Extra Credit Speaker 5/6
Greg Morozumi
On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of going to Greg Morozumi's lecture. During this time, I learned about how Greg grew up in a diverse Oakland during a time where discrimination deeply affected America. In high school, he was drafted for the Vietnam War. He was extremely against it and even wrote a column about the war in his school paper. He and his friends believed that the war was unfair and shouldn't have been fought. Even though he was only a teenager, a M16 was placed into his hands and he was forced to kill people. He talked about the genocidal Vietnam War and how his friends came back from the war messed up. The atrocities of the Vietnam War that he talked about made me realize how unjust this war was and how much it affected the people of this time. It was quite an eye opener. Aside from the Vietnam War, Greg also talked about Asian American movements in the US during this time. This is when I first heard of the movement called the Righteous Harmonious Fist and what they fought for. The way Greg talked about them made me really curious about what it would've been like if I lived in that time and whether or not I would've joined them. In his lecture, I also learned a lot about imperialism and capitalism and how they lead to corruption. I didn't realize how violent of a country America was until Greg pointed out the things that happened throughout history. After listening to his lecture, I began to understand why there was so much third world unity during this time. The times that Greg grew up in were corrupt and ominous; the world was truly in turmoil. I'm glad I attended this lecture because Greg put such a modern spin on telling his stories and made me feel like I could relate to him. Maybe because he felt like he was a "banana" and he was speaking to a class full of bananas just like him.
Question: How much has his childhood and past affected him and his decisions today? Has he been scarred about everything that's happened?
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