Author: li.10766

Text Review – Green Book

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The film Green Book directed by Peter Farrelly tells the story of Dr. Shirley, an excellent African American pianist, who has to go on a national tour due to the company’s arrangement and experiences many injustices along the way. His driver is Tony, a white man, more specifically an Italian, who has just lost his job. At first, Tony also discriminates against black people. When two black workers use his family’s water glasses, he throws them into the trash can. He does this job just due to making a living and high salary. However, Shirley helps Tony write to his wife every day, and Tony is gradually attracted and admired by Shirley’s unique and elegant temperament when he plays the piano. The context of the film is set in 1960s America when the United States has a policy of segregation. The South, where they tour, has the worst discrimination and segregation. The name of the film Green Book, meanwhile, is actually a guide book which points out the restaurant or hotel where black people are allowed in. As a person who has a high social status, education level, and cultural attainment, Dr. Shirley still suffers from discrimination and segregation. Just like the intersecting identity that we have learned, although Shirley is a highly respected pianist of high social status in the north, he endures great sufferings and injuries by severe segregation in the south, even hard to get the treatment of ordinary people. For example, he was invited to play the piano at a party, but he was not allowed to eat in the banquet hall. These discriminations and inhuman treatments have become commonplace in the south. Even this, Shirley never used any violence to resist injustices and stopped Tony’s violence that helped him out. Does the non-violence principle remind you of anything? Yeah! The non-violence principle comes from the Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King. Dr. King and Shirley are both know that violence is not the solution. Many people’s prejudice stems from the stereotypes of the black community. If they embrace the violence, the black community will be marked as mobs. Violence may cause bigger violence and much more prejudice to the black community.

The creator is clever that highlights the suffering and injuries of the black community under the segregation and injustice from the perspective of black people with high social status, which implies the comprehensiveness of discrimination. Meanwhile, the creator wants us to listen to or understand the black community’s voice instead of following the stereotype of the black people and resist them, by observing the attitude change process of Tony to Shirley.

Yo, Is This Racist?

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PODCAST GROUP

Didas Kato

Shilong Li

 

Transcript 
My name is Didas Kato. You go ahead and.

My name is Shilong Li

Didas speaking:
Ok, for today, we are so privileged for this podcast. And first and foremost, we should have to appreciate the fact that the United States of America is one of those countries that have tried so hard in the fight against racism, discrimination, and all the other kind. When you look at the history in 18th century and 17th century, when the slave trade was legal in the United States of America, millions and millions of black people were tortured, suffered against their humanity in the hands of the white people. When we look at what we had in class. When Spivak was talking about ‘Can the subaltern speak’ for sure they have no right to speak. They had no right to their humanity. But again, as centuries went by, we see that America started involving itself in the struggle, like the civil rights movement, which we have a remarkable start with Martin Luther King, but where from his letter from Birmingham jail, it sparked the beginning of the signing of the Jim Crow laws that transformed that era to the era we see right now, where at least the black people were given a chance to talk about their rights.

And when we go ahead, during the signing of those Jim Crow laws, we have the congressman Jonathan who also got involved in the fight for civil rights. Those movements continued and continued until we see the America we have today, but however, we have had systemic injustices that have moved on, some of them they go unnoticed, we do not even recognize them. For instance, income inequality has been there for many years in the United States of America. When I took about income inequality, I’m looking at the affordability of a parent having children at home. Being able to afford to take his children to good schools. Take them for good healthcare they would deserve. Claiming good neighborhood such kind of life. But what we see what  I realized when I was reading a certain article, that the percentage of the black people of more than 60% live in slum areas, because they do not have the capability to stay in good neighborhoods, and sometimes on the weekends, I go on to drive delivery. But every time I go in those good neighborhoods. I hardly find black, people in such areas. So that leaves me wondering why it like that is. Do you think we have anything we can do as people leaving the United States of America? Do you think we have something we can do to change how things seem to be? So, if you have anything you want to say about that. You are more than welcome to contribute because am having a lot of questions in my head.

Okay, thank you so much, Didas. It is a pleasure to have a discussion on one we call systemic racism that arises due to income inequality for African Americans. In the few times that I have been here. I have witnessed many of the things that possibly would make me cry for sure. what the African Americans can do to bridge the gap between the white and the black.

