Qi Chen A04 WEEK5

Sunday, April 26th, 2020

Qi Chen,

ASA 002 A04 

Week 5 Blog

The Cost of Speak Out The Truth

After reading the passage The Cost of Speaking from W.P., I recalled a movie I had seen: Truth. Similar to the author of this article, heroine Mary Maples is also an outstanding female worker, and she is also in deep pain after telling the truth. In the article, W.P. was punished again and again just because he reported that he was treated unfairly as an excellent professor. I think that's the cost of speaking for her: being sued, being shut down, being brought out from school. She paid a high fee but not being helped by a lawyer, blocked funding for grants, travels, teaching, the research was assisted by nobody at all.

In the movie, Truth, Mary Maples is a news producer who is in charge of finding stories. She is against power and devoted to the truth of news with her negotiation, is rigorous, discerning, smart, and brave. She worked in journalism for more than 20 years and won two Emmy Awards, just like the author of the article, whose "research, teaching, and service were way ahead of her white male colleague." 

(Truth, 2015)

After painstaking collection and verification, what he decided to report was the military service scandal of President Bush in the re-election.However, the news broadcast caused a strong response, no one to question the president or dare not to question. They don't care about the truth, they question the authenticity of the news with the font of the information. Under the pressure of witness interest groups, they began to overturn the earlier testimony, and netizens put Mary on the head of the crime of "fooling American citizens". They selectively lost memory of Mary's outstanding contributions, some driven by interests. Some people just want to find time to vent their bad moods.

Mary was investigated. She faced dozens of so-called independent investigation groups alone. In the first two sessions, she restrained her personality and chose to give in. In order to reduce the variables, the investigation team postponed the third inquiry until after the presidential election, and Bush was re-elected as has he wished. At this point, even if Mary rebelled, it would not help. In the last ten minutes of the inquiry, Mary made a beautiful defensive counterattack. She was logical and incisive enough to make the presiding judge of the investigation team look like a vegetable.
 Mary Maples won professional dignity but lost her job. Like her, W.P. was fighting for her rights. But they faced power. It makes us wonder if we should speak when the cost is so high.

Question: Will telling the truth make the society develop positively?

Reference

Valverde, K.-L. C., & Dariotis, W. M. (2020). Fight the tower: Asian American women scholars resistance and renewal in the academy. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, pp.142-143.