Theories of Social Inequality, Understanding and Change
Being apart of the CYES major has been a long and winding journey. Tireless nights of figuring out how do I define a conceptual framework and working through my thesis, being the last in my cohort to get things done, being intensely challenged beyond imagination, sending love and light to my cohort family when they struggled and validating their strengths when they doubted themselves, spilling out my pain and processing out to my advisers, the constant feeling of support and affirmations, the honoring of who I am, and loving me when I didn’t know how to love myself… This is what CYES did for me. It wasn’t simply a major, it wasn’t just a project or research–it became my life’s work. I am forever thankful for this experience, especially how much love and support was poured into my evolvement as an individual not only within academia, but within this world.
I am unsure of where I would have been without being apart of CYES, and that’s being truthful. Being at Clark is overwhelming, in which I often found myself considering the option of dropping out due to finances and my mental health. My CYES created spaces for me to share these feelings… allowing a space of vulnerability and truths, in which this seemed so foreign to me. Spaces like those were banned within my own family and community, I needed to always remain strong and “resilient”, even within my own darkest of dark moments. Within those spaces created by my advisers and cohort, I could speak to these dark moments in ways I could never thought, and in return, be loved on, supported, and provided with resources that made my college experience easier.
CYES has taught me that in the work we do… that within this world… there’s need to be this constant reflection of who we are as individuals, our actions and others, and how do we collective evolve towards equity, solidarity, and liberation for all…
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Portfolio Piece #1 —Your Critical Theoretical Explanation of Social Inequality
As I reflect back more than a year ago, as a Junior, when I first wrote this piece, I had not thought of when I was personally introduced to social inequality and understanding it within my own world. What I find to be quite interesting in my own lived experiences, that while growing up, I did not fully recognize social inequality until high school. I existed in spaces where the norm for me was people that looked similar to me, and while the world deemed us as struggling in poverty, we found beauty and resiliency in this struggle.
As gentrification ran rampant in ‘Suitcase City’ and public housing contracts all of a sudden “ended” without much notice, evictions were placed on doors and families had to scramble to find housing. My parents never told me about the evictions, and while now that I reflect back to seeing parents with the notice, they never made it seem as if something bad was happening. Their news to me was “well baby, we gotta move, maybe this time to a big house!” I would excitedly pack all my stuff in the few bags I could find and excitedly wait for our move, while we would just move to another housing project nearby, I felt the homes getting bigger and more extravagant than the next. My imagination that blocked my young and innocent mind from the struggle that I was stuck within. This is the beauty.. This is the resiliency instilled within all urban black kids growing up. We imagine, we story tell for better tomorrows, and we create hopes for futures that we soon find out may not be our reality…
These hopes for myself, at such a young age, saw an older Nia at college (wow, how powerful it is for young Nia to see herself now?) I wanted to be lawyer or doctor, because I had a love for helping people.
“In order for the oppressed to be able to wage the struggle for their liberation, they must perceive the reality of oppression not as a closed world from which there is no exit, but as a limiting situation which they can transform.”
- Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (p. 49)
This hope young Nia had, well it came crashing down in high school. While I had been tracked pretty much throughout my whole schooling experience, which now reflecting and from my own gained critical knowledge of our world, can see the problematic issues around tracking students and the inequalities it creates, especially for students of color.
“…Have you considered trade school or maybe cosmetology school… you can still help people in these career like you want to? Plus, these won’t be too difficult for you to handle…”
This what my 9th grade guidance counselor told me, after I had petitioned to be in AP classes so I can get into better colleges. Before laying out college options and resources, she immediately made assumptions about me.
“Do you think your parents could even afford to put your through college, let alone the costs of getting into them with ACTs and SATs fees, oh also the college application fees? There are waivers, but I am unsure if I can get you any. I just think you need to look at options that are more suited to you…”
“How are you a guidance counselor? You should be guiding me to conquer my goals of college and my dream career…. I feel like you should really be pushing me, knowing my circumstances and assist me getting there… instead all you provide me with are options I do not want or have I asked for. You keep talking about how my circumstances, like where I am from and my family finances, is the reason why I shouldn’t shoot higher for these goals? How about be a guidance counselor that guides me above my circumstances and help me make my hopes a reality.”
That’s the last thing I said before walking out of my office.
