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proof that mental violence is a greater threat than we have come to believe.230 To be lied to based on prejudice is something students take to heart and never forget because it is a good indicator of who you are. As mentioned above, Marshallese would literally say “kinke ejjelok aer manit,” literally translated as It’s because they have no culture and custom(s). It would seem opportune that even when I took a class with another White American Professor called Contemporary Culture and Society of the Asia Pacific that I would also encounter the same treatment due to the Ivory Tower Mentality. This class in itself was a result of that altercation where my professor sought to tell me how to rework and reimagine myself within the constructs I was situated in when describing my home atolls of Majuro and Ebeye. The paper in which he gave me a C was published in its first attempt of submission.231 This is extremely disheartening as the reason why he gave me a C was because he didn’t like my view on what culture meant despite me having an indigenous language that tells me culture means MANIT to me. He told me that I should not view culture the way I see it where I linked the lack of a homeless population in the Marshall Islands due to social safety nets embedded in our Manit (Customs). This was a slap in the face to my White American Professor’s ego where he saw the comparison of homeless populations in America growing here in San Francisco and in New York City. The irony of the situation is, I was not deviating from the readings on Culture that Dr. Nelson spoke of had he known more about my Marshallese Culture, my history, and our respective epistemologies and ontologies.232 I had to go the extra mile and meet with the interim program Director Dr. Ho. I don’t understand why I have to overcompensate to be heard nor to make that extra effort that takes time and money to prove something we all know is true. This was the reason why I coldheartedly believe, that institutionalized racism is alive and well in the campus of the University of San Francisco. Even after agreeing to an indigenous Marshallese discourse called JitDam Kapeel, the White Fragility in my professor Dr. Nelson sought to belittle my paper entitled233 “THINK PIECE: The Human Duty to Decolonize Our Frame of Thoughts to see people for who and what they are as members of Historical Groups with Distinct Characteristics built on Circumstance.” This paper also got published at the first attempt of submission. Had Dr. Nelson took the time to research what JitDam Kapeel meant and had he known what an auto-ethnography is, his obvious prejudice would have been concealed to his benefit. However, because he chose to apply white privilege to protect his and Dr. Woodhouse’s 230 Desmond
Narain Doulatram. “AN AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC RESPONSE TO DISCRIMINATION: GIVING SPACE TO THE MARGINALIZED MARSHALLESE COMMUNITY THROUGH RESEARCH AND MORAL DEEDS,” 0-58 231 Desmond Narain Doulatram. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: A CASE STUDY OF URBANIZATION AND GLOBALIZATION IN EBEYE AND MAJURO.” Journal of Humanities and Cultural Studies R&D 3, no.2 (2018): 1-15.
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Dorothy Kabua. “Story of the Heaven Post Men.” In Stories from the Marshall Islands,by Jack A. Tobin, (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2001), 48. 233
Desmond Narain Doulatram. “AN AUTOETHNOGRAPHIC RESPONSE TO DISCRIMINATION: GIVING SPACE TO THE MARGINALIZED MARSHALLESE COMMUNITY THROUGH RESEARCH AND MORAL DEEDS,” 0-58