Women need men as allies to end femicide, sexual violence
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hile driving through downtown San Diego one evening, I saw a woman with furrowed brows and a clenched jaw waiting to cross the street. She was looking nervously in every direction, her eyes darting to the left to the right to the left like a creepy pingpong match. I started looking around, too, but saw no one. Her pepper spray was cocked and ready. She was in full fight or flight mode, ready to fight. There was no one that evening to fight, but the woman was doing what most of us have been taught to do--defend yourself at all costs. The war against women roars on. This has been a brutal season of femicide. At least six Asian women were murdered in Atlanta (Soon Chung Park, Hyun Grant, Suncha Kim, Yong Ae Yue, Xiaojie Tan and Daoyou Feng). Sarah Everard was walking home in London and disappeared, her body found nine
JOURNEY FOR JUSTICE J U L I A WO O C K
days later in the woods. The alleged killer was a police officer, a man sworn to protect and serve. Right here in Chula Vista, in a neighborhood visible from Southwestern College, Maya Millete disappeared without a trace. A sweet, athletic young Asian American mother, she vanished into the dry winter air like steam from a cold breath. They are the ones we know about. Thousands of Murdered and
Missing Indigenous Women and Girls in the United States cannot be accurately counted because law enforcement agencies are not required to or won’t count them. Mexico averages 10 femicides a day, according to Attorney General Alejandro Gertz. Femicides there have increased 137 percent over the last five years. Victims include Ingrid Escamilla, 25, killed and mutilated by her husband, and Fátima, a seven-year-old girl brutally beaten, sexually abused and tossed away in a trash bag. The American Psychological Association has explored what it would take to end sexual harassment. It will require more than an HR-mandated workshop once every five years. Scottsdale, Arizona psychologist Dr. C. Brady Wilson specializes in sexual harassment and workplace trauma. He found that in some instances sexual harassment complaints resulted in the company closing ranks and becoming tightlipped.
Psychologist Dr. James Campbell Quick, a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, said his research shows sexual harassment is less about sex than power, aggression and manipulation. Ultimately, he concluded, it is an abuse of power. RAINN, an anti-sexual violence organization, estimates 90 percent of rape victims are female. Research by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center concluded that 25.5 million American women (21.3 percent) reported rape or attempted rape at some point in their life. The Center for Disease Control found at least 1 in 3 women experienced sexual violence. Rape is not a woman problem, it is a man problem. Men need to step up and join the fight against this epidemic form of violence. Some are, but not nearly enough. Professor Laura Ryan was on to something when she hosted the standing-room-only campus seminars “Men Against Rape”
Asian haters may not know that we literally helped to build America BY JENNIELYN CATO A Perspective
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n Atlanta, six Asian-American women are gunned down by a White supremacist. In San Francisco, an 84-year-old Asian American is knocked to the ground and killed by an anti-masker. In Oakland, a 91-year-old man is severely injured by a man who knocked him to the ground and ran away. In Chula Vista across from Southwestern College, a 46-year-old Filipina is accosted by a MAGA-hatted man who screamed, “Go back where you came from and take your f***ing virus with you!” Americans of Asian ancestry are being scapegoated for the novel coronavirus pandemic, often with acts of brutal violence. Like so much of the recent explosion of racist and anti-Semetic violence in America, Donald Trump is the propellant. His insistence on calling the novel coronavirus “the China virus” and “Kung Flu” was his declaration of open season on Chinese Americans. Unfortunately, too many MAGAs cannot tell Chinese apart from Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, Guamanians, Thais and Cambodians. Even Navajo, Zuni and Kumeyaay People are targets of Asian haters. Asian Americans, like many other immigrants, have long received rough treatment in the United States. Chinese railroad laborers, Filipino farmworkers, Japanese growers, Vietnamese fishermen and other Asians were brought to America when this country needed them, only to be pushed aside when the work was done. When America had its technology bloom of the 1990s, Asian computer programmers and engineers were imported from China, India, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Singapore to help bring it to life. Oops! Here we go again, trying to defend Asians in America. We should not have to. The contributions of Asian Americans to this nation and its culture are unassailable. So why the disrespect and violence toward the same folks who helped create so much of what 2021 Americans love about our society? Probably the
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usual suspects: perceived job competition, economic imbalances, cultural tension -- perhaps a dash of jealousy and a dollop of xenophobia. Trump was played like a drum by China’s cagey leader Xi Jinping and he aided China by pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, bullying nations who helped keep China in check and turning the focus of the military toward Iran, Afghanistan and other distractions. Trump says China embarrassed him, but he embarrassed himself. Maybe this novel coronavirus did originate in China, but Trump and his ilk never seem to mention that the 1919 “Spanish” Flu that killed 50-100 million
around the globe came from an east Kansas hog farm in the United States. American troops took it to Europe during World War I with catastrophic results. No one named it “Yankee Flu” and coldcocked elderly White Americans in 1921, and no one should be sucker punching elderly Asian Americans in 2021. We need allies. Filipinos and other Asian Americans in the South Bay need our Latino, White, Black and Indigenous brothers and sisters to stick up for us. We also need the news media to speak up about AAPI crime and hatred. Distracted by COVID-19 and the Trump Circus, the news media has been slow coming to this long running story. “In many ways Asian Americans are still seen as foreigners,” said Juju Chang, co-anchor of ABC’s Nightline. “That’s why it’s so important that when Hollywood influencers or social media influencers speak up to be able to then say ‘oh,we have people’s attention, let’s dig deeper into this issue.’” Joie Chen, a former news anchor for America Tonight, said too many Asian Americans are quiet about what happens to them. The same applies to many minority groups. “Silence has never been good to us,” she said. It was not until older people of the community were being targeted that Asian hate started to get national attention. About 10 percent of hate crimes against Asian Americans are against the elderly. Stop AAPI Hate is an advocacy organization founded by the Asian Pacific Planning and Policy Council (A3PCON), Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA) and the Asian American Studies department of San Francisco State University. Stop AAPI Hate has recorded more than 3,000 cases of attacks on the AAPI community already in 2021. We all need to call out racism. We must not tolerate violence. We must stop attacking our fellow Americans. That’s right, fellow Americans. Telling an Asian American to “go back where you came from” is rich. Chances are they came from Wichita, Seattle, Austin, Kansas City, Santa Fe, Philadelphia or Chula Vista. We are home.
