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Employee resource groups: Helpful, harmful, or just PR?
73 Plays11 months ago
In this episode, we talk broadly about why some AAPI professionals don’t feel supported in Employee Resource Groups (ERG) and how that feeling and experience translate to other areas. As usual, we draw from the research and our own experience to discuss what lack of support looks like; what could be driving this trend; and what to do about it.
Let us know about your perspective. How supported do you feel at work?Reach us at: [email protected]
Haiku
Amidst hate and fear
Solidarity will show
Love for all Asians!
Articles for Nerds!
Asian Americans most likely to join employee diversity groups but don't feel supported, report says
AAPI Data|Momentive poll: 2023 diversity in American life
https://www.surveymonkey.com/curiosity/aapi-data-2023/
Asian Researchers Face Disparity With Key U.S. Science Funding Source
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/04/science/asian-scientists-nsf-funding.html
Nguyen, D. V., Block, C. J., Kim, J. Y., & Yu, H. (in press). General and Stereotype-based Microaggressions Experienced by Asians and Asian Americans in the workplace: A Qualitative Study. American Behavioral Scientist.
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Transcript
Introduction to Asian Professionals in ERGs
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of hidden in plain sight. We are your host Jenny I'm good. Yes
00:00:19
Speaker
So on today's episode, we wanted to talk about an article, an interesting article that came across our way about Asian professionals and their participation in ERG groups or employee resource groups or affinity groups and some of the reasons
00:00:38
Speaker
behind whether they feel supported, whether they feel included or not.
Survey Results on ERG Participation and Support
00:00:45
Speaker
And kind of support that with our own research that we've done and also talk about our own experiences as Asian professionals in the workplace and why we think what is driving some of the reasons behind the lower scores that ERG or Asian Americans are experiencing in the workplace.
00:01:08
Speaker
Maybe I'll go ahead and introduce the article. Would that be okay? Yeah. Yeah, please.
00:01:14
Speaker
This was a survey that was done by AAPI data in 2023. And they surveyed a lot of different topics. They asked people about the workplace, about their attitudes towards hate crimes and gun control. But today we're going to focus on the work components because that is the theme of our episode.
Contradiction of Participation vs. Support
00:01:39
Speaker
And so one of the things that they uncovered in this survey
00:01:43
Speaker
was that Asian-Americans or Asian professionals are the group that participates in ERG groups or affinity groups at the highest level compared to other racial groups. That includes white, black, Latino, Native Americans, and yet they also found that
00:02:06
Speaker
Asians were the group that felt least supported compared to other groups. And so that was an interesting dichotomy. So they participate in energy groups and yet they don't feel included. And so I just wanted to kind of get your take on that and maybe unpack the article from that.
Reasons for Lack of Support in ERGs
00:02:28
Speaker
So what's your reaction to this? I mean, does this make sense to you? Is it surprising?
00:02:33
Speaker
But also I found it's not something that I find myself surprised about. I think one of the key things that I have noticed a lot of companies these days have diversity goals for their leadership roles.
00:02:46
Speaker
And we all know who are the target group for all those leadership roles when it comes to promotion, when it comes to consider about leadership development. So the reality there is, even though as far as we read from this article, Asians are participative in those ERG groups.
00:03:06
Speaker
But they eventually don't see there's an end to it, meaning they're still not being promoted, they're not being considered for leadership, that can definitely contribute to that feeling of they're not being supported.
00:03:21
Speaker
And the second thing, I think, usually when you, when people joined those CRG groups, you wanted to discuss the issues that you're facing as a group that share some similar attributes with you. So in this case, like they might share some frustrations, like how you Asians experienced at the workplace. But it's interesting. I just like, I'm, I'm seeing like from this article, it doesn't seems like
00:03:46
Speaker
the ERG groups has been given the resources space for Asians to be discussing that.
Challenges Faced by ERG Groups
00:03:52
Speaker
I think that's another thing that might attribute to that.
00:03:56
Speaker
Thank you for introducing this article, Jenny. As I was reading this, I thought, well, I was wondering, do these ERG groups do a deep dive on the history of the discrimination that Asian and Asian Americans face in the US, and somehow have tied that to the current workplace?
