companies and
19:20:31 shop for products, and they don't really care about the company's morals or values, or if they're offending a certain culture while doing it.
19:20:42 I think that a lot of people buy things just to try things out without really diving into what is going on behind the scenes. For example, Travis Scott coming out with a new seltzer, a lot of people were buying it just to say oh I tried it and have their
19:21:00 opinion on that so I wonder who's going to be buying this tequila just so they can say, I bought Kendall Jenner tequila, and then form their opinion based on that.
19:21:10 Well I mean if it's a, if it's a fad. It just rises up and then falls really quickly. I don't really think that it could create any lasting damage. I mean maybe if she created a brand that was extremely successful in the long term.
19:21:26 And I don't know if it's... that's looking to be the case, especially if this tequila according to traditional makers of it isn't very good.
19:21:34 It looks like this might be a quick jump. And then a fall.
19:21:39 The controversy... the fact that there's a controversy over it isn't really helping our case, although controversy in many cases can sell.
19:21:47 We witnessed that just this month, or maybe last month with the Dr. Seuss books.
19:21:55 Whenever there's some kind of upheaval or some, some massive or what people perceive to be some world ending event is always a surge in sales, surge in prices... people are willing to be opportunistic.
19:22:08 I don't know if it will change the tequila market, or really affect people who are producing it traditionally, if you're just a casual tequila consumer, you're definitely not going to be checking to make sure that tequila you're drinking is traditionally
19:22:24 produced or, or for quality, and people like that will probably try Kendall Jenner's brand once, determine it to be subpar or exactly the same as a commercial brand that she's copying from and move on.
19:22:39 I don't know if it'll truly make a huge impact.
19:22:44 But, I mean it's processes like these that prevent people from straight up destroying someone's market.
19:22:53 Yeah, I guess. Some other problems people were having with the bottle was that she messed up I guess the labeling, like it's... I think it's supposed to be like 'Blanco Tequila', but I think in Spanish, it's technically 'Tequila Blanco' because the adjective
19:23:10 comes, I think after the word. I might be butchering it but people were having a problem with that, saying that she wasn't even able to accurately have the correct label, in terms of the Spanish culture, which I also thought was interesting and she also
19:23:28 was drinking the tequila on the rocks, and that's just not a traditional way to drink tequila. So I guess other people were having a problem with that as well, which I thought was interesting that she wasn't even using it unlike a traditional sense.
19:23:43 This is a similar.
19:23:46 In my opinion to the pizza effect, I mean you could give it any names but Americans, generally like to import a culture, or some some food or product from another culture and then change it to American tastes.
19:24:01 And if you if you go to Italy, and you try the pizza there it's very different from what you might get at a regular pizza chain in America, Chinese food
19:24:14 Similarly, and although I mean a lot of these products are produced by immigrants, and they tweak it for their market. I mean, they're business people first.
19:24:19 But it is kind of interesting to see someone selling something that, that they have no connection to. It does seem disingenuous, and it doesn't really seem honest but I don't really think we expect too much honestly from famous celebrities.
19:24:39 So I'm not surprised, but I'm not because I'm not surprised I don't think it's going to be a huge difference.
19:24:52 Yeah.
19:24:54 And I guess another thing that some people were saying that other celebrities, including The Rock and Justin Timberlake also have tequila brands, and they have not seen received this amount of backlash compared to her because she is a woman in the media but.
19:25:08 So that's also something else to consider, I guess.
19:25:13 We also have another similarity with celebrities that are accused of using something to exploit their own music is Justin Bieber. He recently released an album called Justice, and in one of his songs he has an MLK speech, and the verse is stand up for justice
19:25:34 is what Martin... Martin Luther King says, but Justin cuts it off so it sounds like it's saying, "stand up for justice." What do you guys think about this.
19:25:44 Do you think it's right or wrong or what's your opinion?
19:25:47 I think in terms of the shamelessness, it's about on par if not worse than what Kendall Jenner did.
19:25:55 I think in this case, this is just a case of someone commercializing social justice. It's not uncommon to see Martin Luther King portrayed in popular culture.
19:26:06 And it's not uncommon, especially in hip hop and pop music to see it, social justice movements portrayed in a certain way or leaders quoted, and it's not uncommon at all to see cultural issues discussed, I mean that's a lot of popular music cultural
19:26:23 issues are the reason that the song was created. Killer Mike is a big example
19:26:31 MF DOOM, who recently passed away.
19:26:35 Carlee, what do you think. Um, I read an article that said, a lot of people think it's performative nonsense. And I kind of agree because of Justin Bieber, he says he's not trying to make a connection between himself and Martin Luther King, which he shouldn't.
19:26:54 But I don't understand, if he thinks that he has a lot more educating he needs to do, why would he even go there and try to include something that he knows is going to be controversial, especially in today's society where we're facing a lot of racism,
19:27:11 and we're still trying to combat that. So I was just kind of confused why, if he knew what was going on in society, why would you want to put himself in a position where he would potentially face this type of backlash.
19:27:26 I think you make a really good point. Um, I saw that the song where he has stand up for justice in it from Martin Luther King. It's a song about his wife, so it's kind of, I guess, confusing as why would he bring that in when it's not even about, I guess,
19:27:42 inequality, it's about like his wife, but I also did see an article where Justin Bieber was talking about it saying how he was trying to bring education and awareness to the Black Lives Matter movement and to racism in America and in Canada, he said in
19:27:57 Canada where he grew up he wasn't even like aware and fully educated about all this and he said that he has such a large platform, which he does, so he wanted to bring more attention, and he also had started a campaign for a lot of other like justice movements.
19:28:13 And I think this is where I'm confused because I'm happy that he's wanting to educate Americans and all his huge influence more about the true racism that's existing in America, but I don't think going about his way of how he did it with his album is
19:28:32 not fully appropriate.
19:28:35 I know he's received different backlash and everything and I think it is a little bit absurd, because I think that he can.
19:28:42 He can, he can do a lot, and bring a lot of awareness, but that's also like, I don't know.
19:28:58 It does sound like the celebrity cop out though, saying, I mean, people people getting mad at him, he argues that oh I''m trying to raise awareness. I know very few people who aren't aware of Martin Luther King.
19:29:03 And if people weren't aware of Martin Luther King is out there be such a huge response to it.
19:29:10 In this case I think he tried to get away with it, couldn't get away with it, and tried to use this excuse as a cop out I, I, I doubt that Justin Bieber is really educating people with several second sample of him.
19:29:28 I agree, I think he just wasn't thinking, and thought this would be the right thing to do, to mention a social issue in a song, thinking it would have a positive effect, and instead it had a negative effect.
19:29:42 So,
19:29:46 yeah, I guess one final thought is that I did see that one of Martin Luther King's ancestors reached out to Justin Bieber, praising him and like approving of what he did, so I guess it depends on how different people feel but I do think
19:30:03 that Justin should have done things in a more appropriate way.
19:30:09 Celebrities have such a big platform, and I think sometimes they find difficulties trying to use that platform in a way that won't cause controversy in a way that doesn't have their morals questioned, and I think it just came down to the fact where this
19:30:26 is just something that he, you know, he thought would make a positive impact.
19:30:32 And everyone has their own opinion on it so.. What's our verdict: racist or not racist?
19:30:41 I mean I don't want to say full on racist but I definitely don't think it's not...
19:30:48 Maybe not politically correct, I'll put it that way. Yeah, I agree. I think maybe it's just not appropriate.
19:30:54 I'd say it wasn't racist it's just a little embarrassing.