I had definitely experienced the realities of social inequality way before this moment with my “guidance counselor”, but this was truly the moment I recognized it. I had a white-passing friend, named Alexa, who I grew up with in Suitcase city. She too, was a tracked student and kept in remedial classes. The day before my meeting with the guidance counselor, she was able to be granted into the AP U.S. History class that I too wanted to be in, especially because of my love for history. Yet, why is it when I request for the same exact education as Alexa, I received push back because “… it wouldn’t make sense for you to take AP classes if college may not be the best option for you…”
How amazing it is to be able to reflect on that moment, and to be able to have my younger 9th grade self see who I am today. For her to see the fruits of her labor, her fight throughout high school to make her dreams of college a reality, is quite magical. She is so proud of her now college self, who is still fighting…
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Portfolio Piece #2 — Theory of understanding the social world (identity and positionality)
This is piece I found to be quite compelling and super magical to reflect back on. Why do I say magical? It is quite amazing to be able to see the growth not only in my writing and critical thinking of the world and self, but also to see the overall evolvement of me. I would like to pick apart this particular piece I wrote over a year ago:
“Black woman. Baad woman. Wear your bigness on your chest like a badge cause you done earned it”
– Assata Shakur
This is the quote I shared in this piece, which still continues to be my one of my favorite quotes. It says so much, without really saying much. When I think of my identity and positionality within this world, this quote resonated with me. This is what stated the quote meant to me over a year ago:
“My personal favorite quote, as a proud Black woman. It took me a while to get to this point, where I feel whole, where I feel proud, and where I feel secured in my identity as a Black woman and my positionality within this world. I am a constant walking contradiction, where as much as my oppressors want me down, I rise and continue to do so with my community.”
Yup, this remains the same haha. I feel like my thoughts on myb identity and positionality while being in CYES, hasn’t changed much, if anything, I am reaffirmed of who I am and why I matter in this world. CYES has allowed me to dig deeper into what I call my “life’s work”, this work never ends to me, this is truly praxis. While I may add the last finishing touches to my portfolio pieces and thesis…my work is never done when these assignments are turned in. My life’s work, and being with CYES, confirmed and re-affirmed who I am as a person.
Instead of copying what exactly I wrote over a year ago for this piece, I decided to include the link to it. I believe there is no need to re-work this piece as much, because to me, this piece still holds true to who I am presently. I dived into so many parts of my life, the truths, the struggles and overcomings, and why I am the person I am today. This piece is actually hanging by my desk, It is a reminder of why I fight so hard… why fight in this world for not only for myself, but for this world to be better for those who are also fighting within it.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EcxOUI3iSodfVr0SxDqqNQeFluaFwgCCbqIiQaygP-g/edit?usp=sharing
The conclusion of that piece, still rings in my head and I find it quite magical to reflect on these words I typed over a year ago.
“Conclusion
As I am almost to my senior year, I am constant reflecting on my life and my purpose. As much as I find myself very involved in several spaces, I feel like I am only scratching on the surface to what my purpose is. I know my purpose and my future involves youth and the many ways can give back to them. I have a philosophy on life that: “much of what I am today I owe to someone else.” I am blessed beyond measure to be where I am at in life, despite how many odds that were stacked against me. I would love to share that with youth, and as cliché as this sounds, help them find and choose their own paths and success in life.”
I would be honest and say, that I am still finding my purpose. Day five of Kwanzaa, the principle is Nia, which means Purpose. “To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.” Last week, I had one of the greatest and well-needed conversations with my mother. I had share with her one of my darkest moments in life, in which I honestly thought about giving up with life. I became exhausted with the struggles…
She reminded me of the beauty of the struggles, and more importantly, what comes out of it. I will never forget what she said to me on that day, “yes baby, you are struggling… and before you were born, I too wanted to give up on this thing called life and then I found out I was having you the next day…when I wanted to give up because I was struggling so bad with your sister, you brought purpose into our lives and your family… and that’s why I called you ‘Nia’… don’t ever doubt why you are here, because you have purpose… you may not see it now, but trust me you will…”
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Portfolio Piece #3 Theory of change– how do we make change and how hard it is from experience
“Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.”
― Richard Shaull, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
“…Who can better understand the necessity of liberation? They will not gain this liberation by chance but through the praxis of their quest for it, through their recognition of the necessity to fight for it…”
– Paulo Freire
Change requires love. Support. Community. Solidarity.
Change creates equity and liberation from struggles of the world.
This semester I had the opportunity to be a part of one of my advisers, Jie, course ‘Literacy Across Curriculum’. This course had taught me that there is power and brilliance within my own discourse of growing up as a black girl in the hood, in which society deemed there is no power and brilliance from youth coming from those spaces. Instead, they need fixing and correcting. There is indeed power of knowledge. Growing up, I experienced racism, discrimination, ect– but I could not name them or had the knowledge to challenge. Higher education, while it has its issues, provided urban students of color with an addition discourse… new knowledge in naming and challenging issues that harm their communitie. With this new knowledge acquired, these students gain power. Add those two together, these student can enact change.
