Monday, September 3, 2018

Adding COURAGE to our repertoire

If we can add COURAGE to our assets, we'll win EQUAL OPPORTUNITY for sure.


WeChat account ID is: 8020ef.  Please scan our QR code, 
shown below, & on 80-20 EF's WeChat site. For a Chinese 
version of this e-newsletter, click on https://goo.gl/6GsJWe

                              A Shining Example of Empowerment

      Remember how I replied to a professor who posted Comment 15 in last Monday's e-newsletter?  I started with

  Comment/feedback # 16   (A feedback on # 15 )             
Dear Another Anonymous: WHY ARE WE SO AFRAID? PEOPLE WHO WANT TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF US COULD SENSE OUR FEAR, AND ARE THEREFORE ENCOURAGED TO STEP ON US. ..
 
     I got a magnanimously positive response from that professor.  In her next post, she identified herself in the first sentence.  See below:

 Comment/feedback # 19             
Dear Dr. Woo, RE: Hiramoto v. Goddard College I wrote to you previously (#15) about racist Asian stereotypes that the all-white evaluation committee wrote for my evaluation. I was a 50% FTE faculty member in the MFA-Interdisciplinary Arts Program at Goddard College in Vermont. I also want to write that I was overworked and testified that I was treated like a nanny, maid, slave and colonized person. The chair told me to write a summary of every book and artist I recommended to students, and admitted that she did not require this of other faculty or even of herself. Everyone else, including the chairs, wrote chatty, anecdotal responses to student reports. The chair alleged that three students complained about me. However, two of the students wrote written apologies. In the  ... more 

     Her name is Judy Hiramoto, in her follow up comment 20 she stated "Dr. Woo is right - it's time we all put our names to our allegations and call out the perpetrators."  to which I answered:

  Comment/feedback # 23   (A feedback on # 19 )             
Dear Prof. Hiramoto: YOU MADE MY DAY! ....  YES! This is the the way to rid ourselves of discrimination against us. .... However, if anyone gives you trouble for posting your grievance on our poster board, please let me know. 80-20 EF WILL BACK YOU UP, and perhaps pursue your case to the end. SB     For commenting on #23
   
     This is how AsAms empower each other.  Prof. Hiramoto empowered 80-20 by responding positively to our suggestion to have the COURAGE of her conviction.  80-20 in turn empowered her by offering to back her up if her college gives her trouble.  To see the original postings, click (1), (2) and (3).

That is what empowerment is - helping each other to 
achieve a just and beneficial result.
         
         A Bigger and Shinier Result of Empowerment
   
     When 80-20 Educational Foundation (EF)  started its SELF,   Self Empowerment   Longterm Funding project, we had 2 goals.  
 
    [A] To secure financial stability for 80-20 EF so that we may serve the AsAm
         community in more projects and with more gusto.
    [B] To instill A NEW CULTURAL TRAIT in our community - charity begins at
          home.  IF we we don't financially support our community's service orgs,
          others will.  The result will be at our expense, because Money Talks.  Some of
          "our civil rights" orgs. may in time serve other's interest AGAINST AsAms.
     Look around, there are plenty of such orgs. stationed in D.C.  Financially, they are all supported by non-AsAm orgs.

Consequence from [A] :  4 years later, about 2200 AsAm donors donated $3.12 million to EF.  Not only is the number of donors huge.  The average donation amount is $1,400 per donor.  That is a huge mutual empowerment success.

Consequence from [B] : It makes the following appeal to the so-called "AsAm Civil Rights orgs., stationed in D. C." possible.  

    Come back to your own people.  If you do, our community will likely financially support ALL of us, now that 80-20 EF has induced a NEW cultural trait in our community.

     Friends, we know that you are all dying.  Your influence on AsAms wanes.  Your annual budget shrinks.  You don't publish your membership lists any more.  Your chapters are mostly phantom chapters.  Please come back to the fold and serve your own people, we beseech you.  

           80-20 EF shall financially aid our beleaguered AsAm professors                  
   
     EF's Board, after reviewing postings from many AsAm professors, decided to

(1)  appropriate $10,000 as seed money to help our professors organize themselves;
(2)  grant $1,000 to the first 3 professors/staff to use for organizing a "professorial group for the purpose of mutual assistance".  There is much strength in a collective voice.  Receipts above $50 are required, when a bill is presented to EF; and 
(3) match up to $5,000 for the first one of the above 3 who succeeds in establishing a group of 50 or more members and raises money.   A list of at least 50 members is required.  Copies of checks of donations to that group are required from that group to receive EF's matching funds.  The suggested first step of such a group is to meet with the president/chancellor of their university.  

    Good luck professors.  "God helps those who help themselves."   80-20 EF will help you plant the seeds to help yourselves.

                                   Post your views here.      Donate 

S. B. Woo


President and a volunteer for the past 20 years
80-20 Educational Foundation, Inc, a 501 C-3 organization,
Lieutenant Governor of Delaware (1985-89)
 
To know more about 80-20, view these videos :
https://youtu.be/dB3eGVqG-wA  (Ignore the last 35 secs. The election is over.)