00:04:20
Speaker
There's a bit in me that highly doubts that because I feel like sometimes these ERG groups in organizations are kind of feel good. You know, here's a bunch of diverse people that we have in these groups. And if we have these, we have a check mark that we can tick off.
00:04:38
Speaker
that supposedly would make employees happy. And there's a part of me that's frustrated that we don't have those harder conversations about how sometimes Asian and Asian Americans are utilized as a wedge
00:04:55
Speaker
between black and white folks historically, and how sometimes we may have the skills and the competencies, but not the emotions to go along that. So, you know, similar to what Echo said, you know, sometimes, you know, folks may not see
00:05:11
Speaker
a means to end with this. Now, it may be nice to see a bunch of folks come together for May, especially for AAPI month or even Lunar New Year's, but that shouldn't be the only thing that should be celebrated. There's a lot of other things that have been in the works and whatnot.
00:05:33
Speaker
definitely should involve some of these hard discussions. I'm like, hey, why do we see a lot of Asian and Asian Americans in middle management and not them at the top? What's going on and what can we do about it?
00:05:49
Speaker
So I realized we didn't really define what ERG groups are. So maybe we should do that just for people who are not familiar with what they are. So ERG stands for Employee Resource Group or Affinity Groups.
00:06:05
Speaker
And usually, it's a kind of like a safe space, professionally, where people of that background, or social identity can group together. So typically, you have, let's see, women's leadership groups, right? Women's group, there's an ERG group for African Americans, Asian Americans, API, you know, Latino, Latina, what other ERG groups are there? LGBTQ plus,
00:06:31
Speaker
Working moms. Yeah, I think like in recent years like the ERG groups has involved in its structure within the organization itself, meaning I think in the past it has always been like the employee taking the initiative like self formed or self
00:06:48
Speaker
initiated groups. But in recent years, I've seen there are companies started to place some bigger role in coordinating and governing those ERG groups, which is interesting because I thought for some companies that has the designated diversity teams in the central place, they started to work more and more with those ERG groups and giving them the resource they needed.
00:07:17
Speaker
And I'm also hearing some companies started to giving the ERG needs like a monetary as like a salary to help facilitate some of the effort that they put into those ERG groups, which I thought those are great things to do. Because in earlier days, I was involved in some of the ERG groups back in my old firms. And we were doing not
00:07:43
Speaker
insignificant work there. Like we need to like invite the speakers, we need to invite the panels, we need to organize the event or the food. So it's really like a whole series of the work that if you were signed up for the work there. So at the time I know the team was or the group was struggling ways like even like getting people on board with those tasks.
00:08:08
Speaker
And knowing like that was like one of the biggest like employee resource group that we are having. I'm grateful to see like the company started to have that awareness and see how they can play a role into creating those structure for the groups.
Statistics on Asian ERG Participation
00:08:24
Speaker
And thank you Jenny for explaining the definition of ERG.
00:08:30
Speaker
Yeah, we're assuming that everybody knows these HR terms or, you know, these corporate speak. But I also wanted to kind of just illustrate what we were talking about with some of these statistics. And I, you and Doug got into the topic of expectations, and I really want to get into that. But before I do, I just wanted to share these numbers. So according to this survey, 16% of Asian American workers participate in an ERG group.
00:08:59
Speaker
based on their racial or ethnic background, which is twice the rate of the overall workers who participate in ERG groups. And it's higher than white people who are at 6%, black professionals who are at 13%, and Hispanic Latino workers at 10%. And yet, they're still not feeling supported. And one of the reasons that came up
00:09:22
Speaker
It's not like we can make causal statements, but one of the things that they also surveyed was people don't see themselves represented at the leadership level. They don't feel supported in the workplace to take on leadership roles. Another one was stereotypes. I receive stereotypes about the work that I do. I think that's where we can kind of bring in some of our own research and talk about like what that could look like.
00:10:05
Speaker
But I also wanted to kind of touch on what Duck and Echo brought up, which is like expectations around who drives these ERG groups.
