Yuan Zuo A04 Week4

In this week, I want to discuss my thoughts after reading  the article "Who Killed Soek-Fang Sim?" by Wang Ping. Soek-Fang Sim was a Singaporean Chinese scholar. She died at a young age while rumors was slandering her. They depicted her as a woman who did not pass the third-year review, because she was a dumb teacher, poorly organized, in-cohesive, incomprehensible, and, on top of that, a dumb scholar. Even her colleagues laughed whenever she spoke. These people were mean but I ask myself: was there one moment that I was mean just like them? The answer was yes. I recall when I was in middle school, there was a boy in our school who had kind of psychological problems, sometimes we did not understand what he is talking about. We made jokes on him just like Soek-Fang Sim's colleagues laughed because of her accent. I feel shame on myself for what I had done. This is the reason why I feel it when the author said: "Because I’d internalized that belief, that racism, that discrimination. " Soek-Fang Sim is a typical example. There are many Soek-Fang Sims in our life. There are definitely people laughing at them. But can we help them when we have the same situation as W.P in the future? Something beyond accent and gender is Soek-Fang Sim's inner part. She was a nice person indeed. I hope the world will be better as the poem said:" We’ll burn it with our eyes If lies smear our spirit We’ll cleanse it with our blood If our spirit can’t cross the chasm of hope We’ll make wings of 7 billion hearts To fly from sea to shining sea."
                         
English professor Wang Ping in her office in Old Main. Photo by Kori Suzuki ’21.
https://themacweekly.com/76468/news/professor-wang-ping-and-macalester-embroiled-in-legal-battle-2/

Reference:
Wang Ping (2014). Fight the Tower: Asian American Women Scholars' Resistance and Renewal in the Academy: "Who Killed Soek-Fang Sim?"  Rutgers University Press.