Star Trek Discovery Review: 2x05 "Saints of Imperfection"

 At the start of this episode, the Discovery is chasing a ship that they believe has Spock on board. It turns out to actually be Georgiou/the Terran Emperor. Captain Pike doesn't know about the Discovery's trip to the Terran universe, so he's clueless as to who Georgiou really is, which added a bit of fun to their scenes together. The fact that Pike knew Georgiou in the past made it even better.

Georgiou being one of my favorite characters, I love getting to see her more in this season, and this episode does a great job of continuing to show that she's the perfect character for Section 31.

Leland and Pike also speak to each other for the first time in this episode, and I enjoy their dynamics was well. The two of them as individuals illustrate the tensions between Section 31 and Starfleet. Just like Georgiou, making them previous acquaintances was a good move storytelling-wise. It's a great rivalry.

Discovery makes a plan to go into the network to save Tilly. It's good that the storyline with Section 31 added a bit of comedy because the storyline about the network was emotionally heavy. You feel for the JahSepp having their home destroyed and all of them being killed, but once you learn the truth, of course you feel even more deeply for Doctor Culber, who's a character you've gotten to know.

It was a good look at how the way you view a situation can make a huge difference and how there isn’t always a clear cut villain in a situation. I did find it a bit odd that May never once mentioned to Tilly that the "monster" was a human even though she should have been able to tell after her time spent in Tilly’s head.

Stamets and Culber together was heart-breaking, especially when you briefly think that Culber won’t be able to make it back. Ressurecting dead characters can often be overdone, but this is a case where I appreciated it. Back when Culber died, I wasn’t thrilled about Discovery foraying into the Kill Your Gays trope. I don't know if they planned this all along or decided to do it later, but it does make me feel much better knowing that Star Trek's first same-sex couple gets a chance at a happy ending.

The Admiral arrives at the end of the episode to talk to Leland and Pike. She tells them that they have to find Spock together. This is exciting because I find the mystery of Spock to be the most interesting of the open storylines, and I'm excited to have the Section 31 characters stick around. (I've watched all of this season, so I know where it's going, but even re-watching, it's what I find most interesting.) I look forward to talking more about that as I keep re-watching.

Book Review: How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? by Moustafa Bayoumi

Published: August 14th, 2008
Publisher: Penguin Press
Received: purchased
Read from December 30th, 2020 to January 10th, 2021

Summary from Goodreads:

The story of how young Arab and Muslim Americans are forging lives for themselves in a country that often mistakes them for the enemy

Arab and Muslim Americans are the new, largely undiscussed “problem” of American society, their lives no better understood than those of African Americans a century ago. Under the cover of the terrorist attacks, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the explosion of political violence around the world, a fundamental misunderstanding of the Arab and Muslim American communities has been allowed to fester and even to define the lives of the seven twentysomething men and women whom we meet in this book. Their names are Rami, Sami, Akram, Lina, Yasmin, Omar, and Rasha, and they all live in Brooklyn, New York, which is home to the largest number of Arab Americans in the United States.

We meet Sami, an Arab American Christian, who navigates the minefield of associations the public has of Arabs as well as the expectations that Muslim Arab Americans have of him as a marine who fought in the Iraq war. And Rasha, who, along with her parents, sister, and brothers, was detained by the FBI in a New Jersey jail in early 2002. Without explanation, she and her family were released several months later. As drama of all kinds swirls around them, these young men and women strive for the very things the majority of young adults desire: opportunity, marriage, happiness, and the chance to fulfill their potential. But what they have now are lives that are less certain, and more difficult, than they ever could have imagined: workplace discrimination, warfare in their countries of origin, government surveillance, the disappearance of friends or family, threats of vigilante violence, and a host of other problems that thrive in the age of terror.

And yet How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? takes the raw material of their struggle and weaves it into an unforgettable, and very American, story of promise and hope. In prose that is at once blunt and lyrical, Moustafa Bayoumi allows us to see the world as these men and women do, revealing a set of characters and a place that indelibly change the way we see the turbulent past and yet still hopeful future of this country. 

Review:

How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? is the story of a group of Arab Americans in the 2000s after 9/11. These young people don't know each other, but all of them live in Brooklyn. Despite all being Arab and living in the same place, they each had unique circumstances and experiences, which kept the stories from feeling repetitive.

However, all of the young people being from Brooklyn did mean that the book was slightly limited in the experiences showed. New York City is vastly different from other areas of the country, so I would have loved to get stories about young Muslims from all over the United States. That would have been a great look at an even more diverse group of experiences.

That being said, it was an enjoyable read. I liked some of the stories more than others, which is to be expected in a book like this, but I appreciated the variety of perspectives on what it was like to be young and Muslim in Brooklyn in the 2000s.