Hi everyone, I’m Tara and today I want to discuss the topic regarding racism in our healthcare system. This topic in particular really interests me because I am planning a future career as a medical professional. My interest in this issue actually stemmed from another class I am taking here this semester, called Ethics in Healthcare, where one week we were assigned to listen to a TED talk discussing racism in the field. In addition to the crisis we are facing today with Covid 19, we are able to see how communities of color are being hit harder than others. It is important to note that racial inequality in the healthcare system is also in part due to racism in other parts of the  system. Economic disparity for some communities of color due to past policies and structures in America creates an unequal access for people of color to receive healthcare. This unequal access is what leads to health issues in these communities, like the fact that “Black people are 3.57 times more likely to die from Covid-19 than white people.” Black people are also likely to experience things like higher blood pressure, lower access to vaccines, and even lower life expectancy. In the TED talk Doctor Mary Bassett speaks on her experiences in Zimbabwe where she spent years helping deal with the AIDS epidemic. She explains how she watched Wester civilization receive treatment for AIDS through drugs while her patients in Zimbabwe were left in the dust with no access to those same drugs. Bassett says, “But I knew that epidemics emerge along the fissures of our society, reflecting not only biology, but more importantly patterns of marginalization, exclusion, discrimination related to race, gender, sexuality, class and more. It was true of AIDS. It was true just recently of Ebola.” I found this quote to be so powerful because she explains how the problems we face in regards to infectious diseases always impacts those who are marginalized more and we see this through the AID epidemic and Covid-19.

Now not only is it an issue with securing access to healthcare but racism also happens within the hospitals amongst medical professionals in terms of treatment and care and happens intentionally or unintentionally. Bassett explains the medical community has stood by idly while the Black Lives Matter movement has been working towards equality. She explains how they never use racism in research studies as an explanation or component to certain medical trends. We can see within the medical community that there is incorrect treatment for patients of color because preconceived ideas that black people have different traits that would change their diagnosis or treatment leaving them vulnerable to more damage. Even in the emergency room, people of color are less likely to be emitted and are more likely to die. This is an issue that largely does not affect the privileged and non marginalized groups as they are able to gain access to medical attention. An article published by the Harvard Medical School explains the system that allows racist acts to come from doctors who are not inherently racists and from our implicit biases. We need to understand within our selves our own implicit biases in certain cases. It is so important to see the environment around us to understand what is the right and wrong thing to do. As healthcare professionals it’s not just solely important to eliminate racism within your close quarters but to join the overall cause. As Bassett says, it’s important for those pursuing and in the medical field to help set the alarm bell along with the movement towards equality. This inequality can be changed through the understanding and alliance of the medical community. I think the issue is not only reliant on the medical inequalities but other aspects of systemic racism. Inorder for true strides to be made we cannot only move forward in the medical aspects but also help support issues regarding police brutality, the education system, the housing industry, and so much more. All of these parts systems work off of each other to create disadvantages for people of color. I think inequality in the healthcare system is one that largely goes unrecognized. The issue of free healthcare and different plans is a largely discussed political topic but a lot of the other parts go unrecognized. I also think that people just do not understand the unequal access to healthcare is damaging to these communities in different ways. Many do not understand that this leads to black women being more likely to die during childbirth or that black babies are more likely to die between birth and their first birthday. Healthcare is such a fundamental right, it is how to live a long and healthy life but we allow our system to deny access to it. With this pandemic and all its effects it’s so difficult watching communities of color get it even harder than anyone else because of the system we created. 

