Justene Boyle PHL 150 Term Paper Oppression and Privilege Justene glanced at the sign standing outside of the double doors to the lecture hall of her college’s conference building that read “Oppression and Privilege: A Lecture on the Problems of Oppression and Privilege in Our Society. Guest Speakers Peggy McIntosh, Marilyn Frye, and Allan G. Johnson.” She continued through the door and found her friend Ashley, giving her a brief hug before taking her seat, wondering why she had let Ashley talk her into coming to this lecture in the first place. Ashley was a Philosophy major and dedicated her life to knowing all about current issues and heavily debated topics. Justene on the other hand, was a Human Development and Family Studies major who was way
Reference Crenshaw et al (2013). Toward a Field of Intersectionality Studies: Theory, Applications, and Praxis. Chicago: The University of Chicago
As an economically disadvantaged, minority student who ventured out of a small, closed-minded town, I have developed a passion to serve the underserved. Throughout my life, I have been associated with and witnessed the consequences of being a minority. For example, with 1% of my high school identifying
With more events disputing over a child’s enrolment in taking social justice positions learned in school, it is hard for society to decide whether social justice should be apart of the curriculum. Cynthia Reynolds, author of Maclean’s article Why are schools brain washing our children, explores the topic of social justice in our education system.
Native Americans: A Marginalized Population Vicki Carter The University of Michigan-Flint Native Americans: A Marginalized Population Over the course of time in our country, many groups in our society have experienced being set apart from sustainable communities. Among them are the immigrants, the homeless, the African Americans, those with physical or mental disabilities and the Native Americans. According to McIntosh (1988), “Whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that we work to benefit others, this is seen as work which will allow ‘them’ to be more like ‘us’ “ (p. 1). Unquestionably, this was the case back in the nineteenth century when the “White” people thought it
The best lasting answer to food deserts may be to turn them green. We should promote a compacted walk able community that holds up local business and grocers in the low-income area. Having ready admission to inexpensive healthy food shouldn’t be an extravagance of the superior classes, it should be an essential structural mass of all city
Can you imagine not being able to access good quality, fresh food? That’s the struggle that the residents of Homewood, Pennsylvania, face every day. Homewood is a food desert, which is defined by google as “an urban area in which it is difficult to buy affordable or good-quality fresh food.”
Fixing food deserts is about more than just building grocery stores in low-income areas. There is much more that can be done in communities to build a strong food system. It is challenging, nearly impossible, to state the be intervention practices for food deserts. It is difficult to implement the same intervention in all communities, because no two communities are exactly the same. Nevertheless, interventions and policies of the past give other policy makers ideas for intervention in their own neighborhoods; an intervention built on the community’s
A Positive Change Hunger… this affects an estimate of 13 million children in America and about 795 million people worldwide. Hunger is a severe crisis that has been continuously growing in many homes throughout our community. Children and families in Laredo are suffering from this epidemic and it is important to spread awareness to end it. Personally, I believe that when you help one person, you are one step closer to changing the world. As a human being, it is our duty to recognize the struggles our community faces and help people from our community surpass these problems. A way I would help with humanitarian efforts in our community is by volunteering and sharing the stories of the people whose lives were affected. Around our city of Laredo, in the county of Webb, we have many people that would go hungry if not identified. Many of these people in our community do not qualify for social services due to the family’s being undocumented. It is the community’s responsibility to educate and find these people who might otherwise go hungry. It is a challenge where our border community needs to help and provide the basic needs for children and families in our area. I would like to work hand in hand with local foodbanks and begin to expand a community garden which would provide vegetables to people in need of food. If the community comes together to motivate our population to be aware of hunger in our community, we would all be better because of the help that we may provide
Last summer I volunteered at our local Planting Hope event. We distrituted food products from the Maryland Food Bank to people of lower-income in my local town. We also gave shoes and clothes to those who needed them. What I learned after this experience is the realism of poverty and hunger in our country and even my hometown. What may seem to be a prevalent idea for third-world countries far from our homeland, the reality is that poverty and hunger are located closer than we think. Over thirteen percent of Americans are food insecure which seems untrue, but in fact it is a reality that sometimes we ignore. Planting Hope has not only signalled this issue into me, but has allowed me to want to learn more about other issues and rising issues