Who Should Address Historical Disparities?
00:10:15
Speaker
So, Doug, you mentioned earlier on that, you know, these ERG groups are not, they probably don't talk about, you know, the racism, the historical racism that Asian Americans faced.
00:10:27
Speaker
But my question is, well, who is responsible for that? Because usually, as Echo said, it's the employees who joined the group who are responsible for the content that they develop in those groups. And like you said, Echo, more and more organizations are providing more resources and a bit more directive towards ERG groups and what they want to see. But I think a lot of that burden does fall on the ERG group members.
00:10:53
Speaker
Is it up to us as Asian-Americans who are participating in these ERG groups to vocalize those things? Or is it up to the organization to say, hey, these ERG groups need to talk about its historical disparities?
00:11:11
Speaker
Jenny, great point. This goes back to your point of it's an ERG, it's an employee-led resource group, and sometimes having these tough conversations may be hard for folks to do in the workplace, because not only does this take up their time, their energy, but their cognitive ability as well, too. And this is under the assumption that they actually know the history.
00:11:32
Speaker
Sometimes a lot of us actually don't, are not taught this or do not learn about this unless we go out of our way to take a class on Asian history in the US or just, you know, sought out the proper text, textbooks for that.
00:11:49
Speaker
So it is, I think it can be a really tough topic to broach in the workplace. And of course, I think with most ERGs, because they are employee-led, sometimes the funding isn't always there, or that the time that it's given for them to actually go and do that is, of course, spotlighted when things are bad, such as after the George Floyd incident. But maybe a year or two later when
00:12:18
Speaker
Organizations are out of the spotlight of not doing enough. They slowly chip at it or cut the budget or tell people you can't be doing this. You know, you have to do other work instead of it.
00:12:34
Speaker
So it's kind of frustrating because I did see that I had a DEI group that I led in 2021 that basically, in a way, kind of died out in 2023 because of budget cuts.
00:12:53
Speaker
I don't know. To answer your question, in a way, it's kind of frustrating because we want, like I would love for folks to talk about this and learn about this and have these hard conversations about all different groups that have gone and come to the US to make it all work.
00:13:08
Speaker
to have a more holistic understanding of where we all come from and the challenges that we have. But we can't do that when the funding is kind of ebbs and flow or that management says, hey, we have time for this now. Please focus on this for yourself and others. And then other times you'll say, well, we're under a pinch and you guys need to forget about this. They don't say it explicitly, of course, and get back to doing your work. And it's very frustrating to be in a situation like that.
00:13:38
Speaker
I would love to tie this back to the study that we did, which was on microaggressions that Asian and Asian American professionals experience.
Impact of Microaggressions and Stereotypes
00:13:47
Speaker
And one of the ones that come to mind is the microaggression about diligence, right?
00:13:55
Speaker
where people expect Asians to act in a certain way based on the stereotype that Asians are diligent, that they're intelligent, that they're mathy, right? And there's a sort of pigeonholed into what type of roles. Doug, you're the first author on this paper, so.
00:14:12
Speaker
We found both that Asians experience both general and stereotype-based microaggressions. Jenny just mentioned that Asians have this subscription of diligence and math competency. On top of that, subscription of subservience as well too. The thing with this is, while we can isolate and say, hey, these are the specific themes that happen to certain Asian people,
00:14:38
Speaker
It's actually all these things happening all at once. Because they are, in a way, sometimes limited to some of these role or limited to certain competencies, that may actually limit their ability to take on flex jobs or flex roles to learn about new competencies in other departments or in other jobs on top of that network with other folks as well too.
00:15:08
Speaker
Just think of it, just being denied that one job when someone thought, hey, you're really good at math, you should go do this instead of this other stuff. Or you're really hard working, so instead of going to a networking event, you should just stay late and do this over a day, over a week, a month.
00:15:32
Speaker
years and decades, people are going to lose out and they're going to miss their opportunity to climb that next rung of the ladder to move on to maybe even a lateral jab that complements this or potentially allows them to move up even higher because sometimes those stereotypes can limit
00:15:55
Speaker
people's mobility and like Jenny says, limits the ability for folks to move up if they don't gain other skill sets. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.
