White Privilege

Growing up in Boston, actually better yet, in America, i kind of took white dominance as the norm. It seems to be drilled into my mind as i grew up. All that we ever saw on TV was the white politicians giving speeches to crowds of white supporters. But as i grew, i slowly learned to understand why this phenomenon occurs. Although there has been a push to create a soceity where one race isn't favored over another, i think white dominance is an inevitable occurance. It will continue to plague our society and we will have to learn to cope rather than try to eliminate an impossibility.

Talking about Race

After reading the artible, i found it interesting that people would attempt to resist learning about racism. But as i thought about the issue, it kind of made sense to me. What would cause people to shy from learining about racism? I guess it is an issue that causes many people discomfort because its such a hard topic to talk about. Many people are afraid of revealing they're true feelings because they are afraid that they will be labled as a racist and be ostracized. Many people have grown up with a strict belief that talking about race is to be avoided. Discussions of race only results in one group being angered at another over a comment that was made. Because this issue of race isn't normally talked about, we scrutinize anyone that begins to talk about race and we "try" to analyze their intentions.
Tatum brings up a good point in saying that people have a resonsibiity to learn about race. But at the same time, there is this barrier that is preventing us from talking freely about race. Issues like slavery always ineviably come up, causing awkwardmoments which in the end go against what the discussion was meant to do.

Priviledges

Being Smart
Being able to goto school
living in america
Being Asian
Being a male
Being the immigrant
Being understanding
Not being an only child
Being in college
Being Chinese

January 23rd

This picture shows common stereotypes that other people see in Asians. The rice hat, slanty eyes, the buck teeth, round ears and the peasant clothes are all examples of different stereotypes and each one has a reason behind it. The rice hat and the peasants clothes comes from the belief that all Chinese people do is grow rice and work at farms. The slanty eyes come from the belief that all asians have small eyes and that they can't see, and the buck teeth is one that i am not familiar with but it apparently means that Asians typically have bad teeth

Question: What reasons could you give for the fact that these miscommunications affected the way that the play was composed and performed?

At first when reading the article, I found it pretty unbelievable that something as easy as a translation could have been botched so easily. But as i kept reading i realized how complex something as simple as a translation could have been. The complexities of language the the barrier between the two cultures provided for a project that was high in potential but eventually turned out to be one that may have had too much ambition. The Chinese culture and the American culture was too complex for people from the opposite culture to understand, thus making translating for another culture that much harder.The language barrier was not the only problem though. The ambition of each culture ultimately turned what was supposed to be a collaborative event into one where each side tried to take a little more from the other, which may have also contributed to its demise.