Author: Ashley Fung

Ashley Fung Post 4: Intersectional Analysis On Jamal Turner

The person I choose to do an intersectional analysis on is Jamal Turner from the series On My Block played by Brett Gray. Jamal Turner is very conflicted because high school is starting up for him and his dad used to be a star football player at his current high school and now everyone wants him to follow his father’s footsteps and be this great football player when in reality Jamal is after a different prize in life. Jamal does not know how to break it to his parents that he does not want to play football because he hates it, so instead of breaking the bad news to his parents he lies to them and tells them that he made the football team. Jamal puts on a facade that he’s on the football team however he says that he can’t play because he has a neck injury. He wears a fake neck cast during school and then when that lie comes to an end he lies again by stating he has a leg injury and starts walking around in crutches. Many fake injuries later, Jamal is still going about this identity of being the football playing son that his parents dreamed of having. On top of having to sell this identity, Jamal goes about his life and his less staged identity, which revolves around the fascination of finding lost treasures, people, places and things. This identity is significant because this is his real identity; that he is hiding from his parents. In addition, he has an identity with his friend group as being the problem solving yet terrible secret keeper. With the mixture of all these different identities, Jamal struggles because he usually ends up doing things for others while putting himself in danger. 

Jamal makes it his mission to find the lost roller rink money, afterall searching for lost treasures is part of his actual identity. He eventually finds the missing money in the football field of his school, however the football coach caught him digging holes on the field and threatened Jamal, stating that he must pay for the damages he made to the field. Since he found the huge amount of lost roller rink money, it should not be a problem to pay for the field damages however, Jamal is saving the lost money to help his friend Cesar who was born into a gang. With that being said, Jamal has to hide this big load of money from his parents, the coach, the police and the government. Also, he has to figure out a way to get the money “cleaned” because the money has been missing for decades and if it gets traced by the serial number on the bills he could get in serious trouble. Jamal must save his friend Cesar, hide this long lost stash of money in his bedroom, while putting on this facade that he is just this average high school football player. 

His different identities relate to his powers and privileges. For instance, since his Dad thinks Jamal is playing football, Jamal’s dad is very content with him. This makes it easy for Jamal to ask for a job at his dad’s restaurant. By getting a job at his dad’s restaurant, he can pay off the expenses for the football field damages, and save the lost roller rink money to help Cesar. Jamal manages to pay off the expenses for the football field and now since he is on good terms with the coach, and cannot come up with any more fake injuries; he begs the football coach to let him sit on the bench during a football game in order to convince his parents that he is actually on the football team. The coach says yes and Jamal ends up actually being subbed in and scores the winning touchdown. Jamal uses the powers and privileges of his multiple identities to solve his other problems in life and to keep others happy with him; which is also how he navigates through the world.

Jamal is a huge asset to the show, as said previously he’s the problem solver of his friend group. For example, throughout the series he helps his friends make up when they get into arguments with each other and he constantly saves his friend’s lives by coming up with clever schemes to get them out of trouble. Although Jamal is a valuable character in the show, he also hinders suppression because at the end of the day he’s lying to his parents about his true identity, prevents the public from finding out that he found the long lost roller rink money, and did a lot of illegal things in order to keep his friends alive. To conclude, Jamal is my favorite character, although he lies and does illegal things; he sacrifices his own identity, findings, and life; in order to help others, which is very difficult and courageous. 

Post 3: My identity by: Ashley Fung 3/2/2021

I get to choose my identity the more I learn about my identity; and the further I discover who I am as a person. When I was younger I had less control of choosing how I express my identity. I remember growing up, I felt like my parents, peers, and family members had a lot of control of limiting my speech and expression in order to make me fit into this societal norm. However, now that I am older I feel like I have been able to have control over my own expression of my identity; I love who I love, cut my hair however long or short I desire, and wear whatever clothes that makes me feel comfortable. In addition, I can choose my identity more now because our society itself is also learning more and becoming more accepting. For example, society is becoming more inclusive, now some surveys that ask for your gender offer more options such as non-binary, prefer not to specify, etc. Although, now I have more control of my gender, there were some ways where my gender was chosen for me.  For instance, my parents stated they knew that I was going to be deemed as a female because of my reproductive system type from my ultrasound. I feel like ultrasounds and gender reveal parties are limitations of gender expression because it does not give the baby a choice to choose this part of their identity themselves. The world has been in favor of cisgendered heterosexual beings. With that being said, in certain scenarios and environments, I find it hard to express all of my identity because even though the world is becoming more evolved and accepting; there are still people who are judgemental, sexist and homophobic. But, the people who are closest to me and most important to me, are the ones who get to see the entirety of my identity. 

Post 2: What Is Gender? By: Ashley Fung

There are many different ways to explain gender. According to google gender is a social construct that refers to various characteristics of women, girls, men, and boys. We see gender everywhere and all the time, whether it’s shopping in stores, gender reveal parties or on bathroom signs; gender to me is fluid. I believe that society does not represent all of gender to its fullest. I do not think that gender is only between two sexes, male and female, gender is more complex than that. Society ranks certain characteristics on how “masculine” or “feminine” it is, and differentiates between the two as if they were complete opposites; overlooking the infinite possibilities of the two having things in common. In addition, society tells us our gender “should” be our biological sex however, I do not agree with this. Society reinforces gender roles in a very outdated way. For example, society follows gender stereotypes such as only boys liking cars and only girls liking dolls or only men enjoying hunting and only women wanting to wear high heels. This is not a good way of depicting gender because what does the things an individual enjoys have anything to do with their gender? To add on, because society reinforces gender roles this way, they are also not giving much representation to people who are gender fluid, non-binary and transgender.

Unfortunately in the society we are living in, gender provides an unfair advantage of powers and privileges for one gender; leaving the people of other genders to have a harder time becoming successful. For instance, men usually have higher salaries than women do; and people who do not identify as male or female struggle to find jobs because of how our society is structured. Our society was designed to make a way of living easier if you are a male. Men face less obstacles and benefit the most compared to the other genders because our society follows a patriarchal way of living; which means that we follow a social system which believes that men hold more power than women. This is seen in many ways, such as lack of women in CEO positions and lack of female presidents; our society restrains from putting women in leadership roles. The unfair powers and privileges that men hold stem back to the old days when only men had access to achieving a higher education, while women stayed at home; cooking, cleaning and taking care of children. I think society is still in favor of men because it’s been that way for so long and there are so many people who still unfortunately believe that women are inferior to men, when instead we should be all considered as equals and have equivalent powers, privileges, and opportunities.

I feel that nobody should have the right to dictate which gender is legitimate because all genders should be legitimate and treated as equals. I do not see gender as a quantity, I see gender more as a spectrum because gender is not a binary concept, it is one’s personal identity, which could be an infinite number of different possibilities.

How to make a post -Ashley Fung 2/6/2021

  1. Log onto the class website with this link  https://wgs1001sp21.commons.gc.cuny.edu
  2. After signing in with your username and password, make sure you joined the course. Next, select the class you are in (either the Tuesday/Thursday 9:30am or Tuesday only 5:05pm).  
  3. Then, look at the top left hand side of the black banner, you will see a “+ NEW” tab, hover your mouse over this tab and then a drop down menu should appear, click on the word “post”.
  4. Lastly, type whatever you need to post. The website will also give you a little tutorial on all the posting features the website provides. When you are finished and ready to post, make sure you have selected a category on the menu on the right hand side of the screen and have set a featured photo that relates to your post, when finished click publish which should be located on the top right hand part of the screen in blue.