In Darrell Hamamoto's "Ethnic Cover: Inquiry Into Norman Yoshio Mineta and Post-Racial Profiling", I discovered the unspoken truth that has come hand in hand with the "free speech" movement over the past few years. With millennials gaining prominence with "inclusiveness" especially in everyday vernacular, there's a haunting revelation that many people of color (POC) have come to realize as of late.
This is the idea of what is and isn't problematic—this falls under the topic of academic freedom, and how Professor Valverde mentioned the notion of censorship in the university. I believe these two things correlate because what we don't realize is that POC can be problematic too. There are many instances in which Asian-Americans, Black-Americans, Hispanic-Americans fall into this type of behavior simply because they don't know any better, or they just choose not to. More often than not, the same excuse is made for them—"they know the struggle, they're a POC like me." However, this sort of mindset excuses their actions just for their skin color, and that is not right. That's problematic.
It isn't like this is a new development for me, but it's something that became glaringly clear when in the Akai Gurley murder, Officer Peter Liang was both supported and opposed against by fellow Chinese-Americans. The united front among the Chinese community in response to this is admirable; however, the very that they were so willing to excuse the fact that Liang murdered someone just because he shares the same ethnicity is alarming.
To be blunt, the collective POC do not get passes just for being a POC. We see an opposing rhetoric in our very government when members happen to be POC, it automatically means they're okay because of the color of their skin. But this isn't the case at all. The color of one's skin doesn't determine whether they're problematic or not—it's what they do with they do with their knowledge of their collective struggle, what they can offer to the table that will alleviate the POC struggle.
References:
Hamamoto, D. (n.d.). Ethnic Cover: Inquiry Into Norman Yoshio Mineta and Post-Racial Profiling. In Servitors of Empire: Studies in the Dark Side of Asian America (pp. 201-223). Waterville, OR: Trine Day LLC.
Questions:
Considering ethnic cover, not only as a means of representing a multicultural government, but how else does ethnic cover propagate problematic behavior?
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