Young people trivialize COVID-19 at their own risk BY EDGAR ORTEGA A Perspective
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live Garden pasta never tasted so good! After a grueling two-week fight against COVID-19, I was happy just to be alive. Weeks after that I was super happy to be able to taste food. Myth-busters take note: Young people catch COVID-19 just like anyone else. I am 20 and took a beating. On October 25 I was diagnosed with COVID-19 despite being a mask-wearing, hand-washing, socially-distanced healthy young man who took the disease seriously. After suffering COVID-19, I now take it very seriously. I still do not know how I contacted the virus, but work is my best guess. Our workplace has not done a good job with COVID-19 protocols. COVID is cruel and uncaring. It found me and gave me a lashing. For MARCH 25, 2021, VOL 57-A, ISSUE 4
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a fortnight I endured severe muscle pain, dry coughs and nightly fevers topping out at a dangerous 104 degrees. I lost my sense of taste and smell for weeks. COVID pain is enough to break a person, but being stuck in a small bedroom for two weeks worsened
the experience. I missed going to work, going for walks and spending time with my family. I left my home to live at my girlfriend’s place for two weeks to avoid spreading the virus in my household and my parents. It was the longest two weeks of my life as I felt the weight
of every second of every day. While I was fighting to breathe and dealing with pain and fevers, a viral video featured more than 100 SDSU students crammed into a backyard party without masks. Soon after, 1,200 SDSU students tested positive for the novel coronavirus. I watched in disbelief as young folks went to the gym, out for dinner and other dangerous activities. It has reached an ugly point where my generation has become a mortal danger to the public. We have become the super spreaders by going to Christmas celebrations, New Year parties and Super Bowl gatherings. I worry about future spikes following spring break, Easter and Memorial Day. Take it from this COVID-19 survivor: Don’t Do It! It is not worth it. Stay safe. Please wear your mask, follow the CDC guidelines and think about other people. You don’t want to catch this stuff, believe me!
featuring Jeffrey Bucholtz. Each year hundreds of young Southwestern College men would learn specific strategies to help in the war against rape and sexual abuse. Let’s hope Professor Ryan will someday resume these provocative seminars. We need men to be our allies. We need men to actively address issues of misogyny and chauvinism when they see or hear it and hold other men accountable. Dr. Jackson Katz, author of “The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help,” said men need to speak up when friends or family member make a sexist comment or rape joke. He said men need to call out abusive behavior they observe from their male friends. Katz said if doing it in front of the group makes men uncomfortable, it can be done one on one, but it must be done. The worst thing men can do, he said, is nothing because silence is complicit. And too many women have suffered in silence for too long.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR MEChistas have a plan to improve SC curriculum and inclusiveness As the President of SWC M.E.Ch.A. (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/Chicano de Aztlan), I want to give voice to the needs of SWC Chicana/Chicano students. We want to be treated equitable at a Hispanic Serving Institution. We are calling for the Governing Board and Superintendent/ President, as well as the students of America’s Border College to pledge their unconditional support and commitment to the PLAN DE SOUTHWESTERN COLLEGE. Our plan includes the establishment of a Department not rooted in white supremacy and colonialism, but in the genius of Chicana and Chicano scholars and academic scholarship. It is called Chicano Studies and it guarantees cultural competence, expansion of transferrable course offerings, and scholarships. What is currently offered through the program of Mexican American Studies is insufficient and classes fill and we wait in long wait lists for additional spaces/classes that never open. As students, we want to experience a connection to our heritage, history and create closer bonds with faculty as mentors within our college experience. Course offerings in the curriculum, should be relevant where faculty can provide activities that validate our cultural experiences. For too long, us students at Southwestern College have been deprived of their cultural and intellectual inheritance. Chicanas and Mexicanos represent 2 out of every 3 students on campus, yet we are still treated as immigrants and foreigners in our own campus. Our history is being erased or racially coded with labels as Latinx and transborder, which do nothing to empower us. Tell administrators to stop labeling us and let us choose how we want to define ourselves, our needs and our history. It is too painful to see so many aspiring students not met with the support they need to be successful. Too many in our community, struggle to realize the “American Dream” and the “community” college only adds to the neglect of our culture, identity, and history on campus. As a result, our campus is only an avenue to social mobility to very few while most of us stay trapped in systemic cycle of poverty. Let our school be the beginning to the “American Dream” for us and the generations to come after us. Establishing a Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies, we students believe, is the remedy to higher student retention, engagement, and cultural literacy that so many other college campuses already benefit from. Sonia Camargo President, SWC M.E.Ch.A. THE SOUTHWESTERN COLLEGE SUN
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