In this week's content, we learned about some general issues in the "tower" of academia. I was surprised to hear how much Professor Valverde was put through. I was also very surprised to hear that she used to think that biases and racism/sexism would not pose a huge threat to her career because she has clearly changed her mind about that now. As a student, I think I can relate because I also was not aware of the way the "tower" was run, so I am eager to learn more about why she changed her mind.
Reading Andrew Yang's article gave me mixed feelings because it reminded me of the "model minority". I agree that to an extent racism and the blaming of Asian Americans is inevitable, especially in this country and that it is important to be proactive about what we can do to mitigate it with our contributions to society. But I disagree that the responsibility of this situation should be put on Asian Americans, which I felt Yang was emphasizing.
It is not our responsibility to prove our innocence. We should not be forced to step up more to prove our "American-ness" because of the ignorance of others. As Yang mentions, Japanese Americans worked harder and volunteered for military positions during World War II, but this ultimately did not stop racist sentiment towards Japanese Americans. I think it's important to understand that the responsibility of fixing anti Asian American sentiment does not fall to the victims, but the perpetrators.
“Andrew Yang.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Apr. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Yang.
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