Week 8

Josh Omoletski

Section 3

The article “What Asian Americans Are Bringing to Campus Movements for Racial Justice” really showed how other ethnicities view Asian Americans. With the beginning of the article, an Asian American student journalist tried reporting on the University of Missouri Columbia encampment on 11/9/15. He was told he wasn’t allowed to be there for being a reporter, but I think it was more than that. The protest group was composed mostly of black students and they told him they need their “safe space” away from the media. However, I think a good question to consider is: what if Tim Tai, the student reporter, had been a black student like the protesters? Would they still have told him to stay away because he’s an “entity of the media” or would they have let him into their “safe space?” This theme of exclusion may seem familiar when looking at the general public relations between Asian Americans and other minorities. Earlier in the quarter, we’d discussed how Asian Americans are sometimes viewed by other minorities as sellouts to white people.This makes it difficult for Asian Americans to try and identify with other minorities during social justice movements since they feel like outsiders. Something I found interesting in the same article was that the black students who would be protesting actually supported the Asian American movement and saw where they were coming from, which offers insight into the relationship between these ethnicity groups. It’s always good to see groups supporting each other, but Asian Americans will most definitely have to be careful. The last thing they want is to be supportive of a social justice movement only to be accused of trying to draw the attention onto themselves and their own matters. Like the article said, Asian Americans will have to play a balancing act of supporting others and staying out of the way.

Question: This isn’t so much of a question, but I’m not sure what I was supposed to get out of the “UC Davis Students Stage Sit-in to Demand Chancellor Resign” article. It was very short and was barebones when it came to details. I just don’t know what I was supposed to learn from reading that article.

Here’s a video of a TEDxTalk that happened at UC Davis. The speaker is actually against college students becoming activists and he explains why through his style of spoken word poetry.

References:

Putterman, M.T. (2016, February 1). What Asian Americans Are Bringing to Campus Movements for Racial Justice. Retrieved from https://www.racefiles.com/2016/02/01/what-asian-americans-are-bringing-to-campus-movements-for-racial-justice/

[TEDx Talks]. (2016, May 17). Don't Be An Activist | Fong Tran | TEDxUCDavis. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HH-X85EdWNg