Eric Chen, Period 2, 2/2/2023

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 always thought of myself as an American. Growing up in New York since I was little, I was always intermingling between different cultures and groups. I never really thought about things such as different skin tones or ethnicities. History that I learned in school such as segregation, racism, and white supremists seemed like centuries ago, that I never really paid attention to it. However during the COVID pandemic, it really gave me a wakeup call. Events such as George Floyd’s death and the rise in Asian American violence, made me want to advocate for movements such as BLM and Stop Asian Hate Movement. It made me realize that perhaps racism isn’t so far gone as I thought and desegregation in America only happened 50 years ago, and not centuries.

When I was delivering food one day, I was called a slur. It led me to question how I was supposed to react to that. Was I supposed to fight them? Insult them back? I just moved on. Now hearing the events of the Indiana University student stabbings or the sentencing of Jarrod Powell, I realized that perhaps due to this there was a lack of security and fear. It brought me back to my parent’s warnings to stay alert or stay away from the edge of the platform when taking the subway. This is a problem we as a society face as a whole, and I want to do something about it. Currently I am more aware of this happening and I want to address this happening in society. Perhaps we can change pre existing stereotypes and biases. Addressing asian hate happening is only the first step and raising awareness and I hope to do more in the future.