Throughout this course we have been analyzing stories that apply to concepts regarding discrimination. The current state of our healthcare system is the perfect example of “othering” explained by Hegel. White communities have labeled people of color as the “other” creating systems and policies that do not allow them to have access to the same rights that all humans are supposed to be granted. I think a large majority are oblivious to this issue without really knowing. Many are against racism in the smaller sense but do not understand how the way this country functions is in fact racist as it does not allow for equal opportunity. That is what the Black Lives Matter movement is trying to find out but so many still do not see the issue. The movement is trying to voice the injustices the system has created for black people in so many ways. This also ties into Spivak’s, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” when it explains how certain groups are perceived as less because they have less than others. Therefore these groups do not have the ability to stand up and take what they deserve. People of color are receiving worse health care and assistance due to a racist system. These communities are trying to gain justice and the medical field is just another part of the system that does not allow this.

In all, it’s important to understand how each backbone to the system in their own ways creates disadvantages for black people. These systems work off each other and so we need to understand that the less opportunities given in education, housing and so much more also impacts healthcare and vice versa. 

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/the-state-of-healthcare-in-the-united-states/racial-disparities-in-health-care/

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/racism-discrimination-health-care-providers-patients-2017011611015

There Will Never Be An End to Racism

The Founders Were Oppressors

There has never been a point in time in this nation where at least one group of people have not faced some form of discrimination. “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue” was a rhyme that most of us grew up knowing. Throughout my childhood years, we celebrated Christopher Columbus’s arrival to America. For many years I thought that Christopher Columbus was a man worthy of being honored until I was informed about the horrendous demands and the harsh treatment that he inflicted on the aboriginals. From forced labor to genocide, Columbus and his men did it all. We were even  taught the term “Native American” was appropriate to call the aboriginals, but in reality, they were the true “Americans.” I mention Christopher Columbus to remind people that from the point that America was discovered up until now, man has always despised one another. 

Slavery

Throughout the world, slavery has existed for many years. “The history of slavery is a large and untellable story, full of tragedy and cruelty that spans both centuries and continents. Although it is difficult to pinpoint the exact year that slavery began, historians can trace the roots of this inhumane practice back roughly 11,000 years” (restavekfreedom.org). There are many different forms of slavery: sex trafficking, forced labor, bonded labor (also known as debt bondage), domestic servitude, and unlawful recruitment of soldiers (borgenproject.org). The most saddening fact about slavery is that children at times are involved. Although each testimony of each slave around the world may vary, the characteristics and mindset of their oppressors are constant. Their hunger to be in control, and to have power over someone is consistent with the term oppressor.

The Significance of History Itself

I’ve always heard that it was important to learn about history. Whenever a sad or gruesome part of history was being taught in class, it was common for the teacher to say things along the lines of, “it’s important to learn about uncomfortable topics like this so that history does not repeat itself.” But are we truly taking that saying to heart? What are the steps being taken to prevent history from repeating itself in all forms? Not just the physical aspect of slavery, like torture but the repercussions that affect the mind.

______ Still Exists

Thankfully slavery (unwilling servitude, forced labor)  in the United States was abolished due to the 13th amendment being passed. But there is no denying that racism is still prevalent and that the hatred for one another because of one’s skin color is still common.  Just because slavery was abolished does not mean that everyone is treated fairly. There has been a great change if we are just comparing slavery to the times that we are in now,  but there is still more work to be done.

Recent Incidents

From Diary of Systemic Injustice: 

[Towards the end of May in 2020, the whole nation heard of the murder of George Floyd. A lot of news regarding police brutality typically involves Black/African Americans, every single case that has been brought to light left me and many others outraged. Terrill Thomas was a Black man who was arrested for firing a gun inside of a casino with no one harmed. He later died of dehydration after the water in his cell was shut off for seven days. According to the NPR article, “They forced him to spend the last week of his life locked in an isolation cell 24 hours a day, with no drinking water, no edible food, no working toilet, no mattress, no blanket, no shower access, no means of cleaning his cell, no ability to communicate with his family, no relief from constant lockdown, and no meaningful access to urgently needed medical or mental health care.” His treatment was compared to Jacob Chansley, a White man who was accused of participating in the rioting in the U.S. Capitol. “A judge ordered corrections authorities to provide organic food to an Arizona man—- The order came after a lawyer for defendant Jacob Chansley complained that his client had gone the past nine days without eating because organic food isn’t served at the Washington jail where he’s housed,” Chansley said that because of his religious practice he demanded organic food, which was later granted to him. I understand that as a citizen he has the right to exercise any religion. But when it comes to Black people or other minorities, I thought that prisoners had their rights taken away. Hearing his story saddened me tremendously because Terrill Thomas was treated so inhumane, while Chansley had his bourgeoisie commands fulfilled. Not only did Thomas have his rights taken away but the necessities to live, like water. Without doing too much research, I immediately thought that this was the perfect example of White privilege. That specific riot that took place at the U.S capitol also sparked a lot of debate regarding injustice and bias. Because a lot of people, including myself, believe that if Black people did the same thing, there would’ve been casualties. In correlation to what I mentioned last week, even if there was an appropriate charge for a White person, there is still injustice behind the scenes. Instances like these make it reasonable to feel/think that people think that the lives of Black people are insignificant. I would also like to add that it is unfair for all white policemen to be labeled as “racist” and for all  black men to be labeled as “thugs.” It sort of feels like a cycle: hatred(racism) from one group, produces fear from the other group, resulting in violence and sometimes death. The people who are meant to protect and serve the community are the ones that we fear the most. There have been too many deaths that were unreasonable and unjustified. I believe that this would be considered systemic injustice because a lot of white men (including policemen) believe that because they are favored in society they have this sense of pride. When the judicial system fails to discipline them, they have more reasons to not fear doing anything wrong because they won’t be labeled as “in the wrong” in the sight of the decision-makers.] Due to COVID-19, there has also been a significant increase in the number of hate crimes towards the Asian American community. [In the times that we are living in, it seems like it is gradually becoming worse and people are bold about expressing their racist/prejudiced way of thinking. Systemic is defined as something that is fixed, and structured. This system isn’t gonna change if people in authority are on the same side of the oppressors or even sometimes are the oppressors.] Cases like these are just a few examples of why minorities still feel as if this country cannot be considered home for them. Back then for the enslaved,  the reason was that they were not given human rights/ freedom in “the land of the free.” But today, racism is one of the major reasons. There is still a form of favoritism for White people and this gives them a sense of superiority. Viewing people as subalterns even in the slightest/nonchalant way is a form of superiority complex. It is only inevitable for people who are not White to feel inferior. Sometimes a majority of people are quick to blame white people for all the evil doings and unfair treatment in this nation, but I think it’s more of a lack of understanding and empathy.

