EZRACH *memos on identity in culture, ethnicity, spirituality

While checking out books (using touch screen), she commented "You're Asian , so you must be good at technology," she said in a self assured tone. At first, I paused and said to her politely, "That's a stereotype." Another pause after, she said, "You're right, then it must be in your culture, discipline is in the Asian culture, your Asian parents are more disciplined than American parents." After hearing that, my mind shifted, I knew that was a misinformed stereotype as well, but I didn't know what to say to her. I paused and told her, "Have a good day."

I wished this article also talked about gun violence in law enforcement against the Black and African American community ‪but nevertheless, it does use some scripture to back up it's point against pro-gun rights in general.

An old class mate from back in elementary school, recently wrote this piece on the policing of culture and ethnicities for people of Middle Eastern descent. Very short, but informational.

As a literature major, I love reading articles like this. Brings me back to good memories of writing my 10 page final about the socio-cultural and political influences of translating a poem written in Taiwanese-Mandarin into English.

The analysis of language is so much more than BSing an assignment to sound insightful. 

The analysis of language is taking a piece of writing and tearing it into the depths of it's core, to the very syntax of the word or the phrase and asking, what does it mean in the context of the passage?

Many forums in the media whether online or in the movies are generally advertised as being “color blind.” 

Commonly known, online forums, in this digital age are actually just like physical spaces where people go to, much like public restrooms, restaurants, stores or schools. 

Before the dismantling of Jim Crow laws, places in the U.S. were deemed racially segregated like public restrooms, stores, and  schools. 

In this day and age the belief of “colorblindness” in physical spaces should cease to exist when you come to the realization that  the reason why certain ethnicities tend to cluster together or apart comes down to systemic racism and classicism that floods into jobs, housing, and schooling etc. 

But the online forum sometimes seem like it was made for every type of person. After all, whether you are Black, White, Asian, Pacific Islander, Latinx, or Native American, with the privilege of a device and internet you can enter any space on the internet.

But is that really true? What does it mean to even “enter” into a certain space? Coming out of my own realization that colorblindness creates false notion that everyone is seen as the “same and equal,” I’ve only just begun to understand that every website we go on has a targeted audience with ethnicities in mind, many of them are White, some are Black, Latino/a, Asian, Pacific Islander or Native Americans. Whether it’s the articles that we read, or the pictures that we see, the videos that are uploaded by blog users or reporters, there is a cultural background/philosophy that they are coming from that influences their work. 

There are groups of people with a specific ethnic identity that will be shown more often than others in their work. Subconsciously or consciously, it means that they are catering to that specific population with a specific cultural background .

A few examples of White forums would be storylineblog.com or even religious sites like DesiringGod that strive to use the gospel to reach to all audience, have mostly White people writing for them. An example of an Asian dominated forum would include Youtube. Another more specific example is in a space called Quietrev.com, a website started by a White woman. The site is in a space examining the lives of introverts, they seem to have only two articles written by people of color. One by a Black woman and another by an Asian woman. Both  articles are aptly titled with their racial label on the title, while the rest of the articles have no racialized title, but by the picture/title of other authors , you know that the authors have the privilege of Whiteness because they don’t need to label their articles with titles like “Introversion from a White Person” .

 The most misleading fact about the internet is that many sites can come off as “colorblind” when really, they are spaces targeted towards a white majority audience. How can I tell? Well here’s a simple formula: web site has mostly White people writing for them +  the pictures are of White people in the articles=White spaces. 

These White spaces, will not  often say that the space is focusing on White people. But when the space is not trying to attune to colorblindness, the site will emphasize another race, like for example Clutch Magazine (clutchmagonline.com) emphasizes that it’s perspectives are from “forward thinking Black woman.” It’s almost uncommon to find a site that says, “perspectives from liberal White people.”  

So when I think about equality on a space such as the Internet, when I consciously remind myself to acknowledge that many sites try to come off as “colorblind”, I tend  to need to question myself that when I enter a site, what kind of space am I in? 

As I was growing up, I often would read many articles from many blogging sites and see images of White people next to the articles and the articles would be written by mostly all White people. 

-I wrote. I wrote ALOT. This came from a boat load of time (more like 2 weeks of downtime after my internship) of just thinking, playing my guitar and eating ...sitting on my couch on Buzzfeed and facebook, reading and looking at other people’s glossy social media lives. I wrote down my fears, my dreams, my doubts. 

These are things that I normally wouldn’t have time to do during the year, when I’m too busy frantically keeping up with school, jobs, social life or just catching up on sleep.

-I took a lot of walks, from the time that my internship started and ended (6 weeks) I probably walked over 15 miles a week so over 90 miles in a month and two weeks. Walking gave me time to practice mindfulness, to confront my sadness and to talk with God. 

-I spent my weeks reading God’s word and writing down reflections a few times a week.