Social Justice Philosophy
Karina Solano SuarezSocial Justice is reappropriation. To reappropriate means to take something associated with being negative and make it positive. I learned that social justice takes the form of removing the negative connotations of what it means to be a part of the undocumented culture, what it means to be Mexican, and what it means to be a woman. I can overcome language barriers. I can represent my ethnicity in academic competitions. I can disprove gender stereotypes.
However, one cannot take something derogatory and make it positive without first being heedful and responsive. Assata Shakur, an activist, once said, “The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows.” If I was never aware that “49% of undocumented students will drop out of high school” compared to 11% native-born students, that the private prison’s “reliance on incarcerating undocumented immigrants” in order to increase profits is growing, or that women of color, in particular, “experience a wage gap at every education level”, then I might have been indifferent about these social injustices and not as willing to respond. If I had not learned about social injustices, then I would not know that my life experience is not the norm. Social Justice, I learned in my classes, is rejecting inequality as a norm in neighborhoods, schools, the workforce, and in the law. In school, I learned about Little Village rejecting environmental racism by shutting down the coal power plant, rejecting discrimination by protesting the turnaround of Social Justice High School by the network, the privatization of water, and the injustices faced by Nigerian communities due to petroleum companies, to name a few. I believe that to some degree, the negative connotations about your identity, such as being of low income or being a person of color, create expectations, and whether it is done consciously or subconsciously, there exists a tendency to fill similar expectations. I come from a family where my grandfather wanted so badly to become a teacher, my mother a businesswoman, and my father an economist. But the expectations were to keep working in farmlands for my grandfather and he has for his entire life. My mother’s low income growing up created the expectation that she would not finish school even though she was at the top of her class; the reality was that she did not attend college and instead married and had children. My father did not become an economist; instead he works only with his hands at a manufacturing factory although he is brilliant in mathematics. Seeing reappropriation unfold by people I identify with has been seeing more rungs being added to the ladder. This is what social justice is to me. It is seeing colleges accept low-income, undocumented students. It is hearing people with limited English proficiency speak up about oppression in their community. It is feeling an increasing support from my family in Mexico to continue school and get a career: something that is not the norm for a woman--much less, for anyone--from my hometown. Most of the social justice achievements have, nonetheless, come from having access to the tools one needs to be successful. For example, having access to a school that has access to a quality ELL program can help an undocumented immigrant learn English in order to be academically successful and gain admission to college and/or better advocate for their limited-English-proficient community. Although social justices are achieved by some groups of people, it is important to remember that this is not the case for most. For example, just because in the United States, the social justice of people being able to attend school exists, doesn’t mean that every woman in the world is able to attend school. It is my belief that we can change the fact that some groups attain social justice but most are left out of it by never overlooking or forgetting our oppressions or the oppressions of others, rejecting those injustices, and by reappropriating our identity. |
Mayra MorenoSocial Justice to me means that I, you, everyone deserves an equal opportunity to political, economic, and social rights in this society. As a young child I was aware of the disadvantages that people of color faced. For example, many Latinos face an everyday fear that they might be deported and have to leave their family that they have already established in the U.S. These past four years at Social Justice High School have opened my eyes to many other types of injustice and how we as a community can stop those injustices from occurring. I have learned in my science and history classes of the many forms of injustices that women face in the science field, forms of police brutality, environmental racism etc. During my years at Social Justice H.S I have also experienced the dedication and care that our staff has established in their teaching, and seen their passion in teaching a common core as well as incorporating issues that many other teachers don’t touch. In an ideal world many of us want to live in a community with harmony but many of the times social justice doesn’t occur due to the fact that many people are still stuck in a bubble and are blinded into a problem-free world. Many of us are taught into living a certain way and seeing particular people in a certain ways along with their beliefs, customs, and norms.
Gandhi once said “Be the change you want to see in the world.” In other words change begins within one’s own self. If we don’t begin to respect others who will? If we can’t accept each other’s individuality who will? I believe social justice is effective once a person loses themselves in the service to another person above of themselves. Creating social justice isn’t a process that is created in a day rather than a long period of time. We will continue to move forward as a community willing to fight for social justice for everyone once we as an individual can learn to love ourselves and in the process we will learn our passions and love every single person and learn to accept each other not as a color, number, social status, sex preference, etc but as a person. As of this moment I don’t really know what I want to do as a career choice but I do know that my career will consist in the service of others. As of right now I will continue to stand with those who are oppressed by society and as an individual I will teach others of my struggles and my people’s struggles. My topic is exploitation on human experimentation. Exploitation is the "use or utilization, especially for profitis". My topic is connected to social justice because people specifically of color, living in developing countries or from low-income backgrounds are used in an unmoral manner during an experiment. |
"Closing The Gap | Statistics on Undocumented Students." Closing The Gap | Statistics on Undocumented Students. Golden Door Scholars. Web. 12 Mar. 2015. <http://www.goldendoorscholars.org/infographic.html>.
Kirkham, Chris. "War On Undocumented Immigrants Threatens To Swell U.S. Prison Population." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 23 Aug. 2013. Web. 12 Mar. 2015. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/23/undocumented-immigrants-prison_n_3792187.htm>.
Equal Pay for Latinas." Nwlc.org. National Women's Law Center, 1 Oct. 2014. Web. 12 Mar. 2015. <http://www.nwlc.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/equal_pay_for_latinas.pdf>.
"How Pay Inequity Hurts Women of Color." Labor and Work. Center for American Progress, 9 Apr. 2013. Web. 12 Mar. 2015. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/report/2013/04/09/59731/how-pay-inequity-hurts-women-of-color/.
A quote from Mahatma Gandhi. (n.d) http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/24499-be-the-change-that-you-wish-to-see-in-the
Kirkham, Chris. "War On Undocumented Immigrants Threatens To Swell U.S. Prison Population." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 23 Aug. 2013. Web. 12 Mar. 2015. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/23/undocumented-immigrants-prison_n_3792187.htm>.
Equal Pay for Latinas." Nwlc.org. National Women's Law Center, 1 Oct. 2014. Web. 12 Mar. 2015. <http://www.nwlc.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/equal_pay_for_latinas.pdf>.
"How Pay Inequity Hurts Women of Color." Labor and Work. Center for American Progress, 9 Apr. 2013. Web. 12 Mar. 2015. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/report/2013/04/09/59731/how-pay-inequity-hurts-women-of-color/.
A quote from Mahatma Gandhi. (n.d) http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/24499-be-the-change-that-you-wish-to-see-in-the