Author: chen.7382

Text Review Assignment – Jeffrey Chen

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Solomon Northup, a Black American writer, used his own experiences as the basis for his autobiographical novel Twelve Years a Slave in the 19th century (Stevenson, 2014). The novel tells the story of Northup who was sold into slavery. Northup was originally a free black man living in New York. Two white men kidnapped Northup and sold him to slave traders. Northup lived as a slave for 12 years. With the help of Henry Northup and Samuel Bass, Northup was freed (Stevenson, 2014). Twelve Years a Slave reflects the values that differences between nations, races and genders must be respected.

Figure 1. Cover of 12 Years a Slave

Slavery is rooted in racist ideology. Slave owners often regarded slaves as irrational, merely animals with limited skills. Thus, they had no qualm about mistreating and exploiting black slaves (Li, 2014). In fact, when Northup talked to the black people about the unfair slavery, almost everyone expressed their desire for freedom. The film’s ending proves that the intelligence of blacks and their desire for a free life are enough to overturn the colonial discourse of blacks as “the Other”.

In addition to depicting the conditions of slavery, Twelve Years a Slave depicts black women under the oppression of both gender and race (Li, 2014). In this book, almost all women are images representing “the Other”. The novel focuses on Patsey and Mrs. Epps. They are “the Other” in a patriarchal society. Mrs. Epps was well educated, but she could not escape her husband’s oppression. Patsey, a female slave, is an outstanding girl, but slavery disguises her talent and light, leaving her in eternal darkness.

Twelve Years a Slave is set on the eve of the Civil War. This book reflects the slavery and sufferings of black people under the oppression of racism. Northup criticized the racist ideology and showed the living condition of black women oppressed by both racism and male centralism.

 

 

References

Li, S. (2014). 12 Years a Slave as a Neo-Slave Narrative. American Literary History, 26(2), 326-331.

Stevenson, B. E. (2014). 12 Years a Slave: Narrative, History, and Film. Journal of African American History, 99(1-2), 106-118.

 

 

“Yo, is This Sexist?”- Duanyang Zhao / Jeffrey Chen

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Duanyang Zhao: Hi, everyone my name is Duanyang Zhao and I am here with Jeffrey Chen for our Podcast of the“Yo is this..?”. We decided our theme to be the“Yo Is This Sexist?” . Let’s start off from a personal experience. At the end of July 2018, I found that a female friend of me disclosed on Chinese social media that she had been sexually harassed by a well-known figure in media. After revealing this, she ended up to be the victims of threats of the sexual offenders, and abuses from netizen. Her misfortune really surprised me. Recently, a number of well-known personalities in various circles were exposed to conduct sexual harassment towards others. Among these women were the famous young Chinese female. Those incidents caused me to pay attention to China’s sexual harassment issues.

 

Jeffrey Chen: It is so sad to hear such a story. Several days ago, I saw similar articles about women being sexually assaulted. It is in fact one of the most terrible experiences of those female, which is worsened by gender culture in China. And in general, when a woman in China is divorced, she has kept it as a secret; if she is sexually harassed, she will be ashamed of it, and she dares not speak to anyone. I don’t know exactly how it was formed, but it has led to many women ‘s to have a painful and suppressed life.

 

Duanyang Zhao: This reminds me a question that for Chinese women, what does sexual behavior mean? Different from that of the United States, because China has been conservative about sex for a long time, women attach great importance to the concept of chastity. Women are not allowed to have sex with others before and after marriage, which is called chaste. By contrast, men can marry several women. In modern society, although these strict Confucian rules have disappeared, the potential impact is still far-reaching, especially the male chauvinism has not changed.

 

Jeffrey Chen: I have some similar feelings with you. Just as Simone de Beauvoir said, women, regarded as the other sex by men, have been a vulnerable group, which granted men power. Men are superior to women, and it has been so for thousands of years in history. Now, it is still an era of patriarchy. Although it is now calling for equality between men and women, in fact, inequality is everywhere. First, in the family, it is considered natural and justified for women to undertake housework. Men who participate occasionally will be praised and considered to be a good man. And women’s contribution to the family is considered to be normal and natural.Women take on housework, take part in work and social affairs, and then take care of children and bear children. Women in this era bear greater pressure than women in any era.

