1. In a separate ePortfolio post, answer the following question: In what specific ways does Serhan & McLaughlin’s essay connect with concepts/ideas from our previous prompt readings (Konnikova, Chen, Bloom, and DFW)? Be as specific as possible, and answer in a couple of well-developed paragraphs. Use at least two quotes (framed, of course) from the Serhan/McLaughlin essay as part of your response. Title post “Text to Text Connections.”

Serhan and Mclaughlin’s article is able to connect back to really all of the prior articles we have read for our past essays. Serhan and Mclaughlins article discuss the xenophobia towards the asian population, in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic. We are able to read direct quotes from people who were negatively affected by the prejudice that virus brought with it.  Within Adrian’s Chen’s article, “Unfollow”, the reader can immediately see the hatred, discrimination, and prejude that the baptist church projects through pickets and online tweets. Chen writes, “‘eventually, the targets broadened such that everyone was the target” (Chen 6). In other words, anyone who wasn’t a part of the baptist church was considered a target. This can be related back to the discrimation on people of color, because in Megan Phelps roper’s eyes, they were different from her. She and the church considered them to be inferior.

Again we are able to connect Serhan and Mclaughlin’s article back to former writer David Foster Wallace and his speech, “This is Water”. As he addresses the concept of rewiring your own thinking to be aware and sympathetic of others we can use what Wallace says in our lives today. Wallace writes, “learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think” (Wallace 3). What Wallace is trying to say is that we have the capability of controlling how and what we think, all it takes is practice. On this note, what Wallace preaches becomes crucial with the ongoing xenophobia of the asian population. This is because we choose what to think. People are choosing to discriminate and show prejudice to people of color which in no way shape or form is okay.