Ashley Lam, Period 2, 2/10/23

 

• 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?

As an Asian American woman, I have dealt with inequality and oppression my whole life, even as little as six years old. When I was around six years old, I was walking in Brooklyn with my siblings and I accidentally bumped into an elderly man. Already scared, I couldn’t process what he said to me after, as I didn’t realize how disrespectful he was. He processed to say, “ Watch where you are going! Your eyes are so small that’s why you can’t see anything.” However, he didn’t realize that I could see perfectly fine. I could see a privileged white man using what he thought was “power” against a child. So yeah, you could say I have strong feelings about issues regarding inequality and oppression. And what I slowly began to realize the older I got was that it wasn’t just me. Millions of immigrants, women, people of color, LGBTQ+, etc.. are dealing with this harassment every single day.

When I reached my teenage years, social media was a huge factor in how I viewed things morally. In my opinion, oppressing people who are different from you simply comes down to your morals as a person, which is how I judge people. Social media helped me gain awareness of the issues happening not only to me, but to everyone across the country. One prominent example would be the Black Lives Matter movement that occurred after the death of George Floyd. It quickly became a controversial movement, as many people were counteracting it with “All Lives Matter”. I believe that privileged people will never understand what minorities deal with daily, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. However, a privileged individual should CHOOSE to become educated. Individuals were using their power to oppress the Black Lives Matter movement, completely disrespecting the entire community. Shortly after, a rise in Asian hate crimes occurred, exploding all over social media. However, the same reaction rose. Privileged people were trying to downplay the severity of the issue by bringing up tragedies that have occurred to white people complaining about how the media never covers it. As an Asian American myself, this enraged me. Thinking back to my own personal experiences, I became even more enraged.

I am an extremely vocal person. Always have been. When I see strangers in public saying anything disrespectful to me, my friends, family, and even other strangers, I automatically speak up about it. I will not hesitate to put my opinion into something if I believe a morally unjust action is happening. One time, I was going to school at 7am, patiently waiting for the s79. As the bus came, I joined the crowd with a friend and got to the front of the line. After, a white man came up to me screaming about how I was cutting the line, screaming and screeching as if I committed a crime. While I understood where he was coming from, I quickly lost sympathy for him once he laid his hands on me. He pushed me violently, then pushed my friend. My anger amped up quickly, and I started yelling at him for touching a minor all because he couldn’t get a seat on the bus. Buses aren’t the only troubles I have dealt with. While taking the train,. People who want to inflict power on you simply do it because they view you as inferior or weak. I will never allow these close-minded people to take any power away from me. People can’t oppress anyone if you don’t allow them to. As long as I have a voice, I am going to use it. Every. Single. Time.

 Oppressing the oppressed has always been a topic I could go hours talking about. I always give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Everyone has their own upbringing, and it is very hard to switch your core beliefs easily. However, when it comes to other human beings and how we treat others, that is not something I can argue against. I have no sympathy for privileged individuals who REFUSE to see things from the opposing perspective. People who have never experienced oppression, racism, homophobia, classism, etc.. are lucky. However, if these people can not sympathize with the hardships others are going through, let alone cause hardships on others, I will not tolerate it. That is my standpoint on oppression, and it will never change.