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Category: Society Page 1 of 2

Ep27: 消费者抵制品牌的边界在哪里|梁文道八分

Listening Link https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/%E6%A2%81%E6%96%87%E9%81%93-%E5%85%AB%E5%88%86/id1492414487?i=1000515173782

道长在这期解释了抵制与抵制的不同。90年代开始的抵制,是消费者开始关心环境,工人安全,工人的健康,工人的收益等等。最近的抵制,更多是关于“爱国主义”。

消费者发起的抵制运动都面临着同一个问题,怎么样定义我们达到了抵制的目的,怎么样是过了头,什么时候该停止。

90年代的消费者抵制,促成了一系列国际NGO的建立。这些跨国组织继而制定更好的生产标准和合格认证,消费者的在意促使品牌去获取这些认证。大品牌或许不是真的在意这些生产标准背后的道德考虑,但是他们在意股价和社会形象。

Ep23:恶意举报有多容易,维权举报就有多难|有点田园

今天才知道有点田园这个播客是肖美丽做的,甚至去年她就和嘉宾讨论了举报的种种。

有几点印象非常深刻:

不应该因为对于举报的讨厌,来污名化正当维权,或者污名化使用举报/维权的人(不应该归结于他们年纪小/他们读书少)。

维权举报,是有具体法律条款被违反之后,公众对于违反法律条款人/组织进行监督。(只有受害者才能提起诉讼,但是公众可以帮助受害者做维权)维权信息几乎一定会被一再核实(比如metoo中都是受害者需要一再核实他/她们上报的信息),往往真正被公权力受理的案例非常少。

恶意举报,几乎没有核实举报信息这个步骤,至少没有公开这个步骤。也不清楚为什么这些言论,到底是哪些言论,触犯了哪条具体的法律条款。

维权是将公权力一点点下放,民众自我赋权,互相链接的过程。而恶意举报,可能会让渡更多权力给公权,出现弱者之间的互相伤害。

既然我们生活在这个年代,那就持续使用正当维权。面对恶意举报,只能抱着我们比恐惧更强大的心态,该吃吃该睡睡。

Ep22:When White People Say Plantation|The Sporkful

I first noticed the usage of the word ‘plantation’ from a UK food photographer I followed. I already found it strange and a little inconsiderate, but I thought she is from the UK so maybe there is less of a stigma.

Little did I know, the word ‘plantation’ is being widely used in the U.S food world, from whiskey to dessert to restaurant names. When I saw this podcast, I knew I need to listen to it and find out more.

The hosts put emphasize on learning why people would choose to use the world ‘plantation’ and what they want to accomplish with the word choice. It is less about forcing people to change their word choice. Hopefully curious questions would lead to some more awareness and more self education.

Almost all the white people who agreed to the interview talked about the plantation evokes warm and fuzzy feelings, the ideas of leisure, and plenty of food. This cultural image was manufactured in the 1930s in books, movies, and food advertisements when the Great Migration(a large number of Black people moved from the South to the North) happened. This marketing technique clearly sells and succeeds at selling for a long time proven by brands like ‘Aunt Jemima’ did not rebrand until very recently.

I especially loved the exchange between the host and a food historian. The host asked why he as a white male can spend 40+ years of his life not realizing that the word plantation has a negative connotation. The food historian asked where his ideas would be challenged anyways. It is not challenged in school. It is not challenged in society. If he is not particularly close to the African American community, he won’t have friends tell him otherwise about the plantation. It highlights the importance to have real history taught in school, discussed in society as well as have friends from different communities.

The show also emphasizes the importance of self-education and not relying on friends from marginalized communities to ‘hold our hands’ and teach us.

I absolutely loved the intersection of food, history, and American’s complicated past. Highly recommend!

Ep19: 我在美国做按摩女|故事FM

第一次听故事fm的播客,没想到是这样的背景下。

能听到同胞完全不同的美国生活,有个人诉说的力量感。但同时因为剪辑,所有的提问追问都被剪掉了,会希望采访者给到被采访者更多情感连接吧。

即使生活在另一片大陆,远隔重洋,依旧被故乡的社会习俗所捆绑,依旧被重男轻女的父母所影响。好在她比较清醒,可以对父母及时止损了。也很开心听到她有朋友,有过一些恋情,可以买包。

虽然似乎是平行线一样的生活,但是我们都是亚裔女性。也会给到我理解红莺歌不要求增加警力的背景。

Ep18:Flip the Script|‎Invisibilia

A quick primer on this episode: this episode is aired in 2016. I am not sure how successful the radicalization prevention program is now in Denmark. Nonthless, it still presents a different way of handling radicalization.

People naturally mirror each other’s actions. This phenomenon is called complementary behavior in psychology. Governments meet radicalization of the youth with restrictions (like taking away their passport) and punishment (capture and try people who came back from Syria). This hostility is then mirrored by the youth who already feel discriminated against and unaccepted. They might actually seek radicalization as a response to the hostility from the general society.

