Tori Sallade response:
“In the magazine article “Asian Americans Are Still Caught in the Trap of the “Model Minority” Stereotype. And It Creates Inequality for All.” by Viet Thanh Nguyen, the author discusses the struggles Asian-Americans face and the negative impact it has had on his own personal life. Throughout the article, Nguyen mentions how his parents supported capitalism because it helped their family become very successful in this country. Even though capitalism helped the family, Nguyen was still able to critique some aspects of it that had a negative effect on his community. For example, the author explains how American history has been a repeating cycle of big businesses relying on cheap Asian labor, which threatens the white working class and leads to catastrophic events against people of the same race. I think that this argument is really relevant and justified, especially in today’s society. Over time, it has been easier to see that lots of big businesses benefit tremendously from capitalism, while workers tend to be mistreated and underpaid. I think that Nguyen’s argument brings attention to issues people don’t always prioritize, and helped me achieve a better understanding of discrimination that Asian-Americans face.
In the web article “Speak English or Else You’ll Be Put on Dish Duty!” by Jason Sarkozi-Forfinski, the author talks about how many US colleges, along with other places, prohibit people from speaking any language that is not English because it is seen as unprofessional and can cause those people to lose important opportunities. This article also includes lots of similar ideas that McWhorter had, especially the idea that people who do not sound “white” are considered less smart and not given many opportunities. For example, the author Jason Sarkozi-Forfinski states “…not only are students chastised for speaking Chinese at work, but they are also called out for not speaking English well enough (or, given my subsequent research example, one could say White enough), oftentimes in front of their peers.” (Sarkozi-Forfinski 660). Like McWhorter’s argument, the author of this article talks about how if people do not talk “white” enough they are criticized by the people around them. Overall, both articles discuss how people should not be judged for the way they speak and that we should be able to speak whatever language we want freely.”
Peer Response:
After comparing Tori’s and my response, I feel there are similarities and differences in our understanding of both articles. Our response to “Asian Americans Are Still Caught in the Trap of the “Model Minority” Stereotype. And It Creates Inequality for All.” has a similar central idea of misuse of Asian labour and benefitting capitalism. She also talks about Nguyen’s personal experience of his family supporting capitalism as “it helped their family become very successful in this country”, and opens a new perspective that suggests why Asians might have supported capitalism hoping to become financially successful but were discriminated against for their work.
In the second response of comparing Jason Sarkozi-Forfinski’s and McWhorter’s articles, we both had a similar response about how people were racially abused for speaking their native language or speaking in a different accent which is not similar to the stereotypical way of speaking set by the “white” people.
Group Activity:
September 8 Pathos Assignment
Example of Logos, Pathos, Ethos
Pathos:
Obama appeals to pathos by describing the traumatic events that occurred on 21st August 2013. He includes gruesome details about Assad’s government who “gassed to death over a thousand people” including kids and adults. He describes the attack using disturbing details of people being killed with poison gas, fathers picking up their dead children’s bodies, people gasping for death, and more.
Ethos:
Barack Obama who has been considered one of the most recognised US presidents in history and renowned for his leadership establishes the credibility of his views through a formal speech addressing the world about such miserable attacks occurring in the middle east.
Logos:
By using logos, Obama is able to make predictions about what will happen if this issue remains unsolved. This appeals to the audience because the predictions are logical, and they could potentially affect our society if we continue to ignore the problem. Obama shares very elaborate ideas of what logically may happen if we continue to ignore the situation with Assad’s government, which makes the audience more eager to listen and try to solve the problem.
