"Learning the Meaning of One" by Jessica Greenstone
An incident in Greenstone's childhood has lead her to dedicate her life to be a social justice educator and an activist. When Greenstone was in elementary school, she encountered a moment with her friends at lunch where her friend made a stereotypical comment about Jews people. As a Jew person herself, Greenstone was offend by both the comment and the reason her friend used to say the comment did not apply to her; this is what Greenstone learned to be called "re-fencing," making her an exception from the stereotype thus clearly creating a divide between "them" and "us." Looking back at the situation Greenstone acknowledge that she did not handle it correctly; instead of challenging and correcting the view her friend had, she made it worse by fighting fire with fire (replying with mean comments).
In addition to this event, the Jewish history (the Holocaust) led Greenstone to see education as a vital battleground to make sure history does not repeat itself. School is a place where students spend most of their time and a great place to promote good social justice principles and address various "isms." As I am taking an education course this semester, I am constantly reminded about the potential big role schools can have in fostering tolerance, acceptance, and respect for those who are different from what we are used to. However, we see a trend of how sex education, sexuality, and religion are pushed out of education because they are not socially accepted ideas or these topics infringes upon certain group of people's rights. Schools continue to breed and perpetuate intolerance and the same structural bias people have. As Greenstone points out that we all have biases "because we have been deeply affected on an unconscious level by societal messages and values" (80) she see education as a place where we can realize the the connection between our differences.
Greenstone goes to further provide examples of sexist and gender stereotypes she have encountered in her life and job. With these examples it signifies the much need for society to be an active participants of changing the world and promoting a society conducive to all. To promote a greater understanding for difference so that we do not hold so much biases, stereotypes, and misconceptions about people because of their religion, race, gender, sexuality, age, etc.
"Navigating Identity Politics in Activism" by Allison Attenello
Dissatisfied with the lack of representation of women leaders in her course readings, Attenello went to discover these historical women with leadership position on her own with the help of a professor. Once she discovered these works of literature that demonstrated the power and abilities of women, she was proud to embraced her inner feminism. While Attenello understands that difference groups of people can be connected through similar experience, she is also aware of the role that race, socioeconomic status, social and cultural backgrounds are strongly influential in a person's choice of action and strongly correlated to power. Her fond interest and awareness of using these elements as the lens to see the relation between identity and power has resulted in a narrow perspective. While working as an vice president in an activist group for Mexicans tackling issues they sought to be most urgent, Unidad de New Brunswick, Attenello was confronted with how her racial, economic, social and cultural identities did not coincide with the faces of the group. She felt that because she was a white middle class highly educated women, her status did not fix well with the agenda of this group. After a while, with this reasoning alone with the reason that the agenda of the group was not what she intentionally wanted to focus on (violence against women), Attenello decided to resign from her position. From this experience, she discovered her that while although it is important to participate in organizations that does not represent your own community, at the same time being a part of such organization can also defeat the purpose of the agenda. Overall, Attenello sees her role in making social changes.
While I see Attenello's concern, I am not sure if I agree with her concern about being a part of a group that does not represent your community. I think if you are in it for a cause that your support than regardless of all the factors, Attenello is aware of, should not be factors that hinder her passion to help out just because she is different (racially, education wise, socially) from the group. I guess it should be more about the goals rather than the people of these goals.
"Blurring the Lines that Divide" by Shira Pruce
Pruce discusses her realization of the power that leadership holds. Through her many experiences-- traveling, college, and activism--she also discovered the bias that she has; and through working with different people she has bias on (i.e. Palestinian women and the Christian women), Pruce learned how to control these bias and learn from it, which furthering adding to her personal development and guiding her to her passions.
No comments:
Post a Comment