Janine Macaraeg - Week 1

Janine Macaraeg

Section A01

Week 1

My initial reaction to “Fight the Tower: A Call to Action for Women of Color in Academia” was just like my reaction to watching the “Pepper Spray at UC Davis” video the class watched – speechless and saddening. Professor Valverde endured so much trial and suffering in her personal and work life. I can’t begin to imagine how or where she drew her strength from. You always hear about students as young as in elementary schools being bullied, but you never stop to think about if this bully attitude or as it says in the article, the “academic bully culture,” exists for our teachers. On top of this, Professor Valverde felt “shamed” due to her disability and experienced hardship just trying to receive assistance. We, as Americans, should not have to feel fear or feel like a burden to others or be put down when asking for any kind of help. For example, the current feud between President Trump and the mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yuliz Cruz – she “begged” for help because people are dying as an aftermath of Hurricane Harvey and as a result, Trump responded by describing Mayor Cruz as having “poor leadership ability” because she wasn’t able to recruit their own people to help. He went on to comment (or complain) that “they want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort” (Karni). My thoughts are these: would President Trump have responded the way he did even if the mayor of San Juan were male? Did he respond differently because Mayor Cruz is not only female, but of Hispanic descent, and not American? Moreover, my questions are these: Why must there be backlash in asking for help like in the case of Professor Valverde’s when society in general encourages the confidence to ask for it in the first place? Are the people who are in charge of granting this assistance, to simply put it, lazy? Why, then, be in the profession he or she is currently in?

References:

Karni, Annie. (2017, October 1). “Trump’s Puerto Rico response tests the limits of his fondness for grudges.” Retrieved from http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/01/trump-puerto-rico-grudges-twitter-243347.

Valverde, K., (2013). “Fight the Tower”: A Call to Action for Women of Color in Academia, 12(2), 367-419. Retrieved September 29, 2017.

Zukowski, G. (2016, October 21). Women protesting outside Poland’s parliament [Digital image]. Retrieved September 30, 2017, from https://euobserver.com/beyond-brussels/135562