What two policemen in Denmark, Link, and Aarslev, used their intuition to arrive at the non-complementary behavior, offer warmth and love in the face of hostility. They welcomed the youth who were returning back from Syria back to the community. They asked the youth (who already went to Syria or who are thinking about going) for a coffee chat, then get the youth medical treatments (if the youth needed), help them to finish school, find apartments. The police department pairs the youth with mentors who faced similar discriminations growing up yet find success and belonging now. This program was very successful at preventing youth from going to Syria while the other European countries were seeing continuous traffic of radical youth leaving.

It dawned on me that it is not so hard to understand those youth. People find meanings, friendships, identities, recognitions from religions and from many other places. We are all wired to ask ‘who am I, where do I come from, where am I going, what is my purpose in life.

If we are not even meeting people’s physiological and safety needs(personal security, employment, health, property), as well as completely ignoring their needs for love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization, on top of that we show hostility, what could they possibly give back?

In other words, if we want to help people, we can help them according to Maslow’s hierarchy needs. Help them get health care, help them to get employment, help them feel seen, loved, and belong, help them to create their own fate, etc.

Quotes:”They want identity. They want recognition. The youngsters are dying to belong. They are dying to belong.”

“There are still thousands of people who are drawn to the brotherhood or the narrative or the meaning or whatever it is they’re finding in ISIS and the caliphate.”

“Arie Kruglanski, a social psychologist at the University of Maryland who studies violent extremism, states that there are strong correlations between humiliation and the search for an extremist ideology,” he says. Organizations like ISIS take advantage of people who, because of racism or religious or political discrimination, have been pushed to the margins of society.”

Partial Transcript + Additional Reporting: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/07/15/485900076/how-a-danish-town-helped-young-muslims-turn-away-from-isis

Full Transcript: https://www.npr.org/2016/07/15/485904654/read-the-transcript

Ep17: We Hear You|Self Evident

This episode continues with the discussion of what safety means for different people and what is the future they are working for.

For Rachel Kuo, “one of the co-founders of the Asian American Feminist Collective”, safety does not mean more funding for the police departments and more police presence. She advocates for investing resources in community programs and looking for ways to manage conflicts without the police. She also emphasizes the importance of bearing witness and offering emotional comfort to our neighbors.

For Sammie Ablaza Wills, director of APIENC, “a community-based organization led by trans, non-binary, and queer Asian and Pacific Islanders”, safety means returning back to our community. The entire community can come together can lift the ones in need up. Safety means having people check in with you: how are you doing emotionally and spiritually. It means help people to acknowledge their real needs and ask for help. The future contains a system that we can have people close their shops for three months if they need to take a break.

For Iram, a junior at Virginia Tech, she and her mom Suja want the school to change the anti-Muslim curriculum and give teachers better resources to confront their own racism. I also can’t help but ask myself, can I be as awesome and brave as Suja, confront the teachers, to offer up resources if my future kids face racism in their school?

This quote stood out to me because it is all too familar.

“Suja: Our history continues to repeat this type of marginalization of communities by way of national security and it is, is a framework that continues to promote a very dangerous narrative because what ends up happening is these communities become targets, and they’re not safe and it continues to create a harm, particularly for children as they’re growing up in, you know, society.”

Full Transcript: https://selfevidentshow.com/episode-12

Ep16:反家暴路上的20年|不合时宜

这期节目内容量大,传达出来的情绪也很好,我觉得可以多次重听。有几条特别突出:

  1. 使用赋予受害者更多自主性的语言。任何时候停止暴力都不晚,让每一次暴力成为最后一次暴力。而不是暴力只有一次和无数次。
  2. 推动法律制定和完善很重要,推动法律实际落实也很重要。这就包括对于公职人员的培训和规定执法规范,对于民众普法告知他们自己的权利,分享求助的渠道和讯息。目前中国反家暴法,不对于前任暴力有约束力,只对于正在进行中的亲密关系中的暴力进行约束。
  3. 推动妇女保护是马拉松是接力跑,做能做的,但是要调整自己的状态,不气馁慢慢来。从受害者的坚强不屈,和社会认知的改变中汲取力量。
  4. 推动妇女保护是推动社会进步的重要步骤,这一个指数上去了可以帮助经济教育等等各个方面。
  5. 学习非暴力沟通,如何正确表达愤怒嫉妒不满等等很重要,使得暴力不成为一种表达情绪的形式。
  6. 要相信受害人的能力,以她们想要的改变为主,不以自己的意见为重。
  7. 解释了中国反家暴法的历史发展,和未来要走的路。
  8. Honestly, this episode offers a lot of great lessons on working on any social topic.

Ep15. Here Comes the Neighborhood|Self Evident

I LOVEEEEd this episode. They are able to capture that not all Asian Americans think the same, have the same language skills, or gravitate towards the same solutions about anti-Asian hate crime.