Why Will There Never Be An End?

America is known to have years of history recorded where White men have always had the upper hand and authority to demean people that did not look like them. Today, slavery doesn’t necessarily exist anymore (due to the 13th amendment). White men aren’t necessarily threatening people with guns or weapons, and Black people and other minorities are not enslaved by them. But there is a form of slavery that still exists, and that is the oppression of the mind and also the spirit behind every evil doing against another human being. Whether that may be an implicit bias way of thinking towards another race or physically expressing their hate, it’s still racism.

Looking at this image, I’m reminded of a Bible verse  about the matter of the heart:

“But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these things defile a man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts. . .” Matthew 15:18-19

For racism to end, every single individual walking on earth needs to have their mind renewed on race and how we view one another. Whether we like to admit it or not, most if not all of us have some form of implicit bias. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we are racist and that we choose to be racist, it just shows how much race has been ingrained in our minds for a very long time. The people who are “superior,”  and know that they have an upper hand in life,  but ignore this unfair treatment is the reason why racism still exists.

This image can also have many different meanings, depending on who is observing. Here is how I interpreted it and how it correlates to racism:

• The root of this nation (the foundation) has always been corrupt. From the “beginning” when Columbus discovered and inform Europeans about America, he belittled the aboriginals and treated them inhumanely.
• The reason why this nation has not removed itself from the same foundation as its founders is that the heart of individuals today have a similar way of viewing themselves: greedy, superior, powerful, and in control. The heart can be very wicked. The root of the problem (racism) is the contaminated hearts in this nation. Years and years of continuous hatred for one another have only made the roots of the tree grow larger and deeper, making it harder and harder to deracinate. 
• The roots represent the hatred for one another that grows day by day, with recent news of police brutality, hate crimes based on race, more and more people are being turned against each other–being fueled with anger.

If the roots continue to go downward, there will never be an end to racism.

References

https://restavekfreedom.org/2018/09/11/the-history-of-slavery/

https://borgenproject.org/types-of-slavery/ 

https://www.npr.org/2019/05/29/728023455/-6-75-million-settlement-paid-to-family-of-milwaukee-inmate-who-died-from-dehydr 

https://abc7.com/qanon-shaman-jacob-chansley-riot-capitol-siege/10313166/ 

Image 1: https://creativemarket.com/Alltruecolours/5360302-Sketch-vector-Handcuffs-on-the-hands 

Image 2: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/350084571026639308/ 

Hello, I’m Jamie and welcome back to our podcasts of yo is this sexist. Joining us this week is Molly Erneston Hi, I’m

Molly Erneston and today we will be discussing sexism in sports.

This has been an ongoing issue in our world for as long as sports have been played, and is something that deserves a lot more awareness wants people’s attention, female athletes across the world are just as talented and just as hard working as male athletes and should not have to go through obstacles and disrespect to try and prove this.

We are both currently members on the women’s lacrosse team at The Ohio State University that face our own personal struggles and experiences with sexism in sports growing up as to be male athletes at a younger age, it was always hearing that boys are faster and boys are stronger than us, but now there are much more serious issues, and it’s hard to hear about situations happening, and the National College Athletic Association of America. Janie, have you experienced any sexism in your sport recently,

definitely as a younger girl there was always like the rude remarks, even in like gym class saying like, you can’t play with the boys or you can’t hang with them. But I mean as a female athlete you kind of get used to it, which is something that like shouldn’t be the norm.

I agree there definitely is huge lack of respect for female athletes, just all across the board I remember like growing up I always would race with the boys in what to do with the boys were doing and they always said I couldn’t do that because I was a girl and girls can’t play with boys, which is such a lie because girls can keep up with boys.

And even when we would win the races you still didn’t get the respect that the fastest boy would get.

Yeah exactly, there’s no respect and if you did, they would call you, like, a boy, or they would make fun of you for having bigger legs or bigger muscles. It was always something that set us apart and made us less.

Yeah, there’s definitely a stereotype that comes along with being a female athlete, Not just the sexism part but it’s also like people judge you think you’re more manly, you don’t have like female characteristics just because you’re athletic and play sports, doesn’t mean you’re not a girl.

I agree 100% I definitely suffered throughout my high school and middle school experiences, always being a little bit bigger and more muscular than the boys and other girls in my grade, it definitely set me apart, and I definitely got picked on for it.

