I have to say I enjoy attending any multicultural experience opportunities, but being affected by the Penn State plague can cause one bed rest for an unfortunate amount of time. However, you can learn and be influenced daily by all of the different people that you can meet in all situations. The internet, and movies and speeches allow us to experience even from inside our homes.

I digress. A recent trend on Facebook is to share various videos, and sometimes, luckily more than often on my news feed I will come across positive themes promoting change, and I find it wonderful that people my age are interested in such studies and topics. A girl shared this video that I have uploaded as well, and it is only about four minutes long, but in these four minutes, educator, author, and researcher, Dr. Joy Angela DeGruy tells a personal experience story of how white privilege impacted her life one day. Before I continue with the summary of the video, I did research on Dr. Joy just for more background knowledge and credibility.

Dr. Joy DeGruy is a nationally and internationally renowned researcher, educator, author and presenter. With over twenty years of practical experience as a professional in the field of social work, she gives practical insight into various cultural and ethnic groups that form the basis of contemporary American society in workshops that she holds. Dr. DeGruy’s workshops also go far beyond the topic of cultural sensitivity and diversity; she provides specialized work in areas of mental health. Her seminars have been lauded as the most dynamic and inspirational currently being presented on the topics of culture, race relations and contemporary social issues. I think that I would very much like to attend a workshop held by Dr. DeGruy in the future. I will look into seeing if she has more educational videos, and would share it with my comm 205 class.

Dr. DeGruy begins her story with telling her audience that her sister, Kathy, is half black half white, but her skin is white and dons blue eyes, unlike herself. The two seem very close and not only to mention again that they are family but they protect and help one another. The two sister’s accompanied by Dr.DeGruy’s 10-year-old daughter, are standing in line to purchase groceries, both sisters paying in checks separately. Dr. DeGruy mentions that the cashier is a Caucasian and strawberry-blonde lady. Dr. DeGruy’s sister checks out her groceries first, and the cashier is talking up a storm and interacting with her, and accepts her checks without any problems at all. When Dr. DeGruy and her daughter step up to the cashier with their groceries, the cashier suddenly ceases to talk at all. Her demeanor seems to have changed entirely. Apparently, Dr. DeGruy’s young daughter immediately picked up the body language and social cues that the cashier is giving off, and was clearly beginning to get upset. When Dr. DeGruy went to write her check, the cashier asked her personally for TWO different forms of IDs. Dr. DeGruy said that the cashier followed to pull out the list of people that the store recognized that were constantly writing bad checks, and looked for Dr. DeGruy’s name intensely. Her daughter started tearing up and asked her mother why this was happening to them and signalling out to embarrass them, when her Aunt Kathy had gone by with no issues. Kathy came back to the cashier and asked why she was putting her sister through things she did not put herself through. The manager and multiple people in the store started agreeing with Kathy and stood up for Joy against the unjustifiable racial discrimination.

Dr. DeGruy specializes in ethnic and cultural topics, and categorized the White Privilege that Kathy acted on that day as being used in a positive light. Due to the fact that Kathy’s skin was a lighter color than her own sister’s, the two were treated entirely different in the same situation. Dr. DeGruy said that she used her privilege and acted on the truth and was able to explain, have her sister’s back, and get people to empathize with the unjust situation, all because she had lighter skin than her sister. The discrimination and situation are terrible all together, especially because a young child was affected by it. An innocent mind experienced a direct act of hate with no explanation at all. That type of experience would make anyone start to question their own worth, and notice the differences between how blacks and whites are treated.

White privilege is a real issue, despite that many claim they do not experience it, and most of the time this comment comes from white citizens. Just because you are oblivious does not necessarily mean that it is blissful. All as people of communities need to want to make an effort and get educated on racial issues and will then be more aware and sensitive to not discriminate and make small girls cry and embarrass them in the grocery line. And what leaves me speechless, is that I have worked as a cashier, and when you have a couple costumers and a line is forming, you want to check them out as fast as possible so that the customers don’t get aggravated. This cashier deliberately held up a line and Dr. DeGruy from going on with her day, just to make her feel bad. The cashier was a young lady and there could had been multiple reasons for her insolence but if you are the cashier and they are your customers, you are nice to every single customer equally.

I hope to one day attend one of her workshops because I very much enjoyed this video and shared it on my own Facebook page in hopes that others in my social circle can become enlightened on these sensitive topics. Facebook and twitter can honestly be very powerful tools, if used correctly. I have posted the video for you all to watch, and I hope that you do.