Many of my life experiences have given me a glimpse of what it means to be in the margins of society. My family’s history of racism and poverty, my father’s physical disability, my experiences as a woman, and growing up in the diverse Bay Area with friends, mentors, coaches, and teachers from different backgrounds has opened my eyes to the disparities in society. When I was sixteen I had a particularly salient experience that awoke my heart and mind to the ideas of social justice. I was in Memphis, Tennessee for a basketball tournament and on our day off we went to the Civil Rights Museum, which was built around the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. We saw the counters from sit-ins, buses from the Freedom Ride, and learned about the systematic oppression of Jim Crow. I was confused by the hate and anger I saw but found myself clenching my fists with rage at the injustice of it all. Yet, what was even more powerful was sitting in the parking lot with my team and listening to our assistant coach, who was an African-American man, share his experiences of racism, how it shaped his identity, and his fears for his two sons. Our head coach then shared about her experiences as lesbian and the ways in which she was continually denied rights because of her sexual orientation.
Throughout the past couple of weeks, the readings revolved around oppression. These readings have talked about oppression as being pervasive, restrictive, hierarchical, intentional, unintentional, institutionalized, and so much more. These examples show us how oppression is taking over our society, and it is going to take a lot for it to finally disappear. One way that individuals believe oppression can start to deteriorate is through the process of social justice. The end game of social justice is to make sure there is equality for everyone present in our society today. Yet, we know that having social justice present is a process that will not happen overnight. By breaking down and analyzing oppression, it could help many individuals understand
Social Justice in its entire entity: The Final Countdown to Defining Social Justice Kaylie Ines ID 201: Social Justice Dr. Jorsch & Dr. Van Tassel Fear and cruelty are the weapons of animals, not humanity, and social injustices derive from fear-the masked ego of one who has sustained through power: white power. It is only fair to continue to talk about social injustice by defining what is social justice. Social justice embodies a framework (and certainly not limited to) a community, a united nation, equitable in standing together in belief and acceptance of diversity; equality; freedom; and equal opportunity to income and its privileges. Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States of America proclaims that "a house divided cannot stand." I believe President Lincoln is correct with his statement, if the "house" is not endowed in a universal cause and foundation, then the infrastructure is faulty and will collapse. Here is how this connects to social justice, if that same "house" is not socially just, separation will impel and will cause dilapidation within the foundation. This paper will implement foci on Michelle Alexander 's (The New Jim Crow) approach of the social issue of a "new Jim Crow" system of mass incarceration in a colorblind society, and Barbara Ehrenreich 's (Nickle and Dimed) notion to the social injustice that derives from a capitalistic driven society that undermines the working lower-class men and women. With the forth
Society has played a dominant role for the personal identity of an individual based on where they are from or the culture they were raised with in. With an individual’s identity, one may encounter struggles or challenges. Based on where a person is from or their physical appearance, they may experience discrimination or prejudices in various forms and circumstances. In order to understand the basis of social identity, it is important to understand how social identities are formed and what they are, what social justice is and the process and goal for it to be achieved, and what the different types of oppressions are and where they can occur within society. Accordingly, social identity is made up of various components that may or may not result
The notion of justice is existence of proper balance of rights and its access under the laws of land. It refers to not depriving any person from availing privileges, opportunities etc. John Rawls writes, "Each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override"It means that the interaction in a society must be free from any sort of discrimination such as religion, race, color, caste or sex. It ensures fair distribution of assets and equal opportunity. José P. Laurel defines Social Justice as “Social justice is neither communism, nor despotism, nor atomism, nor anarchy, but the humanization of laws and the equalization of social and economic forces by the state so that justice in its rational and objectively secular conception may at least be approximated.”