Marvel Studios has continued to release movies that are increasingly more diverse. They are moving away from movies with an all white cast and attempting to include many different races and personalities of actors. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is one of the latest movies that they have released that highlights a specific culture. Similar to Black Panther, this movie has the intention of bringing minority actors to the limelight. Nearly everybody in the movie is of Asian descent. The movie itself is centered around a small community in China. The movie puts a strong emphasis on Chinese culture both in America and China. The beginning of the movie focuses on Katy’s life with her family and her grandmother and how Shaun fits into their family dynamic. It shows how their culture can be seen mixed together with the culture of New York City. It also shows off many different aspects of Chinatown and how many Chinese-Americans use these towns in order to feel closer to their home country and culture. Later Shaun and Katy have to travel to China to the community where Shaun’s mother was born. Shaun then gets to meet many members of his family that he did not know before. They teach him a lot about his culture and his mother who passed away. This allows many people from different cultures watching the movie to learn about traditional Chinese culture while still being entertained by the movie. Additionally, this movie gave a lot of representation to Asians and Asian-Americans in the media. This can be a source of inspiration for many young Asian children who get to see their culture and their race represented on the big screen. The movie shows the characters all coming together even though they have never met before just because of family and cultural connections. Overall, this movie was a true inspiration and a very good representation of a ethnicity that is not often seen in the media.
Author: rogers.1615
Yo, Is This Transphobic?
As the world continues to move forward, many people are finding new and unique ways of expressing themselves. Whether this is through a new sexuality or using neopronouns, everyday somebody is finding out who they truly are. These new methods of expressing oneself are making the world increasingly inclusive and helping people find themselves and what makes them feel comfortable. This is a huge change in inclusion from the past few decades; the past did not even welcome homosexuals. Same-sex marriage was not even legalized until 2015. In many countries it is still considered criminal to be homosexual, and one can even be put to death for it. Now, in the United States, you can be bisexual or pansexual or asexual. And those are just the basic ones. The expansion of these terms are really helpful in creating an identity for many people, and these terms can help somebody understand themself better. Everybody should be able to express themselves the way that they want to, and those expressions should be respected.
However, can some of these terms be harmful? A new sexuality has been created, and it seems like an attempt to hurt members of the transgender community. It is called ‘super straight.’ This sexuality basically states that the person who identifies as such is only attracted to cisgender members of the opposite sex. This mainly excludes people who are transgender, but it also removes people who are agender or genderfluid. Although according to the site Urban Dictionary, super straight is “a made up sexuality where people like the opposite sex that doesn’t include transgender people.” Of course, people are welcome to their sexual preferences. Whether one prefers to date white people, black people, tall people, skinny people, or older people, that is totally okay. It is just what is found attractive, and there is nothing wrong with that. A person is allowed to like what they like. And they are also allowed to reject somebody that they do not find attractive. The difference here is putting a label on preferences.
Even as a cisgender, heterosexual, female, I can see clear as day how harmful this sexuality will be. It is completely unfair to only exclude one group of people in a sexuality. Members of the transgender community already face enough backlash and harmful remarks on a daily basis. Creating an entire sexuality that just sets them apart is making it even harder for them to feel like equal and valued members of society. As a society, amazing strides have been made to make every single person equal. In this day and age, anybody is allowed to marry anybody in the United States. Same-sex couples are now able to adopt children and start a family. Many countries are still struggling to do this, and the United States needs to act as a role model for other communities and governments. But now, in 2021, it feels as though we are taking steps backwards. People are attacking others for their sexual and gender identities, sometimes even harming them physically. There are many different attempts to tear down these communities and make the people in them feel the same fear they did in the past. There are even people who want to completely wipe the LGBT+ community off the face of the earth. And there is no need for that. The creation of new sexualities to hurt others is a poor example to set for countries that are still developing and trying to figure out how to view people who identify differently. There is absolutely no harm in letting others exist the way that they want to. Everybody is allowed to have their own feelings and preferences and identity. But once again, when one creates an entire identity around their distaste for a group of people, they are creating a new kind of problem that, as a society, we will have to address and combat. As a community, we are being forced to divide over issues that should not even exist. There should not be anybody who is not allowed to be who they feel that they are because it makes somebody else feel uncomfortable.
