Week 7: Charlene Chan, Section 2

Charlene Chan

Section 2

May 14, 2017

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

Cohen’s article “Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Paving the Way for Campus Activism” took a look at the history behind the free speech movement in the United States, specifically of college students in California. The activism of the students at the Berkeley campus in the 1960s contrasted starkly with the silent generation of the Cold War and McCarthy era. Their central ideal was this: “‘That the content of speech or advocacy should not be restricted by the university’” (Cohen 18). This line in particular stood out to me, as we have discussed the suppression of academic freedom by the university of scholarly work and teachings that do not align with what they deem to be acceptable. Professor Hamamoto, who himself is an example of a target of this silencing, wrote on the concept of ethnic cover in Servitors of Empire: Studies in the Dark Side of Asian America. He addressed the idea of using people of minority groups as token examples to present a “seemingly more inclusionary image of democratic governance” (Hamamoto 201). These individuals are typecast to fill public roles that play well in the current meta of identity politics that governs our politically correct lives today. This, in addition to Professor Valverde’s explanation of the pitfalls of identity politics in lecture, has made me wary of the surface-level discussions regarding inclusion and diversity in media and on campus. Oftentimes, these inclusions are merely a semblance of actual inclusion, and only deign to produce events such as Asian Pacific Islander Month, or Heritage Week, for example. Although celebration of identity and recognition of struggle are important in their own right, I feel that satisfaction by inclusionary measures distracts from the very real injustices that are present in the academic system and the government itself.

Question: How to we recognize and challenge instances of ethnic cover in our politics, media, etc., without negatively impacting the perception of the groups that those individuals are from?

References:

Is Freedom Academic? (n.d.). Retrieved May 14, 2017, from http://www.kpfahistory.info/fsm_home.html