responses – E367: Writing and Diversity

White Women’s Education

My written piece was focused on every aspect that surrounded white women being the predominant figure in the teaching workforce and explaining the negative effects this can have on students. For my digitalized piece, I decided to take my topic in a slightly different direction. I made the main focus of my online piece to be specifically about white women teaching black boys and how there is little to no effort in changing this.

I found videos and images and chose the ones I found to be the most useful and added them to my piece in order to help further explain that the only issue being tackled is the underlying one. While it is positive that there is a demand to prevent the consequences of white women teaching black boys, there is no real push to get behind this issue and think of ways to shift the gender and race dominance. I found this in itself to be very powerful and wanted it to speak for itself: this may just be an unsolvable issue until there is enough education around it to make that push. Meaning that, until enough people are informed of how to combat the negative effects and take that action, there will be no effective way to push for more diversity within our future generations.

I decided to take out the aspect of Latinx students, considering that it was very small and related directly to the same consequences faced by black students. I also took out the paragraphs touching upon the systems in place to help current teachers change their negative habits, and those pertaining to legislative action. I chose to take out legislative action in particular because it shows that government officials see this problem and are finding solutions to fix it, but does not contribute to why this is an issue and how to fix it societally.

View at Medium.com

https://medium.com/@achip/white-womens-education-3e7b40c09482

Millennial Women in Workforce

I was inspired to write this piece because of a book I read over the summer. It had me wondering about this double standard young women face at work today (especially because I am about to enter the workforce). I decided to research more on this topic which included interviewing some young millennials (3 females and 1 male). Their responses were interesting compared to what the author of Earn It has to say, and it made me realize that the issue is not so much about gender differences, but about the generational stereotyping that most older adults do not even realize they are engaging in.

I feel that each of you will be able to relate (regardless of gender).

I hope you enjoy!

View at Medium.com

https://medium.com/@amandag_4928/millennial-women-what-is-really-holding-us-back-at-work-3da30a53effa

View at Medium.com

Hispanic/Latinx Identity

Hey guys!

I chose to write about identity, specifically Hispanic/Latinx identity. I discussed how identity is a complex process that can confuse and pressure a lot of people, and liberate others. I talked about my own struggles with my Hispanic identity and the identities of other Hispanic/Latinx friends of mine/classmates here at UD.

I connected my ideas with the thoughts of Anzaldúa and realized that what she had to say about identity is still super pertinent to what’s going on today, and is extremely eye-opening too. I had a lot of fun interviewing people for this essay and actually learned a lot about Hispanic/Latinx culture and stereotypes while going online for articles and from talking with my friends.

Hope you guys enjoy, and learn a little something in the process!

URL: https://medium.com/@adsteele/complexities-fluidity-and-growth-hispanic-and-latinx-identities-78b5a7157327

Favorite Quotes

“In empathy, women have taken the lead. But so too have many men, such as the great fictional Huck Finn and the extraordinary, forgiving Eric Lomax. By itself, more empathy will not solve all the world’s problems; but more empathy would make it an entirely different world.”
Arlie Hochschild, “Empathy Maps”

“I definitely believe that Americans tend to lose sight of what this country is – a conglomeration of different races, ethnicities, genders, sexualities, religions, classes, etc etc. We are constantly battling it out on social media and out in the streets fighting between massive groups… even though in the end, don’t we all want the same thing? Unity? Love? Cooperation? Trust? Compassion? Hope? A better future?”
Ashley Steele, “Your Dreams Do Not Have to Come at the Expense of My Dreams

Favorites

There is beauty in this change, the grace and balance found in asymmetry. In two creatures from different species of vastly different size using three legs to move through life: her lack, my excess, this pairing of three.
Lambeth, Laurie Clements “The Three-Legged Dog Who Carried Me”

I do agree that students need to hear and absorb and deal with ideas that aren’t similar to their own. It’s one of the ways to truly gain intelligence. How can you learn if you stay in a bubble of what you believe if you can’t understand the things you don’t believe? But, I also agree that the students, who pay insurmountable funds to attend college, should have some sort of say in what their campus does. And if they fight back on certain things that they don’t like, does that truly mean they are weak and ignorant—closing their eyes and ears to all things scary?
Jennifer R. “Scared Safe”

Interesting Passages

From Kate’s post on #NotAllMen

As Kirsty S. explains, yes, it is very difficult to discuss sexism and misogony. Both are heavy topics and, it is all too easy to feel like you are being accused of something awful. Instead of saying you’re “not like all men,” prove it with your words and actions and become a better ally. Unfortunately, everyone is sexist. We live in a sexist society upheld by sexist institutions. Even if you are not aware of your own aggressions, they still exist and need to be acknowledged.

