Being Bilingual

 I am bilingual and see being able to speak English and Spanish as part of my personality. In fact, I often use both languages if I can, given the amount of time I have and how short what I am saying is. I am proud of being bilingual and it is something that I should show as much as possible. I have a friend that makes fun of the fact that I often choose to say short sentences in both English and Spanish, calling me "Dora the Explorer" for doing so but I stand my ground on it being a good way to not just show off my culture but also be able to stay in touch with it.

"In an instant, they agreed to give up their language." (35). While it is in your child's best interest to help them understand the rules of power (Delpit) it is also good to make sure that they understand their culture and language is such a huge part of that culture. The story went on to almost make it seem like the parents refused to speak Spanish when around their kids and I feel like this isn't something that they should have done. While. I do understand their motives of trying to help, crossing out part of who your own children are is doing more harm than good. I feel like they should have played those English-speaking games every night but for the most part, should have continued to speak to their children in Spanish that way their kids will learn the English while also keeping the Spanish. 

What are the benefits of having a bilingual brain? Watch the Ted talk below.

Finn Blog: My experience in High school

 I absolutely hated high school and could not have hated it anymore and my reasoning has to do with the way the working-class schools are described by Finn. Sure, there were a few good teachers, but they were very few and far between and most of them were assholes (for lack of a better word). 

"Work was often evaluated in terms of whether the steps followed rather than whether it was right or wrong." (10) I had a math teacher like this and I hated him to the point where my blood boils every time, I think of him still. He was a math teacher, not a coding teacher, yet he thought his way was the only right way. He would explain the most complex way of doing things and when a student would suggest another easier way, he would put them down and even usually call them dumb. Before his class, I was extremely confident in my math abilities but even though that happened several years ago, because of him I am still unsure about my math skills, even though he was the only math teacher to this day that I have had that didn't praise my math skills.

His problem with me was that I had a different way of solving the math problems than him, so despite me getting the right answer he would give me an F in every assignment just because it wasn't his way. My dad had already taught me that math when I was five and because it was the way I had been doing it since I was a little child, that was the way I had become accustomed to. You can't just expect a kid to deviate from doing something the same way they had been doing it for more than half their life. Especially if their way of doing it still gets the right answer. 

I have also never been one to shy away from calling people out on their bullshit, so I was more than happy to call him out on it one day. He was resilient in him being right though, so it was like talking to a brick wall. Even when I asked him why he felt this way so strongly, his response was that "because he is a straight white male, his just always right and shouldn't be questioned." I had argued with him about this for a while until I realized that there was no point and that there was no talking sense to him. 

I had another teacher that I hated and a specific quote reminded me of him "You can't teach these kids anything. Their parents don't care about them and they're not interested." (10) I had a teacher in the past say similar things to me in the past. For example one day I didn't get money for my parents for a sweatshirt that he was selling and when he asked me for mine I explained that my parents were working that night so they didn't come home. He had looked at me and asked me if my parents cared about me and claimed that if they didn't then it seemed like no one did. This was in front of the whole class, so this definitely made me feel angry and embarrassed. That was during teacher appreciation week, so in response, I had told him that I think his a terrible teacher and that he shouldn't be part of teachers appreciation week. 

Here's a video on how to know if you have a bad teacher.

Disagreeing with Tantum

Tantum states that racism is what keeps whites in charge. I choose to disagree with this statement. Power is constantly changing as well as who has it. There was a given period where Jews had more power than Christians. Though this may not be the best example, it is the first one I could think of. I'm sure that if I were to take a deep dive into power dynamics though, there would be countless examples that I could find, Some other examples could be employers such as the Mayan emperor who got taken down by another emperor. Right now at the time of writing this, it is the white straight males who hold all the power. 

How does power dynamic change though? Those in an underrepresented group begin to stand up for themselves and claim their power. If one is not given any power, they will gladly stand up to any unfair justice system they are presented with. Just think of all the kings and queens that have been cut off from their duties, because they failed to treat those below them as equals. Now, I am in no way saying that anyone is below anyone. However, white people are given more power and as more people start to notice how little power, they are given, they begin to rally together and fight for the power that they deserve. 

It may be an extremely slow process, but if whites continue to abuse their power then one day those of color well take over and refuse to give those who have abused them before any power. After all, why give your abuser any power if you know that they are just going to abuse it? The best way to stop this cycle is for everyone to just treat each other as equals. 

Here's a video explaining how racism effect everyone

https://youtu.be/S_qMEQ1sQF4?si=Da3rUhpRngl1-pa6

Video Analysis

 

https://youtu.be/BElG3joieUE?si=orT2wTKLOGgba3qw

https://youtu.be/e-wY9VXDBwM?si=Egzaw7VUu65bphJ3

https://www.kanopy.com/ric/video/precious-knowledge?frontend=kui

Connecting intersectionality to the real world;

 I know for a fact that a lot of jobs try to work around and find a way to hire people that fit their status quo without being accused of racism. We talked about this in class during either our first or second day of class. Jobs will often claim that you need to be able to do certain stuff to work for them, even if it is something that we will never have to do at the job. Jobs are just trying to discriminate without being called out for it. Intersectionality is just one of their many attempts to do so. 

To prevent people from calling them out, companies decided to hire black people and women but not black women. Which is an even worse cause of discrimination, if you think about it. At least, in my opinion, because I would rather have someone show me their true self them have them hide what they really think. Even if I were to hate both of them. 

A lot of us are intersectional if we think about it. About 10% of the world is gay and an additional 15% are bi. Let's say that about half of that population is either non-white or women, that would leave about 17% of the world at risk of facing discrimination without a court taking their case seriously. Now this might not seem like a lot, but let's think about black women who make up about 25% of the world. Now, sure some of those black women are part of the LGBT community which, let's say it's 5%. That still leaves 37% of people to be at risk of facing intersectional discrimination. That's before we even add in people with disabilities. 

That's a large percentage of the world at risk for police brutality, no's from jobs and even no's from schools. Just on account of what they were born as. 

Personally, I know that as an LGBT Hispanic woman, I could have faced these issues without even realizing it. 

Below find a video, explaining what intersectionality is. 

https://youtu.be/O1islM0ytkE?si=oSgOwiRJOQcVxy6e