00:16:33
Speaker
Will you share, Doug, as Asians also being sought this concept that you should work hard? And I'm thinking more of another term, like a concept of not only being ignited for
00:16:48
Speaker
those leadership roles, but also this expectation set for Asians that you should work hard. So it's already creating this high bar for people almost like, hey, if you are bonded to this 925 and you're not working hard or to get this deadline meet, it's almost like there will be a consequence for Asians, but not for other groups.
00:17:13
Speaker
So I think that's also awards me is this like a day-to-day interaction because what I think this expectation like Asians should be like working hard creates such a barrier on the work life balance for the Asian people. Yeah because the bar is set high for for Asian employees but it's not it's not the same bar that they apply to everybody else and I think we did find that in one of our interviews
00:17:37
Speaker
I remember a social worker said that she got double the caseload compared to her colleagues, is that right? And that this was something that she consistently experienced, so that's just one example of how this might show up in the workplace. Yeah, and they know like Asians don't speak up, so...
00:17:55
Speaker
You're not going to be complaining about it. You're not going to say no. They're not going to say no. Well, I mean, even if they do, I mean, I think her boss was this particular participant. I think her boss was Asian, right? Because I think she had eight cases. They're supposed to have eight cases and two.
00:18:11
Speaker
pending or something like that right i think she mentioned she had 10 to 12 and then three to four pending good memory right and it adds up because these are expectations i think and she mentioned i think this was in the audio recording of like you have to shut up and do it
00:18:28
Speaker
And it's very frustrating because in a way it's that systemic racism that comes to play and it's not only, I think sometimes when we say racism we think of just like white and black and white or white and Asian or just the dominant group.
Internalized Racism in Professional Settings
00:18:46
Speaker
oppressing the minority group, right? But sometimes because it's a sub-systemic, it could actually be that group that also learned it. So in this instance, I think it was an Asian boss perpetuating some of these stereotypes and expecting them to work hard because that's who they are. And it's actually very frustrating because it's really hard to fight and to get out of.
00:19:11
Speaker
Yeah, internalized racism. It takes a village to raise a racist, right? It takes a village to raise discrimination and systemic racism, so it's not just non-Asians, you know, doing it. It's also Asians doing it to each other. That could be a whole other episode. Yeah, and just because that even exists, right? That stereotype of Asians even exists, right? We become the minority that's like, wait, why can't you be like that minority?
00:19:38
Speaker
We become that wedge that other folks may utilize and say, hey, why can't you guys be like the Asians? They haven't been here for that long. And of course, that's false. Asians have been in the US for a long time. So I've been here five, six generations. And look how successful they are. And it's kind of frustrating to hear that because sometimes the stereotypes that's out there of Asians now can consist of like, hey, they're doing fine.
00:20:08
Speaker
They don't need any extra help. Of course, we have another article that if we have time for, we'll talk about how Asians in academia, that's down your road, and how they don't get the similar funding as white-led NSF grant writers.
00:20:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's another whole different topic because if you actually look at the, if you break down the, the, the statistics in terms of government sponsored grants, Asians are one of the least funded groups, which is surprising. I mean, when I saw those statistics, I was surprised because I thought, you know, Asian led studies or studies about Asian Americans or Asian
00:20:58
Speaker
Asians in healthcare research would be on par with whites because that's that white adjacency, the white privilege stereotype that people have. I think I was also under the impression that it would show up in the amount of dollars that we got, but it's actually the exact opposite. We're one of the most underfunded groups out of all the racial minorities. That was surprising to see.
00:21:28
Speaker
Surprising slash not surprising, I guess, given the work that we've been doing.
Stereotypes of High Competency
00:21:32
Speaker
So Jenny hinted at this. This is actually an article from the New York Times by Kenneth Chang that came out in January 2003. So just for our audience who's listening and wanted to follow through, we'll, of course, provide the link for all that. And we'll tie it back in as necessary as we talk about this. Go ahead, Echo.
