Posted on 04/22/2015 1:55:52 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
As a first year, I came into the University knowing I was passionate about social justice, but I did not necessarily have the vocabulary and resources to articulate my beliefs. I knew that there were practices in place that exploit marginalized people economically, but I did not know that the driving force behind this was called unregulated capitalism. I knew that there was a difference between the way half of my family lived versus the other half, but I did not know the driving force behind these differences was due to institutionalized racism. I knew that there were more than two genders, but I had never heard of the term gender binary until halfway through college. Being a very reflective student during college coupled with doing research on Tumblr, has helped me to learn, unlearn and relearn all things social justice. I feel confident in my ability to understand identities, power, privilege, space, race, oppression and how these concepts all relate to and complicate each other. I can have meaningful conversations about these issues with my friends, and we can bounce ideas back and forth over wine.
As a graduating senior, I feel as if I have turned into this little creature that passionately spits out academic terms in everyday language, sometimes without even realizing that younger people, people from back home or simply people who have not had access to the academic side of social justice, do not understand what I am saying. Somehow, social justice has turned into an elitist and inaccessible thing. Universities all over the country have de-colonial majors, safe spaces and cultural centers in order to challenge the white supremacist, heteronormative, patriarchal society we live in. All of these programs and centers came about in an effort to empower marginalized people but also to provide them with the spaces and resources that they may need to heal.
Despite this, these spaces are not readily available to the people who need them most, because they are typically underrepresented at universities. This is not even to mention the marginalized people who have the opportunity to go to college, but attend universities that do not have de-colonial resources. That does take away from the amazing things that these programs and centers do for the people who have access to them, but it proves these resources are not accessible. In order to have access to these de-colonial spaces, one must have some sort of privilege to get them into these spaces in the first place. This is directly upholding the hierarchies that have already been put into place by the white supremacist, heteronormative, patriarchal system that we are trying to deconstruct and transcend. We cannot fight to overcome these systems while simultaneously perpetuating oppression in the form of maintaining systems that remain inaccessible to the majority of marginalized people. In short, inaccessible social justice is a contradiction that we need to be highly critical of and avoid at all costs.
I've spent my whole life wondering what I wanted to do as a career. I knew that I wanted to work in a field related to social justice, but I did not know which avenue to take. In the past few months, I have felt an overwhelming need to make what I have learned here at the University more accessible to the communities who would benefit from it the most. There is no reason for racially marginalized groups to face microaggressions on a daily basis from their “friends,” or for trans folk to receive visibility but not support or the countless other ways in which marginalized people need to navigate their identities, at a young age with no guidance, in a society not meant for them.
Too many times, high schools do not have the resources available for their marginalized students to learn about themselves and their environment. There is a strong need for social justice spaces in high schools as these spaces play a major role in the formation of students. Bringing a social justice center to a high school would allow students to learn, unlearn and relearn at a much younger age. Furthermore, this would have the potential to reach a much larger population, many of whom may not make it to college to be able to receive these same services. This could aid in a decrease in suicides in marginalized communities, as well as an increase in confidence and understanding. Accessible social justice would be revolutionary because it would work to deconstruct established hierarchies by reaching the students who would normally fall through the cracks.
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Kenya O’Neill is a School of Arts and Sciences senior double majoring in planning and public policy and Latin and Hispanic Caribbean studies with a minor in Spanish. Her column “Cloudy with a Chance of Controversy,” runs on alternate Wednesdays.
Pansy
‘Social justice spaces’ sounds like the recreation area of prisons.
**double majoring in planning and public policy and Latin and Hispanic Caribbean studies with a minor in Spanish**
Fine degree for a budding community organizer!
” challenge the white supremacist, heteronormative, patriarchal society we live in.”
Little Kenya(love the name) certainly has a way with words.
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“As a graduating senior, I feel as if I have turned into this little creature that passionately spits out academic terms in everyday language, sometimes without even realizing that younger people, people from back home or simply people who have not had access to the academic side of social justice, do not understand what I am saying.”
Well, the author got it half right. She is a little creature that passionately spits out academic terms, but the reason that people do not understand her is because those terms are meaningless gobblygook that is specifically designed to mask the stupidity and distract from the unemployability of people who make their living grifting in the academic ethnic identity industry. It’s time for someone to point out that the emperor has no clothes. I am convinced that I could write a simple computer program capable of stringing together meaningless phrases like “white supremacist, heteronormative, patriarchal society”, “de-colonial spaces”, “commodification of black bodies”, etc., etc.
And for goddsakes, would someone please tell me why the State University of New Jersey grants degrees in “Latin and Hispanic Caribbean studies”? Are the taxpayers of New Jersey happy to be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars each year so that the Ms. O’Neill’s of the world will know how to turn the Starbucks’ they will end up managing into “de-colonial spaces”? How many engineers could New Jersey be training instead of pissing away tax money on this stuff?
Kenya O’Neill the author: “Universities all over the country have de-colonial majors, safe spaces and cultural centers in order to challenge the white supremacist, heteronormative, patriarchal society we live in.”
I guess Kenya is not from Ireland. Just a guess on my part but I think the “white supremacist (sic) comment gives it away.
What, no minor in Sub-Saharan Homoerotic Dance?
See photo at post #9.
I feel confident in my ability indoctrination to understand identities, power, privilege, space, race, oppression and how these concepts all relate to and complicate each other.
What the frack is a social justice space? Does no one under 35 in this Nation have a spine anymore? Must the Government hold their hand so they can get through the day? My God this is so unAmerican. Our great grandparents must be spinning in their graves!
She’ll be running for President.
Wow, guess I got taken in but just goes to show you cannot tell the book by the cover.
Great. Another bureaucrat in the making. Stupid people like this ALWAYS get government jobs so they can get revenge for perceived injustices they’ve suffered. Woe to anyone who has a run in with this woman.
Microagresson is macrowhining. There are whole segments of society, notably the Amish, who are full time whiners. Whine and decline. Praise and be raised. A positive attitude and outlook would do wonders for the “downtrodden” and “oppressed”.
In other words, unemployable except at the public trough.
“What the frack is a social justice space? “
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Probably what we used to refer to as the lounge.
This a young lady that is full of herself and just likes to hear herself talk.
She’ll grow up,eventually,when real life bites her in her a**.
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What the frack is a social justice space?
That’s not important right now.
Your attempts to define their cause is a threat and therefore must be silenced.
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