A case in time  I was visiting, Sharon woods park,  I happen to see one white guy, possibly he was recording something  What I thought was a summary sermon because I had ever seen him doing so, I later I found out that it was a sermon for the church. And he was a preacher just as I am, Now, I wanted to identify myself with him.  I drew closer because I wanted to say I, but even before approaching him, he yelled back at me that I have no money, it puzzled me I was not waking him because I needed money. He thought I was asking for assistance. Still leaves a question of stigmatization of the black by the white men. They think every black man is a beggar which is not cool sometimes.

Yeah, that’s the problem.

Point number two, when you look at most of the jobs that we have in the United States of America. That doesn’t matter whether the African American is more educated than white men, for promotion, it’s always the white man first. Yeah. So promotion is not based on your education label, which to me, I think, has called for an income gap between the two communities.

Then another point when you go to downtown areas, almost all these slum places you find African Americans no whites, that are there. Whites that are there, maybe they on drugs, or they have challenges in one away or the other, its mostly the black American that you find in such places and I also witnessed this that many of the people that struggle for  food stamps, People who go to food pantries, they are African American, imagining for more than 200 years while it’s happening for sure,  So we need to wake up and talk about this in detailed discussion, for sure. It’s something that we can do, and we keep on sounding it. And finally, we will get a solution because if not Martin Luther had not come out to speak about it yeah. Where do you think we would have been at the moment of time, So it’s our duty  and responsibility to talk about it in any way we can, and if we don’t talk about it, then our  children and grandchildren will  face the same thing.

When we were struck by the outbreak of coronavirus, it  accelerated a lot of issues disagreements and augments were on arise, discrimination, violence, and racism among many people,  To my understanding,  I was reading one of the articles that were published by the New York Times. It was spoken about how this virus was a china virus and even people went ahead condemning this was China virus. So I want you to talk about, do you think that was being racist in some way or the other, or you think it was okay, that they could talk about it in any way it seems?

Shilong speaking;
Yeah, I agree with your perspective about racism. I am an international student from China. The Coronavirus Outbreak also greatly gave rise to my reflection on racism. We have to admit that 2020 is a very harsh and special year due to the outbreak of the coronavirus. When the coronavirus firstly broke out in Wuhan, China, I was very worried about the safety of my family and never imagine a larger outbreak in the United States. As an Asian, I also did experience and hear a lot about discrimination against the Asian community.

taking myself as an example, when the coronavirus started to break out in the United States, my friends and I planned to go to the supermarket to buy supplies. There were not many Americans wearing masks at the time, but when they saw us coming in with masks, they were careful to keep us at a considerable distance, and some people were even yelling at us, called us “damn carriers of the virus”, which was a humiliating experience. I also found discrimination on social media, President Trump, in his blog called coronavirus a “Chinese virus”. This behavior was a kind of racism. I think as a community with a Shared Future, mankind should forge ahead to overcome difficulties like the Coronavirus Outbreak instead of shirking responsivities to each other. The President’s speech is free on social media, but it is not worth advocating to comment on coronavirus with colored eyes. His comments as a national leader would incite tremendous public opinion pressure on the Asian community, which made many people start to recognize coronavirus as a “Chinese virus” and discriminate against the Asian community. Racial discrimination oppressed African Americans and other so-called colored people and minorities, but it victimizes the entire American society. Numerous people have left their homes to come to the United States in the hope of the American Dream, in the hope of so-called democracy and freedom. Just like the experience of Changez in Hamid’s novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist, the lasting racial discrimination in American, especially more serious when some big incident happened, made the minority community became the “other” and outsider to the society, which made them feel out of place in America. As said in the novel, after 9/11, the Muslim community was considered as mobs and dangerous people. As with the Coronavirus Outbreak this year, many Americans regarded the Chinese as carriers of viruses and even humiliated them. In the face of racist and prejudice, the Muslim community, black community, and Asian community were regarded as the marginal community and “Subaltern” who were unable to speak and claim their rights.

So, racism must be resisted. That is my standpoint. Thank you.

Didas: Thank you so much for that wonderful analysis. I think if we kind of relate to what we have discussed, to what we were asked. We have seen sometimes things we think they are not being racist or acts of racism. Sometimes they are because they bring a negative influence and negative impact on the lives of the big two. So, for that. I want to thank you for your time. Does it for now.