00:21:52
Speaker
Yeah, I know this is actually a nice added reference. I was actually going to switch the topic a little bit and extended that a little bit. So we have been talking about stereotypes, like what this might contribute to this impression that Asians are not necessarily supported in the workplace. What do you two think are the other reasons that might lead to that impression or that feeling of Asians being not supported in the workplace?
00:22:24
Speaker
Well, I think it has to do with perceptions around competency because people see us as the minority group that has made it. And there is ton of research supporting this that we could probably link to and provide in the episode because there is this idea that, oh, Asians are
00:22:45
Speaker
You know, they have high economic and professional and educational attainment. They obviously don't need help. And so we don't have to direct resources or time or energy talking about them in the workplace. And, you know, we all know, based from our own experiences and based on the research that we've done, that this is not the case, that Asians are not white adjacent. We're not, you know, we're not white. And there is still a lot of systemic discrimination.
00:23:14
Speaker
microaggressions that we have to experience and navigate. And it's hard doing that on our own because I think sometimes we don't even talk about ourselves. You know, I think there are a lot of Asians who just don't want to admit that, you know, they are also people of color and that they also face discrimination and so they try to
00:23:34
Speaker
get access to white privilege. And I think I have seen that and I have noticed that. And that, to me, is a bit frustrating when you see other Asian professionals who are just in denial about this and don't want to talk about it. Yeah. I want to hear Doug. Yeah, Doug, please go ahead. I was going to say, were they piggybacking off what Jenny said, they could be lacking that awareness too. Because sometimes I feel like
00:24:03
Speaker
They may just not know what they don't know. If I'm going to use this, you know, our research as a mirror for myself, I'd say like, you know, the younger duke in his 20s would probably say like, yeah, there's probably some racism out there, but it doesn't affect me and I don't really care because it doesn't affect me.
00:24:23
Speaker
For me, the breaking point became, I realized that it may not affect me, but the others who come after me, my nieces, my nephews, my family, it'll still affect them. It'll affect the people that'll come after us as well, too. And it's very frustrating to understand
00:24:43
Speaker
the power of systemic racism versus I'm going to be fine, you know, forget everybody else. You know, I think for me, that mentality kind of shift when I realize, yeah, I may be fine, but the ones that are close to me in my community, my family, my community, they may not be. And I need to say something. I need to speak up. And I think we're all at different places. Like some of us are oblivious to it. Some of us are aware of it, but deny it.
00:25:12
Speaker
But I hope we can come together and have these conversations, and we can recognize that these things do happen. Of course, with our line of research, we've been doing it for a while, and we're going to continue to put out papers and work.
00:25:28
Speaker
Also, HBR articles. Denny's done quite a few of those in her line of work to showcase these things. We need to spotlight some of the focus on Asian and Asian Americans as well, too. Thanks for the shout out, Duck. It's actually just two articles, but thanks.
00:25:57
Speaker
I think what you two has mentioned earlier that definitely made me also thinking like this concept of like the perception that Asians do not speak up or Asians shouldn't speak up because you're you're expected to like be quiet, be submissive, being like obedient to the others.
Do Asians Speak Up Enough?
00:26:17
Speaker
As a community, do we speak up enough? And on the other hand is does the company actually provide the space
00:26:26
Speaker
for Asians to speak up about their issues, right? So I think it's definitely multilayered, and both coming from the internal but also coming from the external, like whether we are actually creating that space, allowing the Asians to speak up, and whether the Asians do speak up for themselves.
00:26:47
Speaker
To answer that question, just based on my own experience and what I've seen, you know, when I look at DEI panels or DEI programs, I think the answer to that is no, in a lot of cases, because when they talk about DEI, usually they don't even include Asians, or when they talk about systemic racism, they don't include us. And so that feels really...
00:27:13
Speaker
kind of isolating to me. So I've gone to several panels, DEI panels, where they talk about, oh, we're going to talk about DEI issues in the workplace. And yet they don't include us. Or when they do include us, they lump us with white people. And that feels really, really kind of colorblind to me. And I don't want to use the word insensitive. What's the word that I'm looking for? Just tone and depth. Oh, afterthought.