Duanyang Zhao: Yes, it does. The increase in the status of women and the increase in social participation seem to have improved the status of women. But at its core, this society discriminates against women. This explains why when women are sexually assaulted, most people dare not stand up to testify, defend their rights.

 

Jeffrey Chen: I quite agree with you. Public opinion puts sexually assaulted women in a special position. She is not a person, but an object to be viewed. They define those harmed women in a way that obviously victimized them. They are viewed to be different from other women. Discrimination is justified. This would cause more profound mental injury. Compared to the original physical injury, the aftermath is lasting, and the pressure from community caused after the disclosure can persecute the victims for a lifetime. Those facts are terrifying for those women.

 

Duanyang Zhao: It seems that the society’s perception of this incident and the reactions of people around it are the most harmful. It was the second serious injury for those females and it was difficult to recover. Therefore, many harmed women would rather tolerate it silently than fight against it, causing the offenders to succeed in harming women again and again.

 

Jeffrey Chen: In my opinion, the most basic cause of behind those social injustices between men and women is the imbalance of social forces. It is in this context that “systematic injustice” began to appear. The formation of this social state of men and women is very harmful and it begins to destroy the bottom line of social life. What is the bottom line of society? It is the most basic norm that must be followed regardless of factors such as morality and belief.

Duanyang Zhao: As a result, the overall social atmosphere has become very sensitive, even to extremes. Many men have also developed female phobia and have taken actions to keep distance with female colleagues. They are even reluctant to call female colleagues during company dinners. One male friend once said that men should avoid contact with any other women or get along with women alone, and try to avoid physical contact and other actions to avoid being misunderstood. To treat women as potential tempts is also gender discrimination.

 

Jeffrey Chen: We must see that justice is the result of a game of relatively balanced social forces. Just like the gap between the rich and the poor, the gap between the rich and the poor must not be seen as the result of accidental policy mistakes. Why under the same policy, one group of people benefited while another group suffers? Because the ability of different social forces to fight for their own interests is out of balance. Different groups have different abilities to fight for their own interests.

 

Duanyang Zhao: Yes, I quite agree with you. And in addition to relatively balanced social forces, there must be the existence of transcendental social forces, that is, the existence of a transcendent entity, including government and laws. I don’t quite understand why we always think that feminists needs to create a set of rules through gaming with different sides, when there are no rules at all. In the first wave of feminism, the second wave of feminism, and the third wave of feminism, each wave has specific and different interests, and sometimes it seems to be inconsistent. But basically the next wave of movement is based on the critical reflection of the previous wave of movement, and overall it is a tortuous advance. In fact, others already have mature rules. Therefore, the existence of an entity that is transcendent and thus impartial can prevent the unfairness of social life and prevent the unfair order from dominating us in unjust social life.

 

Jeffrey Chen: The movement called “Me Too” may be such an entity. It provides a broader understanding of sexual harassment and sexual assault. Saying “Me Too” means being united with all women with similar experiences. This form also allows it to become a specific and personal statement. More importantly, these testimonies come from women with different stories and different backgrounds. The public, especially men, has undergone a significant change in attitudes towards sexual harassment. The movement has strengthened the obligations of employers. They have paid more attention to the prevention of sexual harassment.

Duanyang Zhao: Being a movement originated from social inequality, it also generated controversy in the process of development. For example, when Trump defended Justice Kavanaugh, he said that the MeToo movement is very dangerous and unfairly threatens the entire powerful class of men. The president’s main reasons are as follows: verbal evidence may not be credible, and false accusations may exist; it is in violation of the principle of presumption of innocence. This stands for social forces against women. So, how do we view the Metoo movement?

 

Jeffrey Chen: The Me Too movement is indeed viewed as a bold struggle against patriarchy-based trends in society, which are women fighting against patriarchal society. If society’s perception of women does not change, if women cannot break through themselves and stand up bravely, if everyone is a spectator, then all women could be a prey. This Me Too movement is more like creating a bright possibility, letting more people know that they can seek a more positive way to speak up. Men know they want to respect, women know they want to protect themselves and resist. But I think that compared to the hot discussion on the Me Too movement on the Internet, I am more inclined to resort to the law.