I think it especially escalated when, like, for me, I don’t know if you agree, but when we got to college, the stereotype definitely like grow because other girls that aren’t athletes start to look at you like, Oh, they’re just jocks like nothing else that matters besides how they play their sport and like how they execute, which is not the case.

Yeah I agree 100% I also experienced like in high school, both of us committed us freshmen and sophomores in high school, and all my guy friends always messed with us cuz, they’d be like, Oh, if I played women’s lacrosse I could go to the top. Do you want school like that’s the easiest sport in the world, especially being a woman like any boy claims if he played girls sports he could just be anyone, do very,

yeah and the boys at my in my high school who committed to play men’s lacrosse were never judged for playing lacrosse as a guy because people looked at it as much more bigger deal and it was her females playing lacrosse.

Yeah, it just, there’s way more respect for boys that are Division One athletes and professional athletes than for women, even our America’s women’s soccer team, they get joked on and messed with all the time even though they’ve won more championships than the men’s team.

Yeah, they’ve won an insane amount of World Cups and Olympic saris. And they still aren’t gaining respect which is crazy to think about, especially with the current situation that just happened in the NCAA Tournament March Madness, like the girls got no equipment for weight room and they’re basically given like jail food, as they were in quarantine.

It just really is sad, and it’s not even about the money, it’s not about girls bringing in less money. This is why they get that. It’s just common sense. Now the NCAA, we’re all athletes, all of us need weights we need squat racks we need literal like things to do, other than weights that go up to 30 pounds like it’s just disrespect. We all men’s and women’s basketball men’s and women’s lacrosse every athlete needs those facilities and those things and the NCAA just completely ignored it and thought the woman’s basketball team would just not need it at all,

and that all goes back to this stereotype of being a female athlete, a stereotype that the NCAA was giving us was that we’re not as strong as men by giving us only 30 pound dumbbells and no squat racks or anything.

So, it’s just sad like the NCAA has been bringing down women’s sports for as long as sports have been around they’ve made it seem like we’re less than boys, and the boys get more everything. And it just, it needs to stop and it needs to come to an end.

A current Oregon basketball player has been going viral on Tik Tok because she’s finally speaking out she’s sick of the inequality and sexualization going on in sports sit on a prince, have you heard her.

Yes, I have I do follow her on tick tock, and I’m really proud a lot of women’s basketball players have been speaking out about this issue, and I’m glad they recorded it because I feel like people. We could be talking about it and, but no one really sees the issue and like the tech talks and the videos they’ve made makes it so much more real.

Yeah, she’s brought a lot of awareness of female athletes, but it also came with a, like a bunch of comments that I read on her thing was like, males that who don’t even play sports, that were like making fun of her or making fun of the female tournament for the March Madness was just crazy because people like Steph Curry and LeBron James gave her a shout out saying like woman sports are just as important as males but in sports.

We work just as hard like there is no difference in our work ethic, sorry that the men get more views, but women work just as hard and as just as athletic is just as much as a time commitment for every sport, no matter if you’re male or female. And we need the respect, it’s gone on too long that we have this lack of respect. I’m glad that Sedona Prince and a lot of girls in the March Madness are speaking up about this, and actually I heard that Sedona Prince is suing the NCAA for this institutional sexism.

Yeah I agree it’s definitely crazy especially, it’s 2021 and like, for the past year, all we’ve talked about, and all of our country has tried to improve on is equality in those worlds but then sports is just another category where it’s, nothing’s equal and there’s discrimination against depending on your gender, which is something that should be long gone.

And it’s just crazy the way that powerful institutions and college sports have put down women’s sports for so long and they go beyond putting less effort into logistical preparation for championships, it’s just, it just messed up.

Something that our head women’s lacrosse coach is really advocate on is, she’s told us that if we ever see something that the men’s lacrosse team is gaining access to or receiving that we should tell her right away because she’s going to make sure that we also have access to that and we receive the same things as them because she truly believes in equality and we’re just as important and just mean just as much to them, to the university.

Yeah, she really does do a great job of making us feel like badass woman, and just showing us that we deserve everything that we’ve worked for and no man deserves more than us because they’re not doing anything different. And I honestly think it’s great. She really empowers us, and we just get to feel strong about ourselves and makes us confident. I also heard about many other issues going on in this world like just coming with like field space and like, even in high school girls get the worst fields girls get, they don’t get the weight room time it’s just

practice blocks like I know where we don’t have one of the best practice blocks this semester. And that’s probably due to males getting first choice Phila athletes

are just always the second choice no matter what we’re doing.

It’s just a real issue.

Yeah we are fed up.

It’s annoying, taking the stand.

We tell you said because we should

do what Sedona prince did maybe we should start making tic TOCs speaking out to the world.

Just giving other girls confidence to speak up because this is an issue and we shouldn’t think that if we speak up it’s threatening our playing time or we’re not going to get respected because look at what those girls are doing they’re getting respected and they’re getting their voices heard. So it’s time for other women in sports to speak up about sexism and other things going on in their sport.

Yeah, I totally agree and I think it’s a really good point, people stepping up and speaking out is just setting an example for the younger generations of female athletes coming of age, behind us to be even more confident and empower them even more to be the strong badass female athletes that we are. Yeah, well, I’m so happy you joined us today Molly and I’m so happy that we’re on the same page about this topic, I hope it only goes up, and improves from here.

I agree. Thank you so much for having me Janie. I’m glad that we are going through this together and we are fighting to stop sexual sexism in woven sports.

Thank you.

