Emily You, Period 2, 1/5/2022

Socio-political Consciousness

• 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?

I’ve always hated the idea of oppression and discrimination, no one should be born into a world hated by others just for their skin color or the way they look and act. It is unfair to judge someone based on appearances or stereotypes. It’s a very shallow thing to create an opinion based on someone's appearance rather than a person's personality. This might be because, throughout my life, I’ve made wonderful friends from many origins, gender, sexuality, and so on, and what I learned from these experiences was that appearances are deceiving.

I grew up in a good neighborhood so I’ve never really experienced anything horrible but there were times when people liked to make fun of me and my parents as we walked by because of our eyes or my parent's accent. I didn’t understand it as a kid because my parents never minded it nor did they care but I hated it after I figured out what they were doing. I felt sad that there were people who would make fun of me for how I looked, if I could go back in time I would tell them to stop and look in the mirror at what they wanted to improve about themselves because I and my parents look great! My experience was unpleasant but when I learned that there were others who went through so much worse for their appearance, I couldn’t understand why. Later, I learned about other types of people who were discriminated against or stereotyped in a bad way. Thinking about how someone could dislike someone else for the attributes they were born with disgusted me because these were things people couldn't change and I always felt it was a wonderful thing that there were so many cultures and types of people.

Stereotypes are formed from exaggerated ideas made by others, such as those who look similar will like the same thing, do the same thing, or succeed in life or fail in life. Discrimination comes from a long line of history and based on what I have learned when Native America was discovered in new land people made assumptions that all of them were savages in actuality the Native Americans were civilized but just created a different lifestyle. There were also Africans who were enslaved because people considered them an inferior race from their skin tone. Fortunately, later on in the future the slaves were freed but the discrimination continued. The Asians also faced discrimination because they were considered outsiders and during the California gold rush when they had a big migration to America, many saw them as money grubbers in worries that they came to steal gold. The hate comes from both sides as well, because of how different everyone was from each other they believed in their own superiority. There were many who placed stereotypes about white people as well. While many of these things were normal in the past it still lingers in society today.

Sexism developed in many places because in the past humans developed the idea that women were weaker and thus were less important when it came to survival, and as such, they were looked down upon. After centuries of stereotypes of what women should be, the idea was set in stone. Even when women had talent in something or had ideas they weren’t allowed to voice them unless they were about the things they were expected to do. Many young women were married off because people thought their worth would deteriorate as they grow older. They weren’t allowed to give their opinion either and were treated as accessories. However, they fought for their rights and were able to break through the barriers that were created for them.

Expression of sexuality could also create discrimination because it was considered abnormal. Even now the idea of liking a different gender or feeling like they are meant to be a different gender is considered to be weird. The idea has become more common though, and gay marriages are allowed as well as sex reassignment surgery.

There are many people who still think in a more traditional fashion and unfortunately, these ideas could be passed on to the new generation. I personally think that judging someone, for one thing, is crazy but I also understand that prejudice is a very difficult thing to get rid of and may never disappear. There is a deep-rooted hatred everywhere and could come from anyone towards any group of people. I’m still grateful that things are not as bad as the past, but I hope that people could just live to understand that we all have things in common in life so we should do our best not to assume things about people because of their appearance, gender, or sexuality.