The episode emphasized that hate crime legislation is not a sufficient answer. Hate speech and racial slurs are not regulated by hate crimes. Hate crimes also depend on whether or not people choose to report them to the police or not.

This episode presented two different mindsets very well: support of more police force, vs against more police force in response to anti-Asian hate.

One neighborhood group in SF, San Francisco Peace Collective has an approach that they can help de-escalate conflicts through conversations without more police force. Often times the conflicts made worse by the language barrier.

Another neighborhood group in SF “United Peace Corps” however wants more police, more patrol. They want the police to be more representative of the people they are policing. Their approach is to get the police report number to reflect what they witness every day in Chinatown.

“When people talk about crime rates, they’re really talking about reports filed by police. If victims don’t report a crime, or if police don’t pursue an offense, then legally speaking, it’s like that crime never happened.”

This episode is able to present that younger generations might be more anti-police. However when conflicts happen and when they are not able to stop their elders, the only people they can turn to are the police.

There is also a divide between the attitude of SF Chinatown residents (in favor of more police force) and NY Chinatown residents (against more police force).

I loved how this episode presents nuanced approaches and opinions from the Asian American community on how to respond to increasing Asian hate. It is done through story telling which made me feel I was right there in Chinatown. We are not all the same and we do not all want the same thing. It highlights the importance of working with the local community and local politics. A grand national-level policy is probably not the answer.

Full Transcript: https://selfevidentshow.com/episode-11

Ep12.Now Is A Good Time To Talk To Kids About Civics|Life Kit

You are in for a treat because NPR has a comic series accompanying this episode.

One of my new year resolution for 2021 is to learn how to be an engaged citizen. I know very little about it, but I trust my ability to learn. The recent hate crimes against AAPI made me want to learn more about how to participate in public life. Thus I googled ‘NPR engaged citizen’ and this episode jumped out. It was targeted towards parents teaching their kids about civics, but I loved it too.

A few points stood out to me. One is to practice tolerant disagreement, not to demonize people you disagree with. The other one is to take a neighborhood walk and see which buildings are public institutions and which are private ones (maybe what is the history of making some of it public).

Engage in public life with actions from volunteering, to writing letters to representatives, to go to a protest, to vote with your family.

Do not gloss over the hard history. Expose kids to different viewpoints and different communities so they can better build their empathy.

Finally balance the bad parts of the history with the good parts. Make it fun.

Comic: https://www.npr.org/2021/01/26/959656218/comic-how-to-raise-informed-active-citizens

Transcript: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/929549271

Ep11. Activist Amanda Nguyen on the Rise of Attacks on Asian Americans|At Liberty

It has been an emotionally exhausting day for a lot of us. I listened to 4 different podcast episodes from Vox, NPR code switch, Washington Post, and ACLU trying to grapple with what just happened. This ACLU podcast definitely was the best. It was recorded before the horrifying Atlanta shooting on Mar.16th, so there was no discussion about the instance. I especially liked this podcast episode because it humanizes Amanda Nguyen, giving her time to tell her own story and interest. It also highlights one crucial aspect, law making, beyond any community responses or government funding request.

Amanda Nguyen talked about growing up facing the perpetual foreigner stereotype, ‘where are you really from’. Then she discussed the intentional erase/neglect of Asian Americans in history books (including lynching and being targeted by KKK), consistently left out of polling, looked over by political parties. Often times in progressive spaces, she found herself to be the only Asian American.

Amanda then discussed a key tool for oppression is using the model minority label: you work hard and you do not complain. Oftentimes Asian Americans don’t tell their stories because they don’t believe anyone would care/listen. Visibility needs to come in spaces of empathy where other communities standing in solidarity.

In the next segment, Amanda talked about a huge part of activism: law-making and coalition building. She founded Rise Justics Labs, using what she learned from the process of getting the sexual assault survivors’ Bill of Rights’ passed unanimously to help others ‘pen their own civil rights into existence’. She realized the method was repeatable and scalable. Her team has also gamified law-making, giving people smaller goals to start with to avoid burnout for activists. Different civil rights groups learn a lot from each other.

Finally Amanda talked her love for space, the whole idea that if you saw the earth from the space, your pespective completely changes. She re-visit the perspective, what is her space in the universe and what is her going to do about it.

Listen link + Full Transcript: https://www.aclu.org/podcast/activist-amanda-nguyen-rise-attacks-asian-americans-ep-144

Additional Resources:

Anti-Asian Violence Resource (very comprehensive) https://anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co/

The resources in the above link are all great, but I decided to highlight two specific ones that are relevant and useful for daily life.

Guide to Bystander Intervention https://www.ihollaback.org/app/uploads/2016/11/Show-Up_CUPxHollaback.pdf

How to be an Ally for AAPI https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2021/03/17/violence-against-asians-on-the-rise-how-be-ally-to-community-amid-racism/4730202001/

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