Transcript: by Andrew Martinez

Hi everybody my name is Andrew Martinez. I am currently a junior at The Ohio State University. I am a business student majoring in Operations Management. I have decided to talk about Systemic injustices that many minorities face in society, an example would be the housing market. Before I attended Ohio State I was a transfer student from Texas. I have volunteered throughout my city and have seen first-hand the problems my city is facing in the housing market for minorities. Certain districts in my city have serious levels of poverty. When COVID-19 occurred many communities in my city have experienced serious problems in maintaining their home and health. My grandmother and sister both worked for the city of San Antonio and have seen the problems may minorities face in Texas. My grandmother working for the tax office in San Antonio and my sister working in the neighborhood and housing development center.

The housing market is divided in our country and its been worse for minorities. For example, Atticus LeBlanc from Forbes described how systemic racism exists in the housing market and gives an example in housing data that he obtained in his research. He states, “according to an Economic Policy Institute study, the median white household has 12 times more wealthy than the median Black household, and more than 1 in 4 Black households have zero or negative net worth; that’s compared to less than 1 in 10 for white families.” (LeBlanc, 2020). I wonder if this division is due to having not the same educational opportunities when compared to whites due to the neighborhoods? If so, who is responsible for this division since it continues to persist in today’s society?

When my sister worked for the neighborhood and housing development center for the city of San Antonio, she saw many gaps in the system for minorities. The people my sister interacted with during the reconstruction of the resident’s homes were majority poor residents on a fix income. Many of the families she interacted with were Latino and African Americans. Also, these family’s household income was less than 40,000 a year. Many of the homes my sister worked on had to be renovated to meet the health and safety code to deem the condition of the home safe. The applications that my sister received from minorities were in some cases not completed due to the complex terminology used in the format for the application which was one of the reasons why the process took over a month to complete. These individuals did not have a high school education or GD instead some just had only a middle school education. So, the applicants in most cases didn’t know what they were signing. So, do to these residents not having an understands on filling out applications properly and understanding what they are signing, have been fooled into taking out high interest loans payments on their homes for a mortgage. The interest rate for the mortgage can range close to 30%.  When the applicants took out the high interest loans sadly they were no longer eligible to be assisted since legally they no longer had official rights over the property. These individuals that greatly needed the assistance were minorities who sadly didn’t know how to properly manage their money right. The biggest struggle my sister saw was the lack of knowledge many minorities faced when buying a home and maintaining it financially.

An issue that arises in this housing market problem for minorities is gentrification. In an article by Danyelle Solomon, Connor Maxwell and Abril Castro from Center for American Progress describes the gentrification happening for African Americans in Washington D.C. She states, “Nowhere are the effects of gentrification more noticeable than the nation’s capital, Washington D.C. between 1970 and 2015, black residents declined from 71 percent of the city’s population to just 48 percent. The city’s white population increased by 25 percent during the same period. From 2000 to 2013, the city endured the nation’s highest rate of gentrification, resulting in more than 20,000 African American resident’s displacement. Today, almost 1 in 4 Black Washington residents- 23 percent line in poverty.” (n.d, 2019) Isn’t this sad that the law makers and legislatures that live in Washington DC are unable to make a difference in the state that they are residing in for the residents? What’s the point of them solving issues when they can’t even solve the poverty issue that’s right in front of them that’s visible to see to the public?

People of color continue to experience racial bias in the housing market. Many neighborhoods that have predominately minority households have been undervalued by the market. Minorities experience racial biases when renting or buying a house. The only way to fix this division is to make the issue apparent and bring awareness to law makers to fix this housing issue for minorities. Across our country many families of minorities face exclusion and displacement from obtaining homeownership. New polices need to be available to promote more access for minorities to have additional resources and knowledge to have greater opportunities which have been excluded from them.

I do know in my City of San Antonio; we already see the effects of gentrification when they fixed the Pearl Brewery an old area of San Antonio and made it into a high-end condominium and shopping center. The city did this to revitalize the area, but unaware they were kicking out the people who were living in this area before the construction and due to the increase in property taxes the people are no longer able to live in there homes no more. So now they are moving around trying to find an area that can assist their fixed income that they have for there household. The people who were affected were the elderly and the minorities. Change is good, but is it good at the cost of affecting the people you were trying to assist in the first place? We need to remember why we do a project in the first place in order to not be sway by people who want to profit from the project or exclude a specific class/race.

With this division of housing for minorities the country is also facing hardships through COVID-19. Because of the pandemic this has not been easy for many minorities. Not everyone has been able to receive funding. People of color and low income families are facing hardships through housing cost burdens. Many are facing instability in their communities. Discrimination and structural racism is still very constant in housing for minorities.  Many COVID-19 disparities have been shown throughout this pandemic.  Huge hits of stay at home orders in different states and many other public health measures for people in communities. Many jobs for minorities lost and many can’t be worked remotely causing problems with housing cost problems.

In an article by Solomon Greene and Alanna McCargo from the Urban Institute, discuss racial disparities in housing. They state, “In April, Latino unemployment reached a record high of 18.9 percent, and Black unemployment reached 16.7 percent. Layoffs related to COVID-19 for black and Latino workers are also more likely to lead to housing instability, as they already reported higher rates of financial insecurity and lower savings to draw from to weather economic shocks before the crisis began.” (n.d, 2020) Issues like these bring up big questions about how are many minorities able to afford paying their rent monthly. New policies need to be responded towards this crisis during the pandemic. Policies need to focus and help lower income individuals need assistance. More opportunities for those minorities being affected by the pandemic.  If we don’t see any help or assistance, we could see problems in the future like the housing market to crash. Many foreclosures and division within the housing market will begin to rise if we don’t solve this issue.