Star Trek Discovery Review: 2x04 "An Obol for Charon"

Life Post: My Last Post From Japan (For Now At Least)

 I'm writing this in a hotel room in Tokushima. It's my last night here, and I left my apartment for good earlier today. I also ended my phone contract today, which means I'm in the wonderful position of only being able to use my phone with wifi.

This felt like a moment I should capture somehow, yet I'm scared to dwell on anything too long because I've done a remarkable job of not crying so far today. Something which can't be said about yesterday, my last day at work. It was a difficult day. At one point, I was even crying in the middle of a junior high schooler's lesson while she steadfastly pretended that I wasn't (big thanks to her for that).

When I'm back in the US, it might be easier to document all of what I'm feeling, but right now, it still doesn't entirely feel real. I think my brain still expects to go back to work and that this is, if anything, a brief vacation. I had a thought about being an English teacher earlier only to immediately remind myself that, currently, I'm not. (Currently, I'm unemployed, but that's a whole other thing.)

The entrance requirements to get into the US changed pretty last minute for me on January 12. Starting the day I get back (impeccable timing) people can only enter the US with a negative Covid test. I'm in rural Japan where getting a Covid test in the three day window and in English (to show US officials) is a challenge, so there was a mad scramble, and I'm incredibly thankful to my coworkers for helping make it happen. Luckily, I could get tested, and (even more thankfully) the result is negative. After that and my original flight being canceled, I am rather paranoid about everything, but that's to be expected considering it's a pandemic.

Once I get home, I need to quarantine for a week. I'm not opposed to some rest time, but I think what worries me is that I'll start dwelling on how sad I am to have left Japan if I have too much downtime, so I'm making plans. I'm going to try to get a head start on certain things I have planned during that time, which hopefully I'll share more about in the future.

Until then, I'm going to try my best to cherish the short time I have left in Japan despite it not being ideal thanks to Covid restrictions.

Book Review: Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People by Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald

Published: February 12th, 2013
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Received: purchased
Read from November 29th to December 29th, 2020
Synopsis from Goodreads:

I know my own mind.
I am able to assess others in a fair and accurate way.

These self-perceptions are challenged by leading psychologists Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald as they explore the hidden biases we all carry from a lifetime of exposure to cultural attitudes about age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, sexuality, disability status, and nationality.

“Blindspot” is the authors’ metaphor for the portion of the mind that houses hidden biases. Writing with simplicity and verve, Banaji and Greenwald question the extent to which our perceptions of social groups—without our awareness or conscious control—shape our likes and dislikes and our judgments about people’s character, abilities, and potential.

In Blindspot, the authors reveal hidden biases based on their experience with the Implicit Association Test, a method that has revolutionized the way scientists learn about the human mind and that gives us a glimpse into what lies within the metaphoric blindspot.

The title’s “good people” are those of us who strive to align our behavior with our intentions. The aim of Blindspot is to explain the science in plain enough language to help well-intentioned people achieve that alignment. By gaining awareness, we can adapt beliefs and behavior and “outsmart the machine” in our heads so we can be fairer to those around us. Venturing into this book is an invitation to understand our own minds.

Brilliant, authoritative, and utterly accessible, Blindspot is a book that will challenge and change readers for years to come.

Review:

Blindspot was written by two of the psychologists behind Harvard's Implicit Association Test. I first took several IATs when I was in college. Not as part of a college course but on my own after they were mentioned in the psychology course I was taking. The book itself issues a lot of warnings about taking an IAT because the tests can often alarm people who take them because it reveals inner biases. In fact, the level of caution that the book used when speaking about taking the test was surprising to me after my own experiences.

As I mentioned, I took several IATs, yet I wasn't surprised by my results. I would probably chalk that up to being well aware of the idea of inner biases and how they work before I took the first test. I knew I had them, so having them revealed wasn't a massive shock. In fact, the idea that inner biases exist and influence people's decision making feels like common sense to me, so in a way, the most shocking thing about Blindspot for me was the idea that it wouldn't be. I don't think I realized how new the idea of them are to psychology until I read Blindspot.

Learning the history behind the IAT and how psychologists learned how to actually measure hidden biases was the highlight of the book for me. I learned a lot about the history of the IAT that I found absolutely fascinating. I also used reading the book as a reason to go back and take the same IATs that I had taken in college.

Taking IATs is a very valuable form of self-reflection I believe, so I do think this book is a very valuable introduction to that for anyone who isn't aware of the tests already. This entire book did a good job of incorporating the history of the tests' development with explanations of the psychology behind them, and on top of that, it does a good job of making you reflect on reasons why inequality still exist despite the book very much being about the tests themselves and not larger structural inequalities.

Blindspot is a valuable reading experience for anyone, and I would highly recommend it.