From Sam’s post on College Tuition:

Something many current politicians mention is the idea of forgiving student loans or medical debts. While these are quick solutions and will undoubtedly help many people, they miss the underlying problem of why these debts exist in the first place in order to prevent a situation like this again. There is no deeper analysis for why it costs thousands of dollars for a simple medical procedure or why college tuition has increased nearly 800% over the past few decades.

Some of Ashley’s Favorite Quotations

“And you look at the things they can do with a piece of ordinary cloth, and the things they fashion out of cheap, vulgarly colored (to you) twine, the way they squat down over a hole they have made in the ground, the hole itself is something to marvel at, and since you are being an ugly person this ugly but joyful thought will swell inside you: their ancestors were not clever in the way yours were and not ruthless in the way yours were, for then would it not be you who would be in harmony with nature and backwards in that charming way? An ugly thing, that is what you are when you become a tourist, an ugly, empty thing, a stupid thing, a piece of rubbish pausing here and there to gaze at this and taste that, and it will never occur to you that the people who inhabit the place in which you have paused cannot stand you…”

Jamaica Kincaid, “A Small Place”

“As we step further and further into our adulthood and closer to the practices that elicit opportunity we are understanding that unfortunately the structures that rule the ‘real world’ remain unchanged, they just transpire on a more discrete level. Older generations might mark us as oversensitive yet we see it as a fight that we did not choose to take part in. Within the generation that is currently blossoming are various new identities and ideals that are unconcerned about the feuds and tensions of the past, it is frustrating to have to continue cleaning up when we do not feel associated with these evils. We are much more concerned with innovation and creation especially while we have all kinds of readily available technology and networks that were unavailable before.”

Anthony Ozuna-Peña, “The Big Uneasy” Response – October 2, 2019

Millennial Women in the Workforce

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/05/28/mika-brzezinski-daniela-pierre-bravo-give-career-advice-to-millennials.html

As young adults entering the workforce, we face the challenge of overcoming the stereotype “lazy millennial”. Our generation has grown up in a completely different era than the elder generations, living in a time where technology has always been present. Millennials have come to be perceived as the generation who has had everything handed to them, not knowing what hard work really means. This is particularly problematic in the corporate world, where several generations must work together. How can millennials become successful in their careers if they cannot effectively communicate with elder generations in the workforce? This is a question Mika Brzezinski offers solutions to for young millennial women in her book “Earn It”.

Mika writes this book alongside Daniela Pierre-Bravo, a young millennial woman who was able to push past these stereotypes and effectively make a name for herself in her work. In the CNBC interview linked above, Pierre-Bravo and Brzezinski touch on some of the pieces of advice offered in “Earn It”.

After reading the book, a specific passage resonated with me:

“Young women still face a familiar set of challenges: in addition to gender bias that’s an everyday occurrence in the corporate world, they are often dismissed because of their youth. Millennial women in particular get a bad rap, accused of being part of a generation that is distracted, entitled, and lazy. They’re encouraged to present themselves as self-assured and ambitious, but not overly aggressive, which would make them less likeable. These are contradictory messages for women who are entering the work-place and don’t understand the office environment.”
Brzezinski (xiii)

Millennial women are quickly categorized into one of two stereotypes; therefore, they must communicate and present themselves in a way that older generations can make sense of. “Earn It” is a major resource for my paper, and I will draw connections to other sources that talk about differing communication styles between generations, and I will expand on why this is especially important for women.