At 7 p.m on Monday, October 5, I wandered downtown and into the Attic Room of the State Theatre. Amongst the many programs and events Penn State can offer, the Penn State Institute for the Arts and Humanities welcomed professor James Braxton Peterson to give a speech about Black Lives Matter movement, as part of its Truth and Reconciliation series. Before attending, I reflected upon the “Truth and Reconciliation” title. I first hypothesized that all that is related to this must be about really dwelling on the truth and facts of the subject, in this case Black Lives Matter movement. Wikipedia states: A truth commission or truth and reconciliation commission is a commission tasked with discovering and revealing past wrongdoing by a government. By now I’m putting two and two together and realizing that by attending this speech, Professor Peterson might be able to shed some truth and facts on the matter of this movement, because it is widely misrepresented. When I say this I mean to say that I have noticed the black community saying that Black Lives Matter, while other racial communities will go to say that ALL lives matter, and that it is unfair to only enforce that black lives matter. While I stand by 100% that indeed ALL lives matter, the black lives have suffered numerous unjustifiable actions taken against them, and with this mindset I was excited as I waited for Professor Peterson to give his speech and give me the ammunition to fuel enforcements in the cause of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Right away I knew that I had chosen the correct MLE opportunity for me to attend and write about and Peterson hooked me in when he talked about Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright.” I love Kendrick…one of the best rappers of this time and I stand by that AND I could go on for many paragraphs on reasons why he is a genius overall, but I will talk about his song “Alright” and speak of what Professor Peterson had to say about it in relation to the movement.

Peterson pointed out that in “Alright,” Kendrick creates an allusion with his lyrics in reference to the Bible. Whether Kendrick is religious or not, he was raised by a religious mother. I believe Kendrick alludes to the bible because if there is a God, many always come across the same question: why is God doing this? Why does he treat some different than others, and why does it seem that the black community is so greatly affected, in this case? Kendrick is singing his lyrics as an anthem to those that want to hear it, and the black community, that they WILL be “Alright.” Very powerful.  Peterson continued to talk about police brutality towards black people. I took one single criminology course at Penn State so far (it has nothing to do with my major but it is entirely fascinating and relevant) and I can sum up what I learned in the class by saying that we are putting people in charge of incarceration, and they are making all the wrong choices, and what’s worse is that they are unequally tough on the black community as opposed to any other race, and especially white people. I understood this concept more when Professor Peterson stated that “there are different levels to discrimination.” Discrimination itself means the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex. So in relation to the black community, it is not only that they are already being discriminated as a race but the problem on top of this problem is that there are even DIFFERENT LEVELS of discriminating. Black women, black men, white women, white men, gay, straight, blue, purple, all these categories are being treated harshly in more or less ways. Discriminating is not okay at. all. but what’s even worse is that if you are already going to discriminate, you’re even going to put more effort in hating a black person over a Mexican or the homosexual over the cross-dresser??? All human beings should be treated with equal respect, equal rights, and given equal respect.

It wasn’t a very long event and the Professor was having some technical difficulties with his presentations, however I found it interesting that he said he was unsure if he even wanted to show us the videos that he had prepared on his presentation. He said is evidence could be too much for the audience, and that may be so but discrimination against black lives is real, and it is terrible, and if the audience cannot handle seeing evidence of this, than we should not discriminate people at all, ever. If these videos were to be shown to the entire population of America, would people cringe? Would they realize racism is wrong? Would they understand the different level of discrimination that black people endure?

Peterson also touched upon the subject of the #SayHerName movement. Keisha Jenkins…rest her soul in peace, because lord knows she suffered both discrimination against her race and her gender identity. This is an example of “discrimination on different levels.”

The speech was very interesting to me, but now I’m all heated as I’m writing about what I remember all over again. I have preached in my blogs about equality, and I strive to act in such ways to everyone I meet. We will never have changed until each one of us personally makes an effort to bring about change. It was a pleasure to hear Professor Peterson speak.

My evidence that I was there was that I wanted to include a link to the song Peterson talked about. Listen to it, and understand why Kendrick is a lyrical genius. 🙂

In class, one of the student discussion groups asked us, the students, to partake in a race implicit test online. A description on the website states:

Race (‘Black – White’ IAT). This IAT requires the ability to distinguish faces of European and African  origin. It indicates that most Americans have an automatic preference for white over black.

Basically the survey results will give you a general idea of an implicit bias of white over black or “European Americans” over “African Americans.” Taking the test was interesting, and I may had focused on making sure I was pressing the correct words to the correct group when one of 3 different ways are tested. I fulfilled the test and my results suggested that I have little to no automatic preference to either European Americans over African Americans or vice versa. The whole point of the test is for you to take it quickly rather than completing it slowly. And depending by how much longer it takes you to associated “good” words and “bad” words to a face of a white man or woman and a face of a black man or woman. Several factors may explain the reason why it takes different amounts of time to react to different races and the results of your test. I would say my results do relate to how I feel towards white people, or black people, or any ethnicity; we are all people. I know that sounds vague but we are all equal in the way that we all live and breath and create or destroy, but we are all living and our common destination is the same. All people should be treated with equal respect. Basic rights are everybody’s individually (in most cases.)

