Xinyu Lyu, A02, Week 5

This week, we have read "The cost of speaking". This reading tells about a professor who didn't get promoted because of her race. In order to fight against such injustice, to fight for equal treatment to more Chinese professors, she stood up. However, she failed, and the university hired top lawyers to win the case. Instead of being treated fairly, the professor's situation worsened. As a minority, the legal rights of Asians are always easy to be deprived of, but the situation is always difficult to be improved because they have no voice and no rights. Many Asians are afraid that their resistance will lead to worse consequences for themselves. Many people choose to swallow their anger and endure unfair treatment alone.

But if everyone gives up speaking, and is silenced by fear, that will never change. Just like African Americans, they are better off as minorities. Although discrimination still happens to them, we can see a lot of black people in the political, business, and entertainment fields. This is because they dare to speak up for themselves, to speak out about what happened to them, to fight for their rights.

Speaking up is the first step to solving the problem. A lot of people don't know what's happening to Asian Americans, just like I didn't know before I took this class that Asian Americans are facing such difficulties in academia. Endurance is not a solution. We are a minority, so we need more people to come together to speak out and fight for justice. Asians have been in the United States for less time than African Americans, which may be one reason why they have not gone so far in their struggle for equality and integration. But I believe that if more people stand up and make their voices heard, everything will be better.

https://images.app.goo.gl/8p1Dgp3q2tP7eYCU8 

My question is this: it's human nature to protect their own interests, and it's difficult to stand up for others at the risk of something bad will happen. How can we educate others or convince ourselves to do it?

Reference:

Valverde, K.-L. C., & Dariotis, W. M. (2020). Fight the tower: Asian American women scholars’ resistance and renewal in the academy. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.