Transgender people already face so many challenges just to feel comfortable in their own skin. Firstly, they have to go through coming out to their families, and the fear of not being accepted that comes along with that. Many people could be kicked out of their house by their family or downright shunned and exiled from interacting with people who used to care about them. It makes it more difficult when not only someone’s family does not accept them, but random strangers pile onto that hatred every day without even knowing the person. Secondly, transgender people have to deal with taking hormones just to feel more like themselves. Their body does not match their brain, and they are forced to take medications to reconcile that. Along with taking these medicines — which may come with side effects — there is the cost of obtaining them. Not all insurances are willing to cover what is called gender-affirming care. This also includes any transition surgeries that are desired. Insurance companies are prohibited from discriminating against somebody who is transgender, but that does not always ensure that insurance will cover the care that is needed to make somebody who is transgender feel alright with themselves. Lastly, people who are transgender have to deal will expressing to everybody what their preferred pronouns and names are. Oftentimes, people will refer to transgender people by their deadname, which is the name that they were given at birth. Deadnaming and misgendering is often done out of honest forgetfulness or miscommunication, but sometimes it is done maliciously. This makes it difficult to be able to tell whether or not somebody is trying to be harmful, or if they truly just misspoke. Transgender people are forced to treat everybody like they are attacking them in order to protect themselves.
Many people who are not fans of the transgender community do not stop to think of how hard it is to be transgender already. There is especially a lot of difficulty for people who are transgender but have not quite figured it out yet. They feel like they do not fit in or do not have a place in society and on earth. There is a lot of struggle with identity for the people in this community, and extra added hate on top of that makes matters much worse. In fact, hatred towards any group of people often just adds on to the struggles that they are already facing at home or in their personal lives.
So, at this point, imagine going through all of these things. The coming out, the transition, the surgeries and medications, the deadnaming and misgendering, the uncalled for hatred. And then pile this new identity of ‘super straight’ on top of that. People who identify as super straight have no intentions other than hurting others. There is no sexuality for any other preferences. For example, “Oh, I’m a tall person sexual, it means I only like tall people.” This does not exist because it is ridiculous. It is hurtful to people who are short and are completely excluded from this group. There is no need to create an entire identity around excluding somebody else because of how they view themself.
There is a truly simple solution to this. Rather than going through the trouble of creating a new sexuality and changing your sexual identity to ‘super straight’ in order to hurt somebody’s feelings, just do not date somebody who is transgender. If somebody who you are not attracted to asks you to go on a date, just say, “No thank you.” It is unnecessary to make a sexuality around one preference. There is honestly no defense for super straight. Many people who identify themselves as ‘super straight’ argue that all sexualities are just preferences. Being straight just means you prefer the opposite sex. Being gay means you prefer the same sex. Being asexual means that you prefer no sex. These sexualities would be excluding anybody who does not fall under these restrictions. But the fact is that none of these are excluding people based on the way that they look and identify. If a transgender person says that they identify as male, then they are male. They would fall under the same category as all other men. If one is attracted to males, then their sexuality encompasses all men regardless of how they were born. Then within that sexual identity, there can be further preferences. One can prefer men who are taller than 6 foot, or men who weigh less than 250 pounds. Every person is entitled to like what they like. But, once again, there are no sexualities created around these preferences. That is hurtful to many people. If somebody said, “I like all women, except for you,” that would be very hurtful. An entire sexuality does not need to be created in order to exclude some people.
Works Cited
“A Brief History of Civil Rights in the United States: A Timeline of the Legalization of Same-Sex Marriage in the U.S.” Guides, https://guides.ll.georgetown.edu/c.php?g=592919&p=4182201.