“Watch Your White Sons”

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/opinion/sunday/white-supremacist-recruitment.html

Joanna Schroeder, a feminist writer and editor that focuses on issues surrounding raising boys, wrote, a few days ago, wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times titled, “Racists Are Recruiting. Watch Your White Sons.” In this piece, she writes about her own experiences with her 11- and 14-year-old sons and their close interactions with online white supremacism.

She first details the time she heard her sons and their friends lightheartedly said the word “triggered” into response to a meme. She knew it was a word to mock people who are hurt or offended by racism as overly sensitive, and knew it was used in alt-right rhetoric. It’s a favorite tactic of this group who are known for “trolling” anyone who disagrees with them.

The alt-right can be explained as a decentralized movement that contained many different extremist ideals. This could be white supremacy, this could be anti-women/incel movements, this could be nationalist movements, this could be anti-semitism, or just aggressive conservativism. There are different movements within this umbrella that is the alt-right, but they all are linked together–as if they are a color wheel where each color fades into the other, like a gradient rather than a web of different motivations. The Anti-Defamation League defines them as “a segment of the white supremacist movement consisting of a loose network of racists and anti-Semites who reject mainstream conservatism in favor of politics that embrace implicit or explicit racism, anti-Semitism and white supremacy.”

The next red flag she witnessed was her son scrolling through Instagram, liking a meme that showed a man in modern clothing tipping off Hitler to the invasion of Normandy. Her son hadn’t really digested the image, not really reading it, assuming the time traveler was trying to kill Hitler and not help him. When she explained that the actual message was that it would have better if the Holocaust had continued, he was embarrassed and shocked. He defended himself saying he wasn’t “stupid enough to like a Hitler meme on purpose,” and said he thought his friend shared it to be ironic. But, he couldn’t explain how it could be ironic and so his mother started a dialogue on what the Holocaust was, the trauma and violence that Jewish people still experience. And of course, he knew all this, but Schroeder was scared he was forgetting, that he was being pulled into seeing a painful aspect of our history as a joke, or even possibly something to be celebrated.

The F.B.I reports a 17 percent rise in hate crime incidents from 2016 to 2017, which Schroeder uses as a reminder to prevent her sons from being indoctrinated by the ever-growing racist online movement that turn into offline violence.

She mentions many of the major attacks of the past few years such as the El Paso shooting, the attacks on synagogues in Pittsburgh and San Diego, and the New Zealand Mosque massacre. Both the San Diego and New Zealand gunmen posted online manifestoes that detailed their philosophies and motivations and included internet memes and Youtubers.

The main place these extremists found their motivations is online and so do most young men, and who better to know how vulnerable young white men are and how to manipulate them into radicalization than other young white men

The author of “The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help,” say it’s not the ideology behind these hate groups that appeals to young white men and boys, but they are attractive to being part of a “heroic struggle.” When participating in these online communities, there is a seductive feeling of being a part of a brotherhood and having their manhood validated. Participants in chat forums (such as 4chan, 8chan, and Discord) and Youtubers emasculate liberal or progressive white men, calling them “soy boys” or calling unaggressive right-wing white men “cucks.”

Schroeder, as a mother, sees that these groups prey upon the “natural awkwardness of adolescence.” Many kids during this period of their life feel out of place, frustrated and misunderstood, and these extremist groups provide scapegoats for their discontent. It makes them feel better when they can blame someone for their frustration, either it be women, LGBTQ members, black people, or liberals.

For the rest of the article, Schroeder tries to provide ways parents can prevent this. She provides different tactics such as YouTube’s ads that play before or during every video. Or they are recommended a video and then lead down a path of finding 4chan or googling something that leads them to white nationalist outlets. It’s not about preventing young white men or boys from seeing this content because they will always, somehow, come across it. The best way to prevent young white men and boys from being radicalized is, as suggested by Dr. Katz, “To counteract the seductiveness of that appeal from the right, we need to offer them a better definition of strength: that true strength resides in respecting and lifting up others, not seeking to dominate them.”