In an article by Laura Romero from NowCastSa, describes the gentrification happening for many Latino families getting pushed out by rising rent prices. She states, “The East Side is experiencing a wave of gentrification as new construction takes over San Antonio, Texas. A new apartment complex on the East Side is shown on September 5, 2019 next to a demolished neighborhood clinic. San Antonio’s East Side, and most recently, the West Side, are rapidly becoming inaccessible to Latinos and pushing them out (Romero, 2019). She goes on discussing how the Latino community’s local identity is gone from those neighborhoods. This one prime example that shows my city in Texas is changing and giving less opportunities for minorities communities is apparent. They are pushing many minorities out of the inner cities that they have been residing in their entire lives in order for the wealthy and influential residents to move in the area. The housing issue is one that needs to be fixed and soon or we may no longer have local residents living in the San Antonio community, but non-local renters looking for potential secondary residency.  We will soon lose our communities individualism if this continues.

My thoughts on the housing issue is this we need to bring awareness on this issue. We need to help our minorities in this country. We shouldn’t have division in the housing market. We all want to provide for our families and provide for our country, but pushing out people especially minorities is saddening and needs to change. There needs to be more opportunities for minorities in our local communities. An example would be having a new set of policies for minorities and laying the new foundations in our country to grow our minority communities to include better access to educational opportunities as well as job opportunities too. As a minority Hispanic, myself we need to make changes in order to obtain improved opportunities for minorities in this country. We the people are the future for change no matter your gender or race we need to work together toward a brighter tomorrow.

Citations:

LeBlanc, A. (2020, July 08). Council post: How systemic racism exists In U.S. housing policies. Retrieved March 12, 2021, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesrealestatecouncil/2020/07/09/how-systemic-racism-exists-in-us-housing-policies/?sh=681b505a6959

Danyelle Solomon, C. (n.d.). Systemic inequality: Displacement, exclusion, and segregation. Retrieved April 02, 2021, from https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/reports/2019/08/07/472617/systemic-inequality-displacement-exclusion-segregation/

Submitted by Laura Romero on September 11. (n.d.). Gentrification, rising rent prices PUSH Latinos out of neighborhoods. Retrieved April 03, 2021, from https://nowcastsa.com/Gentrification-rising-rent-push-Latinos-out

Greene, S., & McCargo, A. (2020, June 02). New data Suggest covid-19 is WIDENING HOUSING disparities by race and income. Retrieved April 04, 2021, from https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/new-data-suggest-covid-19-widening-housing-disparities-race-and-income

Art, S. (n.d.). Sheldon Museum of Art main content. Retrieved April 04, 2021, from https://sheldonartmuseum.org/barriers-and-disparities

The housing market is changing, but Don’t panic! (2018, October 13). Retrieved April 04, 2021, from http://www.myfolsom.com/2018/10/housing-market-is-changing-but-dont-panic/

Yo, is this White Privilege?

By Andrew Johnson-Milstein

This year, one of the biggest topics attracting the most attention (besides the worldwide pandemic) is systemic injustices. In early 2020, we saw the Black Lives Matter movement take center stage after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Just recently, we have been seeing a multitude of senseless hate crimes on Asian-Americans. In between those, there were more than a slough of other instances of injustice involving these groups and beyond. Yes, a large part of the reason that systemic injustices exist is due to various laws and situations that have made it more difficult to thrive for certain groups of people. However, the big part that sticks out above the rest, the reason why these issues seem so insurmountable, the frustration caused by seemingly little change, is that systemic injustices are rooted in culture.

Think about American culture; what comes to mind? Patriotism, freedom, protectors of world peace, “the American Dream”? Of course. This is what America stands for- on the surface. The year 2020 was a bit of a wake up call in terms of what America is really all about. From an outside and unbiased perspective, what America stands for when looking at this past year could very well look like racism, arrogance, abuse of power, and injustice. 

(source: BBC https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55585546) 

Over the course of this semester, I was able to compose several “Diaries of Systemic Injustices.” I wrote on various topics that I encountered throughout the weeks either in the news or in my daily life. I wanted to expand on one of these discussions, so I thought back to which one truly struck me the strongest. The pick was easy. 

On January 6, 2021 rioters seized and broke into the U.S. Capitol in protest of the final count of the 2020 election’s electoral votes to nominate Joe Biden as the nation’s 46th President. Not only was this a riot or a protest, one of the most precious buildings in not only Washington, D.C. but America was broken into and vandalized for hours. Senators and Representatives were forced to take cover and hide from the attack on one of the pillars of American representative democracy, the final electoral college of the presidential election ballots. The riot was frightening, destructive, and deadly going into the night.

The investigation and aftermath of the Capitol riot is still ongoing, and it was definitely a wake up call for America. However, I am not writing to discuss the event in and of itself, nor the continuing investigation occuring after the fact. However, I am here to discuss what the storming represented- outside of the fact that there is a large group of extremists prepared to do anything to make their case.

As a white male, I will easily admit that I most likely will never feel as oppressed and unheard as other groups in this country. Additionally, from what I have seen, it is somewhat easy to not realize how bad systemic injustice is in America sometimes. We no nothing different than seeing African Americans continue to be oppressed and forced to watch while nothing is done to fix the broken, unjust system. However, especially after the Black Lives Matter movement took center stage less than a year before this riot, it is nearly impossible not to see truly how massive of an issue we have on our hands. 