00:27:40
Speaker
Yeah, we're just an afterthought. And I just feel like those conversations where they don't include us are tone deaf. So when I do go to a DEI panel and they're talking about, well, Asians are overrepresented at the entry level, but they have the worst leadership outcomes out of any group. So when someone mentions that, I'm like, oh my goodness, this person gets it. Thank you for including us in your conversation. Thank you for including us as a group that is a minority group. So I usually just like,
00:28:08
Speaker
This is a horrible thing to say, but if I am at a DEI panel and the person, people on the panel are just talking about Asians and how they're so, how they're like white or white adjacent, or we don't need to be included. I just kind of tune out.
00:28:27
Speaker
Yeah, I'm totally with Jenny on this because I feel like sometimes we're left out, Asians are left out of the race conversation. And I think that I feel where I feel that we brought in as an afterthought sometimes because they're like, Oh, what about Asians? And you know, they may have realized or
00:28:47
Speaker
From one of my old workplaces, we had a segment on just talking about the burning of Black Wall Street, Tulsa, Oklahoma. I also tied that into the burning of Chinatowns back in the late 1800s, and there were multiple times that they actually did that.
00:29:07
Speaker
But it's really frustrating to kind of see that these are the things that are repeating over and over. And sometimes I think we get maybe get sidetracked or lost because of all these tragedies. But in looking at the history, we realize that it's happening just over and over, you know, because they may feel like we're doing too well or whatnot. And when tragedy strikes, they're like, well, you know,
00:29:33
Speaker
I don't know what the rationale may be, but it's frustrating to think or to know that we are not brought in to these conversations at some DEI events. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back.
00:30:01
Speaker
Did I mention to both of you on this that my company actually running a lot of diversity programs for underrepresented groups there. As Asian women, usually I would be targeted more so on the women's side than so on the Asian side. And this year is the first time that I received an invitation to a
00:30:30
Speaker
program that target like Asian or AAPI specifically. And when I look at the roster, it seems like this is the cohort two, meaning this is the second time they're running it. So after all those years, first of all, I'm glad that the company started to creating something that targeted for this population.
00:30:51
Speaker
But second is like after all those diversity programs have been running in the history and this is only the second cohort that they're having, I felt like there's still a long way to go. You said one more thing, like sometimes like
00:31:08
Speaker
There's this, for me, there's this frustration because helplessness, if that makes any sense. I think we may have, I may have touched upon this in probably one of my first episodes, the first episode when we were talking about scholarships. It's just like, well, you're not the right minority, right? And when you get told that time over time, or you're not part of this DEI discussion or this race discussion, there's a part of you that makes, that wonders, well, am I really supposed to be part of this?
00:31:37
Speaker
When they say inclusion, does that really mean me? For me, when I hear DEI and all these ERG groups, does that really mean me? Is that just a group of folks just coming together to band, just to hang out? Or are they actually going to do something? I don't know. And I know it's going to take a lot of time and effort to figure that out. So there is a learned helplessness with this. Like I don't know what type of, like Jenny, like you said, what type of panel is this going to be? Am I going to tune in or tune out?
00:32:07
Speaker
based on what they say. And I guess there's a part of me that is kind of jaded and want to say, you know, if it, I may have to tune out because they may not include me, but I need to have talking points to say, Hey, we've experienced a lot of similar stuff too. And we're in the middle of all this. There's actually a little something from Asia society. That's there's a film screening of I think blurring the lines that talks about the
00:32:35
Speaker
the experience of Asian Americans down in Georgia in like the 1960s and all that and that's actually kind of be showing I think because it's AAPI that's going to be one of the movies that's going to be screened at Asia Society this on the 23rd this month. Okay you're gonna go?
00:32:54
Speaker
Yeah, I got my ticket today. Oh, nice. So I can learn more about it, because that was not part of my learning and upbringing. And I'm trying to, for myself, I may not get this in the workplace. So I'm reaching out, finding things and finding resources on my own. And I feel like that's what I have to do.
