Joseph Tiu ASA 002 A03 Week 2

     In the prologue to Fight the Tower, there were a lot of instances and mentions of the model minority, racial biases, and blatant racism against Asian American women. This is a stark contrast to the model minority they are portrayed as, and the prologue explains how both of these can work to degrade Asian American women.

     Looking at the issue through this lens, I feel I have some understanding of the issues being described in the article. I recall how my sociology professor stated that we are all inherently biased as it helps us make quick judgements, but these judgements can often be false with a clear link to discrimination from these biases. It was also stressed that although we often use biases for our day-to-day lives, ‘positive’ biases do not necessarily work in benefit of a particular group. As it was mentioned in the prologue, having these ‘positive’ biases such as the model minority can negatively affect a population by raising irrational expectations or even skew one’s vision from evidence of discrimination. In this light, I agree with the author in stating that we need to recognize that our biases and stereotypes are not necessarily rational and no one person or group can be ‘placed in a box’ or defined by a few features.

     Another issue with these implicit biases is that they can be heavily affected by other actors in society such as media and those holding positions of power and influence without us even recognizing them. Let’s consider the biologist described in Waking by giving her the benefit of the doubt. Taking into consideration that she and the author had a friendly relationship before the lawsuit took place, we can consider a case that the biologist may have been influenced by pressures of conformity or groupthink, perhaps the harsh and sudden distancing that was experienced was due to social pressures on the biologist who may be placed in the ‘out-group’ for being friendly with the author. In this case, a dissonance could occur between the friendly relationship between the two, and the status of the author as a persona non grata. Now, I am not arguing that what the biologist did was right, but instead I am trying to give some sort of alternative rationale for her decisions that may consider the situation she was in instead of blaming her character, a dispositional viewpoint. In this case, perhaps there was a vocal minority that influenced the actions of the majority. Of course, it was not right for the biologist to turn her back on the author but perhaps dissonance resolution let her conclude that the author was in the wrong.

     The question I end this with is, how can we make sure that we are not susceptible to doing what the biologist did? How can we make sure that we maintain our morals and what we know is right in spite of the social pressures around us?

References:

Shirley, H. (2019). Prologue. Fight the Tower. United States: Rutgers University Press

Tan, E. (2019). Race-conscious admissions maintain diversity in college. [Online Image]. Retrieved April 9, 2020 from harkeraquila.com

W.P. (2019). Waking. Fight the Tower. United States: Rutgers University Press