However, I digress (but it was my introduction,) I wanted to do a sort of an experiment or survey myself and asked my roommate, my boyfriend, and his roommate, all very good friends, to take the same test. I wanted to know if the fact that I have learned about this test from the class that I am taking in school, and if what I am learning about will have a significant impact on my results in the test as compared to my friends that were taking the test, and I didn’t tell them what the test was about until they all took it individually, therefore had no prior knowledge that could possibly alter the results of their automatic preference of white over black, or vice versa, or little to no preference.

I think an interesting side study of these tests are the specific ethnicity of the person taking the test. For that reason I will state that my roommate, is an American girl from Pennsylvania, very close to the Harrisburg Area to be specific, my boyfriend is South Korean and his roommate is born in Abu Dhabi. I asked all three to take the test and share their results with me, if they felt comfortable to do so. All three received that they had  an automatic preference of European Americans over African Americans. Their results may have been a causation of many different possibilities.

my results (hard to see sorry)

I encourage my readers to take the test, and explore the website overall, because there are other tests available as well. What will you do with the information of your results once you take it? It is important to study the factors that may contribute to your automatic preference results.

While reading the textbook: Race, Gender, Class, and Media, keeping in mind the questions at the end of the chapter, really help to understand and really think about what we have read. The 7th question asks to research one out of five synopses, and extrapolate 4 important points mentioned and some that were not discussed.

The specific study that I chose to further research, is found on pg. 89 at the end of chapter 7. This study was conducted by Chiung Hwang Chen; “Outwighting the Whites: An Examination of the Persistence of Asian American Model Minority Discourse.”

Did you automatically think about how the topic of the reading could be about the stereotypical success of Asian Americans being compared and outweighing the value of the “whites” ?

Chen starts with describing the positive and negative effects of the “Model Minority” stereotype that originated during the 1950’s-1990’s. The Model Minority is the Asian American that has succeeded in all aspects and is associated with “fulfilling the American Dream.” These assumptions, that Asian Americans–which the term itself is socially constricted, and rather, that a variety of countries contribute to the “Asian” ethnicity–are in numbers substantially more successful in comparison to other minority groups, is a stereotype. Despite beliefs that such a stereotype could be considered a positive view of those of Asian ethnicity, but really it could be ostracizing the Asian people and their culture. Chen states that several Asian scholars believe that to be seen as such successful people overall is setting them and their basic human needs aside. Americans overall may not be aware that many people of Asian ethnicity lived in slums in America during the 1950-1990’s and therefore fewer opportunities were available to them during the 70’s-90’s.

So what do we believe? Who do we believe? Whose job is it to lessen the usage of this stereotype? (as well as stereotypes overall) Chen states that it is the duty of journalists to increasingly be aware of not referencing to the stereotype and further encourage the use of it. The media will continue to associate whatever they see with the belief that all Asians are doing fine. This stereotype is closely related to another: the Yellow Peril. The Yellow Peril stereotype is pre-World War II and was the fear that the success of Asians was taking away from the jobs of the white people. Some schools even altered their acceptance rates so that more whites over other minorities could be the top percentage of students as opposed to an Asian representing an American school.

To further agree that it is the job of the media to become aware and cease the use of stereotypes, I believe we could keep growing into generations of equality and respect amongst humanity will be vital. Chen discusses the issue of the stereotype discourse. The discourse, in a simplified explanation, is the particular ways of writing about particular subjects. An example referred to in the book was that in 1993, a Time article written by James Walsh, was about a young Asian girl, Took Took Thongthiraj, as the “personification of American promise.” While the author was praising the young lady that attended UCLA for her academic successes, he stereotyped her situation by stating that such a situation was “hardly unique,” thus minimizing the true success of Ms. Thongthiraj as saying that any of Asian ethnicity are able to achieve such as Thongthiraj has. Such is not always the case. Walsh’s article contributed in this way to the stereotype discourse.

The article continues to provide fascinating information and examples of a few other journalists that have contributed to discourse. The news is directly related to what the public understands about their current environment. We learn everything in the most subtle of ways from what we are exposed to and in the ways and where we receive our information from. It is the media’s duty to provide facts and cease the inferences of stereotypes in any way, only then such an issue will no longer be a problem. I found Chen’s article and study on “Outwhighting the Whites” very informational.