Author: Jiahao Li

In the article “1619 Project”, the author Nikole Hannah Jones has point out that African Americans do not get the equality and freedom they deserve in the United States and they have to face unjust treatments. One hundred years ago, African Americans were facing the problem of segregation. At that time, the racial discrimination happened, the white man treated African Americans as low class. African Americans can not go to the same school as white Americans, can not eat at the same time, can not sit in the front of the bus, etc. In addition, African Americans do not have the right to vote and most of them are working in the factory with low income and long working hours. African Americans think that they did not have the freedom and equality that they should have, and they start the civil rights movement to fight for their equality and freedom.
This article not just relates to African American, it is also related to immigrants. I am also an immigrant, I have seen how Americans discriminate other people, and we did not have an equal right. The declaration of independence shows that “all men are created equal”, but Americans have their racial superiority, they think that other people are evil and they should not come to the United States. For instance, the coronavirus that happens right now, Americans treat our Asian as the virus spreader, and I have seen much news about how Americans discriminate Asians because they wear the mask and Americans commit a hate crime. When I see this news and see how Americans racist, it makes me feel unfair about the society. “All men are created equal”, I did not feel we as immigrants to get the equal right that Americans have. The United States is a democratic country, but it is not possible for everyone with equality because of racism. In their point of view, different skin and different race represent we are not the same, it is like two different discourse community, why would you have the same right as we did if you just join in our discourse community. Racism has separated the country into different groups, because of that, we as the immigrants are hard to have the equality we suppose to have. As the constitution said “All men are created equal”, we should have human rights and treat other races as the same.

Throughout the first week of the in-class discussion, we had discussed the discourse community. A discourse community is a group of people who have the same goal, sharing the same interest and speak the same language.
It’s hard to join in the discourse community when you can not speak the same language as others. Six years ago, I had come to the United States. At those times, I didn’t know how to speak English, I only learned a few English vocabulary words in China. It was hard to communicate with others when you didn’t understand what they were talking about. On the first day of junior high school, my counselor had told me that, my class was an ESL class, which were many people from different countries and their first language was not English. I had met many new friends that speak the same language and we always worked in a group and push ourself forward. My friends always encourage me to pay more attention to study, and they keep reminding me that this is the last year of your junior high school, make sure to work hard and be ready to the high school. When you join the discourse community group, other people would encourage you to reach the goal that you have, which helps you a lot in your life experience.
I had joined in the discourse community since I was in high school. Me and my friends had creat a game group called “China Town” in discord. Discord is an app that provides voice and text chat for gamers. We always play games when we are all free, the members of the group are also my high school classmates. We shared the same interest, it gains friendship when we are playing the games together and community with each other at games. We use the word “baron” in our community, baron means a member of the lowest order of the British nobility. But in our community, “baron” is a key objective in games because of its massive gold bonus and global buff as well as a powerful buff that enables teams to crack the base. In my game group, we have a lot of things to talk about, and our goal is to share knowledge about the computer system, to help each other to reach their goal.
A discourse community is helpful to your career, which helps you a lot during the discussion by sharing the idea to reach the goal. Getting the feedback and improve yourself and encourage yourself to become better.