Career Perspective (10 ) — All Lives Matter
“Take sides neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.” Elie Wiesel.
On May 25th, George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American male, was killed at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. the officer restrained George by placing his knee on George’s neck in broad daylight on the street of Minneapolis. As a result, the killing of George Floyd has triggered an unstoppable surge of protests all over the world. In certain areas some rallies have turned into riots, resulting in thousands of dollars worth of damage and destruction to property. The protests continue to grow, regardless of the fact that the four police officers involved in the incident were fired from the Minneapolis Police department and were also charged for Floyd’s murder. The outrages of protesters are still flaming.
Since the start of this tragedy, an increasing number of people on a global scale have been influenced by the protests approaching their governments to find and eliminate racism within their own countries. Since the start of 2020, global news has been darkened with various reports of racism and police brutality reports from around the world. Starting with police brutality amid peaceful democracy protests in H.K, violence and aggression toward Asian people due to the Covid-19 outbreak in China and finally ending up at a black man’s brutal murder at the hands of a white police officer. Keeping all this in mind, however, I too am moved to admit that discrimination exists even within my own country, Taiwan. Although it is not discrimination between black and white people, the discrimination we experience is against Southeast Asians, indigenous people, those with tanned skin.
From an Asian perspective, having pale skin means you are attractive while having tanned skin means you are a country bumpkin. Based on this assessment of the social order of life, even people that I am acquainted with would view you as a mere laborer purely because you are either second-generation Taiwanese or a tanned indigenous Taiwanese person. The sad reality of the matter is, this outlook makes people feel insecure about their multi-cultural background and they choose to be silent instead of having to experience racism by declaring their background.
As such, I would prefer to be like a panda bear. Either black or white but nothing in between. Moving away from the emotional to the rational, we can now focus on how companies are affected by the black lives matter movement. According to a CNN report, certain companies took 19th June to be their unpaid holiday. This is referred to as Juneteenth. On the downside, however, some people may view this in a negative light. This is because some companies may want to take advantage of the situation while the goings are good. Some companies are trying to cash in on this opportunity to enhance the value of their brand. It seems as if their chosen course of action is to turn June 19th into an unpaid holiday. I’m not generally a Pollyanna, but I do prefer to look on the bright side. On a more personal note, I believe that if we are not capable of doing something as big as initiating a Juneteenth holiday then we can at least follow in the footsteps of other business tycoons by offering support or a helping hand. Although we understand that businesses need to make money and enhance their brand. At the end of the day, none of this was ever supposed to have happened in the first place. Protests are a way to express emotion and spur on international change. However, it’s something we don’t expect to see on a regular basis.
