Week 7 - Anika Troeger - A03

Anika Troeger

ASA 002

Section 3

Week 7: Academic Freedom and Its Threats - Ethnic Cover, “Diversity”, and Politically Correct (PCness)

As Western society slowly becomes more progressive, diversity becomes more appreciated and more wanted. In this age, there are more minority characters on television, in political offices, and in movie theaters, which is very uplifting for people of color all around. However, minority communities are fearful at times to criticize their own people, and do not often question their actions.

In a chapter of his book, Servitors of Empire: Studies in the Dark Side of Asian America, Professor Darrell Hamamoto criticizes the uses of an “ethnic cover”, or focusing on someone’s ethnicity and not their credibility. He brings up how the identity of Norman Yoshio Mineta, the US Secretary of Transportation from 2001 to 2006, as an asian man was used to try and calm the public’s fears of racial profiling. Mineta’s words were supposed to reassure the public that Muslims or Arab Americans that racial profiling was not going to happen, but it still continued. If a minority said racial profiling wasn’t happening, it must not be right?

Professor Hamamoto also spoke briefly on how Barack Obama’s racial identity along with support from private banking and the ruling class, and with his promise of change, won the office of the U.S. president. Much like his predecessors, Former President Obama bombed many countries in the Middle East, despite promising to end the “war”. Not many people talk about the large amount of bombs Barack Obama has dropped on 7 Muslim-majority countries, with over 26,000 dropped in 2016 alone (Benjamin, M. 2017). People are reluctant to criticize the first African-American president, most likely because of how long it took for society to get to the point where we could have one.

Instead of giving people a pass because they look like us or because they are within our communities, we should still criticize them and be able to comment on their problematic behavior. If someone tries to keep the truth from the U.S. people or drops bombs on so many countries without regard for how many citizen lives are lost, we should not ignore it just because we want our community to have a high societal status. If anything, we should be criticizing those who commit these atrocities and hold them accountable for their actions, just like we would any other person.

Question: How can we hold our minority communities accountable for their actions without being accused of being on the oppressor’s side?

References:

1. Hamamoto, D. (2014). Ethnic Cover: Inquiry Into Norman Yoshio Mineta and Post-Racial Profiling. Servitors of Empire: Studies in the Dark Side of Asian America. (201-220).
2. Norton, B. (2017). U.S. Dropped 26,171 Bombs on 7 Muslim-Majority Countries in 2016 [Digital Image]. Retrieved from http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/us-dropped-26171-bombs-7-muslim-countries-2016