“Super Straight.” Urban Dictionary, https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=super+straight.
“Transgender Health Care: Does Health Insurance Cover Gender-Affirming Surgery?” HealthSherpa Blog, 18 Sept. 2020, https://blog.healthsherpa.com/transgender-health-care-gender-affirming-surgery-health-insurance.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist and 9/11 Terrorist Attacks Context Presentation
Mosin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist shows a lot of the differences before and after the 9/11 attacks. Security measures prior to the terrorist attacks of September 2001 were much more relaxed compared to today. They were so relaxed, in fact, that “The FAA allowed knives of up to 4 inches in length on board an aircraft” (Schaper). But after 9/11, these restrictions were completely changed. No longer can you board an airplane without going through layers of security and multiple screenings.
These restrictions have made it much more difficult for Muslim-Americans to make it through security. Sometimes it is almost impossible for them to return to their home country. A lot of these hurtful views towards Muslims stem from Americans who are scarred from the 9/11 terrorist attacks. According to a study done by Washington State University, “58 percent of Americans favored a requirement that Arabs have a special and more intensive screening process at airports” (Brooklier). The unfair treatment of Arabs cannot even be blamed solely on the FAA. Americans are allowing their fear of terrorist attacks to unfairly profile people trying to enter their own country.
This disparate targeting of Muslims is completely unfair. It should not be allowed for TSA to screen certain people more than others. The same security measures should be taken for each person attempting to enter the country. The current way that TSA functions treats many Muslim Americans as if they have committed a crime, despite having done nothing wrong. This treatment is also only observed in airports. A Gallup poll reveals that “31% of the respondents agreed that some racial profiling of motorists was justified on roads and highways, while 45% supported it at security checkpoints at airports” (Selod). There need to be changes made in the airport security field in order to have equality among all people trying to leave and enter the country. Security should be equally strict on every single person.
Works Cited
Brooklier, Nicholas. “Washington State University.” Law and Justice in Real Time Islamophobia The Stereotyping and Prejudice Towards Muslims Since 911 Comments, 17 Dec. 2015, https://hub.wsu.edu/law-justice-realtime/2015/12/17/islamophobia-the-stereotyping-and-prejudice-towards-muslims-since-911/.
Schaper, David. “It Was Shoes on, No Boarding Pass or ID. but Airport Security Forever Changed on 9/11.” NPR, NPR, 10 Sept. 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/09/10/1035131619/911-travel-timeline-tsa.
Selod, Saher. “Targeting Muslim Americans in the Name of National Security.” Scholars Strategy Network, https://scholars.org/contribution/targeting-muslim-americans-name-national-security.
Diary of Systemic Injustice Showcase: Women in Power
I have met a lot of different people with a lot of different opinions, and I try to always be open to hearing what they have to say. I have a friend whose views are completely the opposite of mine. She told me the other day that she does not think that there should ever be a female President. I chose not to argue with her about it, given that I would not be likely to change her mind, but it really bothered me that there are some women out there who believe that we do not have the ability to perform well in the same jobs as men. Not only are there female leaders in countries aside from the United States (given we are not the only country that matters), but this manner of thinking continues to make it difficult for a woman to believe that she herself can become such an important figure in the government.
This interaction with my friend reminded me a lot of the way that women are treated in the novel Persepolis. Specifically, when Marji is in Iran. Throughout the story, women are expected to cover their hair and wear certain clothes according to what the male leaders desire. There is a priority of men feeling comfortable around women over women being able to express themselves through the way that they dress. Women in many foreign countries are still struggling with treatment similar to this, where they have to listen to everything that the men say and they are not allowed to uncover their hair or drive cars. In many countries in the Middle East and Africa, women are still unable to own property.
Having a female President in a large country such as the United States would leave a huge impact on these countries that are still struggling with women’s rights. It would show women of the world that they are capable of doing the same things as men. They are capable of earning the same wages as men. It is extremely important to teach future generations that they can do anything that they put their minds to, regardless of gender identity.
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