Week 1 Bryan_J_Magaline Section A02

This week’s theme and reading Fight the Tower: A Call to Action for Women of Color in Academia deeply resonates in me. Coming from a different country with different social structure, I have firsthand experienced racism and religious discrimination from various groups in my country. For those who are reading my blog right now, you may think that minorities in the USA suffer from not being treated equally, yet honestly, I feel that people still have the chance to fight for their rights in the USA. On the other hand, in Indonesia, racism was brought to another level. It is not between the white, black, or the Asians but it is between the Chinese-Indonesians and the native Indonesians, consecutively with the addition of religious discrimination between the Muslims and other religions. While writing her book, professor Valverde discuss as how she fought as a woman of color, I noticed that the outcomes that she received will be different if she was back in Indonesia. As minorities there are only 1 way to thrive in Indonesia and that is to be rich, rich enough so that you can buy the police signifying the corrupted system. After some time, I realized that there is no such thing as the “perfect” system in this world, even the most politically stable country in the world still has its flaws. In my opinion, one of the solutions is to completely erase the privileges given to any groups, however humans greed made it easier to be said than done. In the end, discrimination and social engineering happens around the world, yet one may suffer more than others.  

Question: Why does human classify ourselves in groups (races, religions, etc.) that create problems in the society?

Reference: 

-Valverde, K. L. C. (2013). Fight the Tower: A Call to Action for Women of Color in Academia. Seattle J. Soc. Just., 12, 367.

-Valverde, K. L. C. (2019). Lecture 1 and 2

-http://www.differencebetween.net/miscellaneous/culture-miscellaneous/difference-between-racism-and-stereotyping/