For my paper, I want to talk about extremist groups and the language/tactics these groups use to radicalize and keep members into their group. This article demonstrates how small and close these efforts are to us, that even our sons or brothers or cousins or nephews could be indoctrinated and you may not even notice it happening. I remember when I was younger, I watched a few Sandy Hook conspiracy videos where it broke down how it was all staged and it was the democrats trying to get gun control policies passed. And I believed it was the same type of fun conspiracy theory where Britney Spears is actually a clone or Paul Rudd is an immortal vampire, but those videos were pushing alt-right messages, disrespecting the families who had their children murdered, and I hadn’t realized it. Luckily I didn’t truly believe it when I was twelve or whatever, but there are many kids that would have and did believe in those videos. And it’s not just young men, but my fifty year old uncle believes that all the mass shooting of the last ten years were staged which makes my Facebook and thanksgiving dinners at Grandma’s unbearable.

This article helped me find some small tactics and language used by these groups use to indoctrinate. It details how small and unconscious these changes are such as just saying the word, “triggered” or liking a Hitler meme on Instagram. I liked that Schroeder focused on the small, localized effects these groups have because usually a lot of the examples are shooters with grand plans, those who have been on the news, and not just a kid sitting on his phone quietly. It’s a nice contrast between the big examples and smaller examples—showing how a young man can just start watching a YouTube video and then in a few years he could be on the news for shooting up a mosque because that’s how all these mass shooters start. It’s important to understand that evolution and be cautious to what children are consuming, but also be aware of how they digest what they consume.

What Is A “Puertolack”?

LINK: http://roadkillgoldfish.com/my-experience-as-a-white-hispanic-prejudice-and-misunderstanding-come-from-all-sides/

The piece I wanted to bring to the table for my final essay is an article by Kimberly Helminski Keller titled “My Life As A White Hispanic: Prejudice Comes from All Sides.” This article was posted in August of 2013 on the website Roadkill Goldfish, which is a website where writers publish current events and informational articles that is managed by Keller herself.

Keller is of Polish and Puerto Rican descent, and identifies as a Latina. Her father’s side of the family had been in Buffalo, New York, for generations. Her mother’s side of the family came to America to escape Puerto Rican poverty. The two of them met in New Jersey and fell in love.

This piece delves into the struggles she goes through in her upbringing of feeling caught between two worlds: being Polish and European, and being Puerto Rican and Latina. She talks about what it’s like trying to maintain strong roots with her seemingly different cultures, growing up and being too light for her Hispanic family members and too dark or Hispanic for her Polish family members. She also talks about the beauty of the two cultures and how she loves that she can be a part of both of them and see them coexist (most times).

One of the segments of her article that I found the most intriguing was when she discussed the time when she was talking to a group of girls in college about having parents of different ethnicities and races, and she mentioned that she was white and Latina. The girls of the group shut her down immediately and told her that because she had a white name and was white passing, that she didn’t belong in the conversation because she obviously wasn’t Puerto Rican enough for them and their standards (which they indicated in the article: you must have dark skin, curly hair, speak Spanish, go to a barrio school, move your hips, be discriminated against).

I fell in love with this article right away because I also identify as Polish and Hispanic (my grandfather came here from Poland and my grandmother came here from Spain). To hear Keller talk about being white and Hispanic and the internal conflicts that come with feeling “too white” or “not Hispanic enough” or that you’re constantly trying to prove yourself to people was reassuring. I’ve barely read articles or met people who were white passing (or just white) who also identified as Hispanic or Latinx, so this was new and exciting for me to find in my search for materials for this essay.

I want to focus my piece around Hispanic and Latinx identities, their complexities, the struggles that come from trying to identify (or refrain from identifying) in such a broad and diverse community, and how peoples’ Hispanic or Latinx identities have shaped their upbringing and the way they look at themselves and the world. I think this piece and various others that I chose help to highlight the many struggles people of Hispanic or Latinx origins go through and how each and every instance and anecdote is so different from the next, because of how diverse Hispanics and Latinx people are!

I think the other members of this class would find this piece interesting probably for the same reasons I did. It’s a fascinating article about a woman who is multi-cultural and identifies as Polish and Latina, a combination of identities that is rarely shown in the media. I hope that you guys enjoy the piece and get something out of it… and hopefully, understand where Keller is coming from and comprehend why this is still an issue today.