Tuesday's Reflection

Training resumed today with another introduction of ourselves. We met Caroline today and we went on with our training with her through google chat. We opened up our session with a video of Ant Black talking about racism and oppression. The discussion that followed after was a good ice breaker for the topic. Everyone had different opinions and experiences with racism. As for my contribution to the discussion, I talked about my experience on how people assume things about me just because I'm Asian. People stereotype Asians as smart and are intelligent with Math. But in all honesty, Mathematics is the one subject that I don't excel in. It's a subject that I hate and always struggle with and people assume that I'm a "mathlete" because of my race. I get a lot of questions from different students asking for help in math. It usually starts with "Hey, you're Asian right? So you must be good in Math" or "Can you help with Math problems?". Since people are not really aware of my background, I don't allow myself to get caught up with the assumptions. I can't respond aggressively since people don't know me well besides the fact that I'm Asian. I respond in a calmer way but at the same time, very blunt about the topic. I have to consider the fact that we don't know everyone and people don't know anything about us. Approaching the situation calmly is the best way to handle the situation while at the same time educating others by reminding them that other people don't fit the stereotype that they have about the other person's race or that people shouldn't assume that fast.