00:33:12
Speaker
uh i won't get ever i feel like it won't ever get that workplace i'd have to do it on my own uh it makes any sense and hence the participation but the low expectation
00:33:33
Speaker
Here's a controversial idea, kind of responding to what you just said. Well, I think COVID-19 and the, the, the, the after effects of, you know, the anti-Asian hate crimes. Now I'm just looking at this statistic right
COVID-19 and Anti-Asian Racism
00:33:48
Speaker
now. Anti-Asian hate crime increased by 339%. And this was in 2021 compared to the year before.
00:33:56
Speaker
with New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other cities surpassing their record numbers in 2020. And I'm wondering if as horrible as this was, and I think we're still seeing the after effects of COVID-19 and the anti-Asian sentiment, as horrible as that was, I think it was necessary for people to really see, oh, Asians are also minorities in this country. Asians also experienced racism. We are not white. And it took a pandemic for people to really see that.
00:34:24
Speaker
Part of it is like the society has to wait for a certain moment for this to become like a big of an issue so they can start to take this seriously. It occurs to me like all those stereotypes that people have studied for Asians have not changed that much.
00:34:44
Speaker
Like people have studied this in the 90s. People have studied this in the early 20s. And they always point to this like same stereotypes. COVID-19 or like anti-Asian hate start to opened up those conversations. But to how much degree that actually we can make people aware that this is something that they still need to like working on. And I thought that was a quite interesting one, especially with like all those hate crimes.
00:35:15
Speaker
against Asians, I wonder how much is also because when the COVID hit, when all those like the society has like needed to find some like scapegoat, like Asians will be the one because the image translated into a threat. It seems like the society is waiting for certain things to become like a bigger issue so they can start to address that instead of like addressing that through like a day to day.
00:35:43
Speaker
Jenny, I'm with you in that with the frustration that it took this crazy amount of percentage increase in hate crimes. And I think they're the one that for me that stood out the most was this, I think in 2021 was the elders being attacked.
00:36:01
Speaker
It's very frustrating because I see my mom in that. But I think, of course, I think the worldwide mom, I think she's a lot tougher than that. But to see video of older women and men just being beaten for no reason out in the street, out of the blue, it's very frustrating. And it's so sad that it took this long or took this level of violence towards
00:36:28
Speaker
a group of people who wouldn't do anything to you. If anything, slow you down on the sidewalk. I hope that
00:36:39
Speaker
through this, it creates something that could be sustainable. Because I feel like sometimes organizations can just want to have that positive PR or do something that is in place and really is ephemeral because they want to look good in the moment.
00:37:02
Speaker
That would be you know, I hope they Continue to do this continue to talk about this because I feel like the moment we take our foot up Of this it's gonna come back and cycle through may not be years later. It could be decades later, you know And we're gonna be a pie having the same or similar conversations in a few decade and that would be really frustrating for me
Hopes for Future Progress Against Racism
00:37:27
Speaker
Amen. I hope that our research is not replicable 10, 15, 20 years down the line because if it is, if it is, we have not made any progress. You know, they talk about the replication crisis and social psychology or just the social science in general. I'm like, I welcome that. I'm like,
00:37:46
Speaker
Hopefully, our studies, our research on microaggressions are not replicated 10, 15 years down the line and people are not experiencing the same type of microaggressions that we talked about 10 years ago. But I have a feeling that we are still going to be relevant and these topics are still going to be relevant and it is going to replicate.
00:38:08
Speaker
We're going to talk about it. We're going to spotlight it and we're going to tell organizations why it's bad if these microaggressions are manifesting. If you have folks being, there's a description of subservience, diligence, or math competencies, we got to take a step back and talk about these things and how they're not necessarily always positive.
00:38:29
Speaker
I wanted to hear what chat GPT says. Seem is to write the haiku for the support for Asians. Come back with a missed hate and fear. Solidarity we show, love for all Asians.
00:38:48
Speaker
I think that's a nice way to end the episode. Thank you again for tuning in to Hidden in Plain Sight. We'll catch you on our next episode.