The question that we have seen asked a good number of times went along the lines of this: What if the rioters were a group of mostly black people? This has not been talked about nearly enough. I will admit, I am not a fan of hypotheticals. However, this is very real and something that is impossible to ignore, unless you are actively trying to ignore it. The crowd was convincingly not black, as it was filled with predominantly white people carrying pro-Donald Trump flags and associated extremist phrases and organizations. These people walked up to and through the Capitol building like it was their right, and insulted the government and law enforcement like it was their privilege. 

(source: abc7news https://abc7news.com/capitol-during-blm-riots-protest-protests/9449062/ )

Looking at some statistics (taking into account that the numbers do not perfectly line up) from an Associated Press article following the attacks, one can see some eye opening figures. The article reads,

“Black Lives Matter protests, 2020: Overwhelming force from law enforcement in dozens of cities. Chemical dispersants. Rubber bullets and hand-to-hand combat with largely peaceful crowds and some unruly vandals and looters. More than 14,000 arrests.

The U.S. Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021: Barely more than a few dozen arrests. Several weapons seized, improvised explosive devices found. Members of a wilding mob escorted from the premises, some not even in handcuffs,” (Morrison).

Statistical bias is important and should be taken into account all the time. Thus, pitting multiple events occurring throughout months versus one day is skewed. However, this is not the point of these analyses. Black Lives Matters protestors were for the most part peacefully standing up for years of systemic injustice by marching and chanting down city streets. The Capitol rioters, however, raided and vandalized one of the most important and guarded buildings in the country and quite possibly the world for what- the election results? Freedom? 

(source: AP https://apnews.com/article/congress-storming-black-lives-matter-22983dc91d16bf949efbb60cdda4495d )

The image above from the aforementioned Associated Press article displays the protest after the death of George Floyd directly next to the riot by Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol building. The left image shouts peace and desire for change, while the right screams violence and disregard.

Let us revisit the discussion on racism being rooted in our culture. Both the statistics in terms of arrests and the comparison of the photographs above demonstrate how white privilege affects situations. In neither example was there a coordinated effort to address the protests. The events caught the system off its guard, one could say. This, in turn allowed deeply rooted and systemic injustice to rear its ugly head. 

On the topic, St. Louis Representative Cori Bush weighed in on the events occurring at the Capitol and agreed that if the crowd had been black instead of vastly white, things would have turned out much worse for the rioters. Additionally, she said “‘These are the same people who called us terrorists…Confederate flags, ‘don’t tread on me,’ ‘blue lives matter’ flags, the Trump flags — all of it symbolizes the same thing…racism and white supremacy,’” (Bush qtd. In Morrison). To add on to how incredibly broken the system is, the groups of people that attacked the nation’s capital’s beliefs are widely known. This is my reason for writing on this topic. I believe that never in recent history has it ever been more black and white how used to America’s racist culture we have become. 

Throughout this semester, we have looked as a class at different perspectives and philosophies, many pointing to injustices over time. There is one philosophy by Simone de Beauvoir called “the Other.” de Beauvoir primarily focuses on sexism, and how women are “the Other sex.” Although the above discussion revolves around racism, this philosophy which has stuck out to me all semester applies here as well. I titled this discussion “Yo, is this White Privilege” because I believe that not only do we see racism way too much, but it is almost inherent and not acted upon in America. Connecting this to de Beauvoir’s idea, in the United States, it seems as though people that are not white are treated like “the Other races.” On the surface of the Capitol attacks, the group violated many rules, laws, safety and democracy. However, they were not treated like they did, at least not until after the fact. It is almost as if the rioters felt untouchable, knew their privilege, and took advantage of it, while “the Others” looked on and imagined what the scene would have looked like if it were them.

(source: CNN https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/17/us/capitol-riot-racial-justice-blake/index.html )

This conversation is not light, nor fun, yet it is important. After first writing on this event and what it shows about racism and our nation, I referenced Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and tried to reflect on where we have come since he made his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. In terms of laws, norms, and business we have come a long way in the fight to end racism. However, deeply ingrained in American society still is white privilege. The roots of the same issues that Dr. King was standing for have not gone away almost 60 years later. Once again, on the surface things are better, yet this issue is one that has disturbed the core of America for decades upon decades. Take the above image for example; I think Dr. King would not have imagined a confederate flag being flown in the nation’s capital in 2021. How exactly do we end it? I, as most, do not have a concrete answer. However, I believe that if we all make a genuine effort to at least educate ourselves and understand ourselves and others, we can take a step in the right direction.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Works Cited/Works Used

Blake, Analysis by John. “The Capitol Insurrection Could Be a Bigger Racial Reckoning than the George Floyd Protests.” CNN, Cable News Network, 17 Jan. 2021, www.cnn.com/2021/01/17/us/capitol-riot-racial-justice-blake/index.html. 

Marcus, Jonathan. “Viewpoint: What the Capitol Riot Means for US Foreign Policy.” BBC News, BBC, 10 Jan. 2021, www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55585546. 

Morrison, Aaron. “Race Double Standard Clear in Rioters’ Capitol Insurrection.” AP NEWS, Associated Press, 7 Jan. 2021, apnews.com/article/congress-storming-black-lives-matter-22983dc91d16bf949efbb60cdda4495d. 

Reyes, Kris. “’We Would All Be Dead’: Bay Area BLM Organizers Point to Race Double Standard in Capitol Riot.” ABC7 San Francisco, KGO-TV, 8 Jan. 2021, abc7news.com/capitol-during-blm-riots-protest-protests/9449062/.