Being apart of CYES, added to my knowledge and power to make change within my life’s work and in the world that I didn’t quite imagine. My praxis project highlighted the ways I made changes in a problematic program, when I had not realized that I did. I took my knowledge and power into my thesis, that for me, the most beautiful part of the process has been able to see the fruits of my life’s labor that creates change for a small part of this world. I hope one day that my work can expand beyond this small part.
I will include a part of my previous work of this piece that to me, still holds true and something I express within my thesis:
When I think of social change I consider what does it mean to me, especially at its core. Does my type of social change have limitations, or does it over extend itself to the point that it becomes un-realistic? Do I prioritize certain spaces and/or communities due to my lived-experiences or because they are the most at “need”? I am constantly attempting to figure where I lie on this “area of oppression” spectrum. I feel fluid in some ways, that I could extend myself to be a “social-changer” for various communities that need me. Yet, as I really have examined my community/social change work, I find myself in this common narrative of only being active in communities that reflect me.
I was in Laurie Ross ‘Youth Work & Social Justice’ course last semester, and I think it home to me. Most of the work I do were in spaces and communities of color, “poor”, and more specifically, youth. I think I connect well with youth of color, because I see a lot of myself in them. I have this ability to connect with them on such a deeper level due to my lived experiences of growing up as them– youth of color, “poor”, and being exposed to violence and constant dysfunctional-ness at such an early age. Although our individual experiences are unique and different in various ways, yet they have all have some form of a shared commonality, in which allows for this deeper connection that many outsiders cannot accomplish.
This leads me to why I mention outsiders in the communities I work with. Most times, these outsiders align themselves as “allies” that feel working with communities of color is their way of enacting social change and benefiting the world. I do not wish to discredit the work of outsiders in these spaces, because they are as much as important as I am as an “insider”. These outsiders that I speak of, are commonly, white folks who find that their area of oppression is within urban communities of color. Being an outsider in these spaces require constant reflecting, checking, decolonizing of mind, and education.
This should also be a continuous process for even insider folks, like myself. Yes, there is an undeniable shared commonality I find within youth of color that seems to be a constant due my lived experiences—but there will always be times where I can feel a disconnect. I discussed this in my previous portfolio piece of identity, this feeling of superiority within my community of color. When you overcome risk factors in your life and become successful in various aspects of your life such as academically, gaining more knowledge, financially, etc.—you become “better than the rest, you’re too good for everybody..”. I can go into this deeper, but I do want to recognize that even as an insider of communities of color, more specifically youth—there is still some work that I must do to keep this shared connection and enact change.
My Area of Oppression
When I think of my own area of oppression that I am most interested in addressing, I feel perplexed in a way. I feel as though that I have come to understand my own lived oppression, found ways of resiliency, and feel that I can help others in their journey of navigating their own oppression. I have found ways to understand others lived experiences, specifically people of color, that I can feel this solidarity and shared commonality. I discussed this in my introduction, where I feel that most of my work is within communities that often reflect me. As I also discussed in my previous portfolio piece about identity, I feel as though my lived experiences, while rough and caused a lot of dysfunctional-ness in my development as young adult—it has also informed a lot of why I feel it is my duty to enact change within my communities of color. I feel like the “insider-ness” within me helps me to know what is needed in my community—less policing, agency within their community, less liquor stores, more community-building, sustainable practices through food, living, and more, etc.
But why I feel so connected to communities of color I feel deeply connected to my philosophy on life– “much of what I am today I owe to someone else.” I am blessed beyond measure to be where I am at in life, despite how many odds that were stacked against me. I would love to share that with youth, and as cliché as this sounds, help them find and choose their own paths and success in life meanwhile navigating their individual oppression. As I write this paper, I think I discovered that empowering youth is my future. My high education studies, my future career goals, my current college job and volunteer work all centers around understanding and empowering youth. Society deems that youth have no agency in our world, especially when they’re poor and of color. We see this lack of promoting agency especially within their educational spaces, where the education system has failed to empower youth and provide them with the useful tools to navigate their life, uniquely to them.
My theory of social change, is where I work with communities that I don’t limit myself to. That my love for change within communities isn’t limited by whether or not they reflect me and my lived experiences. I hope to always continuously heal and hope to heal others in this journey of our liberation in this world. Everyone, in my opinion, are shackled to some form of oppression that limits their interactions with others, this further blocks this form of healing for our world that is necessary. I hope to continue building and rebirthing the world we envision for ourselves- rooted in love and liberation. I hope to promote continuous healing within all communities I can work within. I hope to gather as much tools that I can to help others navigate the many systems of oppression that communities encounter
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Thank you CYES for loving me when I didn’t know how to love myself….