The Masquerade of What We Would Be

In VDO “Fuck I Look Like”, Kai Davis narrated black peoples as a minority group are stereotyped, prejudiced, discriminated at school. People oversimplified generalizations about group of people. They base on dark skin, vernacular, use profanity word to stereotype that black people are in low education level. They doubt their A 4.0 grade and question them standing in the same class with white students. White people as a dominant racial group suggest black people as a subordinate racial group is dump and stupid. It is not fare. In history, many black people were slaves of the Southern plantation. They labored long day for plantation masters and couldn’t have chances to have well education. Their low social status, especially black women, were more discriminated against. However, there were many famous black people who were leader and changed the world afterword. For instance, Martin Luther King Led the Black civil rights movement. Nelson Mandela spent most of his life for ending apartheid in South Africa. Barack Obama as a first black president served two terms. In Bellevue College, we have some excellent Africa-American professors who have high degrees. I had in sociology class with Africa-American Professor Eric Davis. All Students like to study with him because he is funny, smart, organized, and knowledgeable. He is more popular than other white teachers. With the development of society, things are not the same layer forever. Peoples can’t think others who should be.

VDO “Is this your bike?” has some similarities with VDO “Fuck I Look Like”. Both of them revealed discrimination and stereotype of race. Three actors who are a white guy, a black guy, and a white girl did same actions to bike like stealing it with same tools in the park. Most people just asked white guy if the bike was his and ignored after that because they were same skin color, and they thought white guys should not be thieves. In contrary, many people confronted the black guy, and some of them called 911.  One of them even wanted to arrest him. They were very wary of black people because they dressed the black guys were more gangsta. When people saw the pretty white girl were stealing the bike, they were very friendly to her and gave her hand to unlock the bike because they thought girls usually would not be a bike thief, she might lose her key. These experiments revealed not only racism, but also sexism. Stereotype is a big problem in our society. People label characteristics of others about how they should act basting on their race, sex, appearance, nationality, and other facts. For instance, as normative view, ones think black people are good at sports; Asians are good at math; women should be good at cook. All of this are because people are creating a concept of a group of people base in what they stereotype, but not in who they really are. The negative effects of stereotype, prejudice, discrimination is obviously, they harm the people in psychology health.

Shane Koyczan in his speech “To This Day” tells the childhood experiences in the early days at school. Students were bullied at school because of fat, ugly, or some other situation, they were laughed and had nickname, and their dreams couldn’t be accepted or admired by adults. Others broke their self-identity development. As we know, it is important how to be evaluated what we think by others. People often define our self as a result of these impressions. Shane encourages individuals how to overcome these bullies and negation of value and become who you are and who you want to be. Bullying gives similarity feeling to ones as discrimination and stereotypy. They exist in society and bring one’s psychological trauma in long term. We should create an equal world and respect all individuals.