I Am More Than Just My Appearance and Name
My last quarter at my community college, I decided to take a physics class that I thought I needed in order to transfer to UCR. It turned out that I didn’t even need to take it, but once I realized this fact the semester was almost over so I couldn’t just drop the class. I absolutely hate physics and to make it worse, I had a really awful professor. The professor would mumble, would always say that his method was better than the book, which was absolutely wrong because the books was more accurate than he was. Due to this, his exams were confusing and challenging. After receiving a bad grade on my exam, I stayed after class to ask for help on a question I received half credit on. I waited awhile, since there was another student asking our professor a question as well. At last, it was my turn to go up to him and ask him exactly where I went wrong with my problem on the exam. I had told my professor that I had rambled on with my answer, but then I was stopped mid-sentence when then my professor asked me “where did you learn you learn English? In Mexico?” I was completely startled by his response. First of all, never had I mentioned my ethnicity to him so he was just profiling me. Lastly, my grammar and writing was written perfectly when I gave my answer. This was the first time I experienced racial profiling in school. I didn’t even get my questioned answered and I left the room feeling angered and after telling my friends about what had happened they had told me to report him to the school but I just didn’t know WHO to report it to.
During the semester, I had noticed this weird vibe towards my professor and the females in class. For example, there was a time where a female student had asked about the next course of physics but she was then stopped mid-sentence as well and he told her “not to worry about it”. However, whenever a male in the class asked a question, my professor would answer him with no hesitation.
Could this mean my professor was both a racist and a sexist?
I would say he is.
In my professor’s eyes, can only men exceed as an academic? Should women not even dare to try to exceed in education?
There are always cases like this when racism and sexisms have dominated the bases of students towards achieving a higher education. In a feminist view, when can females be seen as equals in higher education. As Carla Lonzi states in her article which mentions that in these year’s women’s real experience has brought about a new awareness, setting into motion a process of global devaluation of the male world. Instead of women having to declare all of their accomplishments in order to meet eye with men in order to prove that they are just as capable as them, we should be looking at what the real solution would be. which I believe would be as lonzi argues about that we have come to see that at the level of power there is no need for abilities but only for a particularly effective form of alienation. Meaning that we should not seclude people based on their race, gender, or sexuality.
A similar situation has also happened to a Latina student scholar named Tiffany Martínez, who was criticized by using the word “hence” in her paper, which her professor wrote saying “that is not your word.” I relate with Tiffany when she mentions that her last name and appearance immediately instills a set of biases before she has the chance to open her mouth. My name is Majany Alcantar and when I introduce myself to others, I’m asked what origin my name comes from. These stereotypes that have been put forth should not determine someone’s capability for greatness.
