In one of the reference Star Wars episodes, VI - Return of the Jedi, Luke and Darth Vader face off, saying:
Luke: I will not fight you father
Darth Vader: You are unwise to lower your defenses
I am not well-versed in Star Wars, having never watched the full series. However, it seems obvious from perusing quotes of Episode VI, that Luke cannot accept that his father has completely succumbed to the Dark Side; he believes in and is determined to draw out Vader's inner conflict between good and evil:
Luke: Your thoughts betray you, Father. I feel the good in you, the conflict.
Darth Vader: There is no conflict.
Luke: You couldn't bring yourself to kill me before and I don't believe you'll destroy me now.
Darth Vader: You underestimate the power of the Dark Side. If you will not fight, then you will meet your destiny.
In Precariously Positioned, Shannon Deloso also experiences challenges in her activism due to her perceptions of administration that were shaped by family environment and power dynamics. Reflecting on her childhood, the now vocal activist writes:
With my father the dominant parental figure
in my life after my parents’ divorce, his voice always paved the way for our family,
and he was never questioned. This shaped my life... In my eyes, as a little Filipina girl, the father in the family was the breadwinner, the final voice, and the king who knows it all. All the adults around
me held the expectation that young Filipina girls like me and my cousins should
be subservient and have proper etiquette when around adults. (Deloso, emphasis added)
Then, while giving a public speech in advocating for SFSU Ethnic Studies, despite having prepared and arrived with determination, Deloso shares that, for a moment,
"I let the
internalized oppression get to me, especially as I made eye contact with the president and his administration. Before this crisis, knowing that President Wong
is a mixed-heritage man of color (Mexican and Chinese), I had always thought
of him as an older Asian father who knows best. Remembering my childhood
fear of disobeying my father, I was shaken up inside. I was afraid to see President Wong’s look of disappointment; I was afraid of bringing dishonor to myself
and my family by ever having thought of challenging my elders. (Deloso, emphasis added)
In my own experiences, I have sometimes felt the tension between my personal inclinations and my role in the campus system in my job as an Engineering and Physical Sciences Peer Advisor in the campus Internship and Career Center. On one hand, I am happy to help fellow students talk through their experiences, to more clearly articulate their skills on a resume and cover letter, and to help them find internship, job, and extracurricular opportunities. These students aspire for work that is vital to society -- infrastructure construction in a civil engineering firm, advancing software and hardware in the electronics that we use to learn every day, and developing environmentally sustainable materials and methods for agriculture - to name a few. On the other hand I am made more aware of the effects of corporatization, the increase in presence of corporate interests and entities on campus, and their investment in students as a potential labor supply. While I don't think it is 100% bad that companies look to recruit from a pool of educated graduates (after all, people do need jobs in order to be able to financially support themselves), I do have moments of ethical doubt about the companies that come to influence and advertise on campus. I am not in a position to determine which companies come to career fairs or hold informational sessions, but I'm personally somewhat wary of large agribusiness/seed technology companies and military/defense/weapons companies that also sponsor research and programs. I am no expert, but I have read some articles and books like Starved and Stuffed by Raj Patel, that highlight the flaws in the global food system caused by how, "40% of world trade in food is controlled by transnational agricultural corporations in strategic partnerships with biotech seed and pesticide companies" (Lawrence). I have talked to STEM professors who work on projects that I think are really awesome (e.g. around sustainability), but were initially funded based on potential military interests.
In life, in general, I think there is always a tension between our ethical beliefs and the systems that we intentionally and unknowingly participate in, that harm others. This thought can be frustrating and crippling, but I think one of the best thing I can do is to keep educating myself, and to advocate for change, holding on to the hope that circumstances and structures are not completely taken over by the Dark Side, and can be changed for good.
References
Deloso, Shannon. Precariously Positioned: Asian American Women Students' Negotiating Power in Academia.
Disney. Star Wars Databank: Sith. Retrieved from https://www.starwars.com/databank/sith
IMDb. Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983). Retrieved from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086190/characters/nm0000469
Lawrence, F. (2007, Sep 15). Review: Starved and Stuffed. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/sep/15/healthmindandbody.health
SFSU. (2017, May 19). #SFSU student Shannon Deloso was selected by College of Ethnic Studies to represent her peers at Commencement. [Tweet]. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/SFSU/status/865715204113543168
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