Kevin Mo - Week 8

Kevin Mo

Week 8

Section A02

"What Asian Americans are Bringing to Campus Movements for Racial Justice" By Mark Tseng Putterman shows how Asian American racism is often downplayed in mass media. Asian American representation in general is very lackluster in American media. The number of high profile Asian celebrities is but a small fraction of notable figures of other minority ethnicities. Our battle is one that no one wants to hear because many seem to think we don’t experience the same level of racism as others. I grew up in Oakland, one of the most diverse spaces in the Bay Area, full of black, hispanic, and Asian culture, yet my father was still denied a promotion to a managerial position for a white employee with less than half the experience than my father. Growing up in the Bay, it caused me to live in a bubble of Asian-ness, such that when I met people outside of my Chinese culture, I felt weird. I didn’t realize that things that were normal to me were so out of touch to others. That is the core problem with our struggle today. Asian American culture tends to encourage sectionalization between cultures. Where black culture has rap music and social media as culture outlets, Asian culture lacks the same magnitude of outlets as other ethnicities.

Question: How can the Asian American struggle against racism be brought to light without exposing the rest of America to our culture?

References:

1. Feature Racisme Ordinaire. www.konbini.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/9/files/2016/11/feature-racisme-ordinaire-480x279.jpg. Accessed 12 Nov. 2017.
2. Putterman, M. P. (2016, February 1). What Asian Americans are Bringing to th. Race Files. Retrieved November 10, 2016, from https://www.racefiles.com/2016/02/01/what-asian-americans-are-bringing-to-campus-movements-for-racial-justice/