Eric Chen, Period 6, 11/18/22

 Modern Mythology 2023

Eric Chen, Period 6, 11/18/22

• What are your thoughts and feelings about issues of inequity, oppression, and/or power?

• How do you reflect critically on your own beliefs, assumptions, values, and experiences, and how these can influence your perception of self and others?

There are a multitude of factors in our life that we are not able to control. These include our family status, our ethnicity, and our sexuality. Ironically, these are usually the same factors that can influence the opportunities we get. Someone born into wealth obviously has more opportunities to gain influence and power than someone born into poverty after all. That is not to say that the person born into poverty can’t make use of the opportunities they do get; that is why we have systems like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that provides food aid for people that can not afford basic human needs as well as free education. Of course, someone with a higher status will get those opportunities and then some and there are people living in places that don’t care about the wellbeing of others. 

Oppression is an issue that hits home for me. Being an Asian American I was very aware of the Asian American hate crimes that were committed during the COVID era. Additionally I as well as a large portion of my friends are queer. Many of us haven’t even talked with our parents about this fact out of fear of being rejected. Even worse is the fact that there are people in positions of power pushing to take healthcare from the LGBT community as well as trying to outlaw same-sex marriage. There are very clear instances of oppression here.

I think the best way to influence your perception of yourself and others is to have an open mind. The ability to judge others without prejudice is an important trait to have. In my opinion, I believe that it’s fine to have bias, as they can happen subconsciously. Additionally the reasons we might have bias might be out of our control now. However, I don’t think these biases should have a major effect on our perception of people. Not everyone is the way they seem after all. 

Something I’ve had to come to terms with is the fact that there are supportive people out there who can say they’ve come out of similar situations as you. I may be Asian American but there are millions of other Asian Americans out there who might’ve even been attacked during COVID. The amount of support for the LGBT community is frankly overwhelming and I’m glad that such a warm community has been established. Human connection is an amazing thing and in my case and I’d like to believe that in many others that it helps our perception of ourselves as well as many others in our communities.