Week 10 Context Research Presentation

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This week we are going to read the short story collection Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri, which tells us the immigrant experiences of Indian Americans. To make you have a better understanding of the content of the Interpreter of Maladies, I will provide some historical backgrounds and life experiences of Jhumpa Lahiri to strengthen your understanding of the story.

Jhumpa Lahiri, born July 11, 1967, in Lindon, was an American writer. She was the daughter of Indian immigrants. Her family immigrated to the United States when she was three years old. Lahiri’s career as a writer did not plain sailing. Her early short stories faced rejection from publishers for many years. Her first short story collection, the Interpreter of Maladies, was published in 1999. Many of her works contained the theme of reflecting the lives of Indians and Indian immigrants. The Interpreter of Maladies represented how the intersecting identities or dual cultural identities affected people’s behaviors, how immigration influenced people’s sense of cultural belonging, and the difficulties she encountered when she wanted to communicate across these two cultures, by using her experience as a second-generation Indian American. For example, we can know that there was a cultural gap between Mrs. Das and Mr. Kapasi from their conversation in the story. The status or identity of Mrs. Das just like the identity of Lahiri made her originate from Indian but filled with American culture. Lahiri often made interviews with others in the Bengali community and collect their life experience to shape the characters in her story. That was the reason why her story was commented on as revealing of Indian Americans’ experiences and immigration influences.

Understanding the context of massive Indian immigrants was also significant. As said in the website, Immigration to the United States, with the sign of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 by President Lyndon B. Johnson and the passage of the Immigration Act of 1900, which made immigrants with high technology skills, advanced degrees, and professional talents had the priority to immigrate, which caused India has a massive brain drain. Indian Americans have become the fourth-largest immigrant community in the United States.

References

Asian Indian immigrants. (n.d.). Retrieved October 24, 2020, from https://immigrationtounitedstates.org/360-asian-indian-immigrants.html.

Leyda, Julia. An Interview with Jhumpa Lahiri. Contemporary Women’s Writing. January 2010, www.researchgate.net/publication/249294035_An_Interview_with_Jhumpa_Lahiri.

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

Diary of Systemic Injustices Showcase

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I want to introduce the discussion with you about the injustices that existed in the urban management department in China. Originally, the Urban Management Enforcement Bureau is established for people living in the city to receive better life quality and improve the appearance of the city, defined by Wikipedia. However, the violent enforcement method by the urban management officers, also called chengguan in China, has been criticized and resisted for the long term in society. The cases of violent enforcement by urban management officers happened frequently in China’s society.

Here are video and image about violent enforcement by the urban management officer that happened recently:

I have heard of numerous similar circumstances many times. Therefore, to strengthen my understanding of these situations, I made interviews with some peddlers and street vendors around my house. They told me that the economic depression due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus forced them to set up the street stalls. Although violent enforcement happened all the time, the increasing number of street vendors brought much more violent enforcement to them. Their stalls were destroyed, and people were hit, but the officers were not punished or influenced by law. There were even some officers who asked them for protection fees. After listening to their experience, I realized the identity of these street vendors was closely related to the “Subaltern”. They cannot “speak” or claim their rights, who like a marginal community that was isolated by society. The urban management officers had no right to beat them and destroy their personal property, which severely violated the civil right of street vendors. There were, though, many news reported the violent enforcement, but the government did nothing and made few rectifications on the urban management department. The voice of these peddlers was never listened to and respected.

Here is a link to news reporting some violent enforcement cases by chengguan:
http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1899773,00.html

As said by Ramzy, “Conflict between vendors and city-management officers has existed for years, but the government has made little progress in reducing it.” (Ramzy). The neglect of government and massive violent enforcement cases, in my perspective, was the representation of systemic injustice. That was systematic inadequacies that contribute to these violent incidents. The violent enforcement not only seriously infringed upon the street vendor’s human right and destroyed their legal property, but also triggered massive social discontent that may give rise to protest and social panic to lower the government authority. If we want to deal with this systemic injustice, we need to develop relevant regulations to constrain and punish the officer’s violent behavior. Meanwhile, strictly screening the personnel entering the urban management department was also essential.

Reference:

Ramzy, A., & B. (2009, May 21). Above the Law? China’s Bully Law-Enforcement Officers. Retrieved October 24, 2020, from http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1899773,00.html