 

Duanyang Zhao: I prefer that both parties protect their rights through legal means. It can also be said that the Metoo movement has promoted the improvement and progress of legal system for preventing sexual harassment to a certain extent. It is necessary that we have indeed begun to explore the future direction of China’s Me Too movement at a deeper level. Now that a lot of posts in the social media have been forwarded, with the offenders being criticized, or even abused on the Internet, what shall we do after this? The Me Too movement originated in the United States means to respect women’s basic rights and further pursue gender equality. This is also true in China. The feminist movement is an equal rights movement. How to connect the Me Too movement to equal rights and improve it from all aspects of the social level is a far more important topic to be faced by people after the movement.

Diary of Systemic Injustices Showcase-Jeffrey Chen

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This is the experience of my friend who is facing systemic injustice in the United States. According to my friend, he may lose his visa due to the new immigration policy implemented by the Trump administration. According to the information he provided, as well as what I have learned from the internet, many Chinese students who are studying in the US face the same situation my friend has. My friend claims that he has received an email from USCIS, saying that they may revoke his student visa. According to what I have known from other Chinese students, some of them have already received a confirmed message saying that their visas have already been revoked. Two groups of Chinese students are greatly impacted. Firstly, the student receives financial support from the Chines government. Secondly, the students who studied in Chinese universities which are on the US government’s “blacklist”. According to the Trump administration, these students are “threatening” the national security of the United States. This is a systemic injustice since the decision made by USCIS is a decision based on their stereotype of Chinese which will have a huge influence on many aspects of society. Besides, it is a decision made by the government of the United States, which suggests it is a decision supported by the biggest institution in the United States.

Since a long time ago, there has been a concept of “the Third World” in Western societies. According to Western people, people from “the Third World” are not as good as them since they are living in underdeveloped regions (Ahmad, p.79). This is also the same reason that Cofer had a horrible experience in the United States, as she was considered a girl from the“third world”.

According to BBC News, more than 1000 Chinese students’ visas were revoked by the US government since they were considered security risks. For the Chinese government, they claimed that it was because of the racial discrimination in the United States, and what the US government had done was irrational.

Link: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54097437

Not only the United States, countries such as Australia also revoked the visa of some Chinese scholars and students. Nevertheless, many of them received support from their university, and their universities believed they should not be considered as a “threat”.

Link:https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-09/chinese-scholars-have-visas-revoked-as-diplomatic-crisis-grows/12644022

Video:

Week 3 Context Research Presentation – Jeffrey Chen

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Jeffrey Chen

COMPSTD 1100

September.5.2020

 

Today I am going to provide some context to the Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King, Jr. To put it more specifically, I am going to provide the background as for why Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote this letter and the tone in which he wrote his letter. Afterwards, what he would like to gain through writing this letter will be illustrated.

The rationale why Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote this letter lies in that he would like to respond to the criticism of the nonviolent protests in Birmingham, Alabama in April 1963. The more detailed condition is that King provided his response to a statement published in a local newspaper by eight white clergymen. In that statement, the protests were described to be “unwise and untimely” and the ones that lead the protests were regarded as the “outsiders”. He established a tone of cordiality and rational dialogue by complementing those critics in the beginning of the letter, which is undoubtedly significant because the white authorities attempted to describe those protesters as law-breakers. Apart from responding to the criticism of those clergymen, he made his own judgments in the letter as well by expressing his own disappointment at white moderates. From the perspective of King, white moderates were more of the cause of racial inequality than the Ku Klux Klan. At the same time, he still expressed his criticism to the leadership of the white church, which should be a source of inspiration and support for the desegregation and racial equality. Here the advantage of King in the history of Christianity and the knowledge of the Bible can be readily detected, which is related to his being a Baptist minister. What matters more is that his rebuttal was with complete confidence so as to make his rebuttal quite powerful and effective.

What King would like to realize through writing this letter is that he wanted the large majority of African Americans to achieve the equality and freedom they are fighting for. Besides, he hoped that African Americans should no longer suffer from a sense of inferiority and financial uncertainty.

 

 

Works Cited

Martin Luther King, Jr. Letter from Birmingham Jail. The Atlantic Monthly; August 1963; The Negro Is Your Brother. 212(2). pp 78-88.

“‘Letter from Birmingham Jail.’” The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute, 29 May 2019, kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/letter-birmingham-jail.