Daniel Scott Essay Assignment

 Daniel Scott Essay Assignment

 

Quotes from Bell Hooks:

 

1.     Page 18: “Patriarchal gender roles are assigned to us as children, and we are given continual guidance about the ways we can best fulfill those roles.”

This quote resonates with me because one would assume that the role of a mother is to support her daughter in all her endeavors; however, this was not the case with my mother. She upheld patriarchy perhaps in her desperate attempt to “protect” me from the world; however, my father taught me better than that. I raised to be an independent thinker who always questions authority if I felt that something was unjust or felt wrong. Call me a “rebel” from a young age; however, I never allowed my mother to bully me into doing anything that I did not want to do despite being called “disrespectful.”

2.     Page 18: “Patriarchy is a political social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak, especially females, and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence.”

Last year during the month of December, I came across an article written by NPR that states that South Korean men apparently see feminism as a form of “mental illness.” According to this article, these men feel that are being discriminated against based on their gender because they now must compete with women that are equally qualified academic and experience wise. Numerous political figures have fallen due to sexual misconduct, thus enforcing the fact that Korean women will no longer tolerate being treated as second-class citizens. 

3.     Page 18: “As their daughter, I was taught that it was my role to serve, to be weak, to be free from the burden of thinking, to caretake and nurture others.”

My mother attempted to raise me with this very same mindset; however, I have resisted her every step of way since my formative years. This does not mean that she did not attempt throughout my entire life to convince me otherwise. My father raised me to be assertive, believe in abilities, and to always shoot for the stars. The Japanese idea of a “good woman” is one that is demur, submissive, thoughtful, kind, obedient, and willing to “follow her man.” 

 

The Lemmerman Gallery that exhibited the Daniel Scott collection affected me deeply. As I was walking through the doors, I felt this intense feeling of history, struggle, racism, discrimination, and harsh manual labor. The first picture that drew me to it like a magnet was the cross with the hanging noose. This image beckoned from the doorway because it depicts feelings of racial discrimination, harsh back-breaking hard work, commitment, deplorable act of brutality, unbound fear, and hatred projected towards those of African American descent. It made me wonder how the most powerful nation on this planet we could have committed such atrocities towards its own citizens; however, this is reality. The second picture that was the glass jar filled with cotton. This image was powerful in that it reminded me of a time when America was full of hatred and seemed undaunted that it was committing despicable atrocities against its own people. Siegler’s Chapter 5: Civil Rights, I Have a Dream article depicts the real-life struggles of the African American community and explains the reason behind the Civil Rights movement effectively. The pictures found throughout the article reinforces the notion of the despicable atrocities that they have endured and also as a “wake up call” for all of humanity to become activists in our own right. 

As I stand before the old Japanese flag, this is a symbol of much heart ache and pain. The older version of the Japanese flag was the official symbol of the Japanese Army flexing its muscle in such deplorable acts the occupation of the Korean Peninsula, cannibalism, rape and forced prostitution, murder of noncobatants, and biological experiments all experienced under the Emperor Hirohito of Japan during World War II. Although I was raised in a very strict and tradtional Japanese family and grew up in the typical Japanese mindset, over the years, I have come to realize and am comfortable with coming to my own conclusions by critical thinking for myself. My self-identity is that of a Japanese national; however, I do not necessarily subscribe to the complete mindset or "brainwashing" that occurred during my formative years. 

This wooden cross with the hanging noose spoke to me as soon as I entered the gallery. It symbolizes the struggle, the discrimination of being seen and treated less than human, a sense of inferiority complex, mistreatment, abuse, hatred, minimization of the African American race, and white supremacy. It sickens me to think that even today, nothing really has changed as it pertains to the victimization of African Americans where they are seen as "the enemy" or a race to be afraid of. 

This jar of hand picked cotton is a stark reminder of a time when African Americans were used and abused on plantations for the sake of the white plantation owner. Deplorable working conditions such as unsanitary conditions, inadequate nutrition, nonstop back-breaking work, thus exposing these hard workers to to diseases. Furthermore, illness were most often not treated adequately and these slaves were often forced to work despite being and feeling sick. Again, nothing has really changed because now, Hispanics have now replaced the African Americans of working in the fields picking fruits and vegetables, thus perpetuating the cycle of enslavement.