Hello Class!
We were going to cover social justice in our class that was cancelled, so for this blog post please comment on what social justice means to you. Feel free to do a little research or write about your personal experience with any social justice issues. Once you have commented on social justice in broad terms, please reflect on how you fit into the social justice equation.
We know this assignment is a little abstract so please be creative with it!
Let us know if you have any questions.
Personally, I have heard to term “social justice” many times, but I have never truly had a good grasp of what it meant until this blog post. I assumed that it had something to do with providing fair opportunities to everyone in a society, but now I know that it reaches farther than that. Social justice can be defined as the practice providing each and every person with the same equal rights. Its focus is particularly on providing equal rights to citizens of different social classes and standings. The rights can range from economic rights to social rights or even to political rights. This is the more systematic, textbook definition.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most prevalent social justice issues that affects the United States today is equal access to health insurance in order to receive proper medical care. This issue stems from the vast economic gap in the U.S. between the wealthy and the poor. Because I am planning on pursuing a career as a pharmacist, the health insurance issue will be something that I will deal with every day. As a community member, or more specifically in this case, a healthcare provider, it will be my duty to offer any help I can to advance the social justice cause, especially where it pertains to healthcare. As a pharmacist, I will agree to help anyone who needs it, giving him/her the same opportunity and right because, as a human being, he/she deserves it.
Social justice has always seemed to me to be a very broad topic, and lots of different people use it in lots of different ways. I often hear people say that they are interested in social justice issues, or they want to be an advocate for social justice, and I most always ask for specifics, like where do their beliefs lie with the most commonly discussed issues in today’s world?
ReplyDeleteTimes are changing; more people are more accepting of others. Depending on the time period, what may be considered wrong at one point in time to most people, may been seen as not even thought about in a different time. This can relate to slavery, homosexuality, and other social issues. Although time is a large factor in social justice, I believe that there is a deeper level.
For me, social justice is that of which that is engrained in humans natural moral code. For example, it is not natural for a man to kill another man, therefore it is wrong, and should be wrong (or at least even murderers know that it is wrong) for justice to be served on such a crime. The severity of punishment changes from person to person, but the knowledge that all know that a certain act is wrong is what leads to justice for all.
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Social justice in general is a very broad topic for me. I think that one of the reasons why it is so broad for me is because my mom is a lawyer so even though it's not what a majority of lawyers focus on the justice part always correlated to me because lawyers strive for justice.
ReplyDeleteAs I've grown up social justice has meant different things for me. Growing up there was an emphasis on the Civil Rights because of my growing up in Birmingham where there were a lot of social justice issues. Now for me one of the largest social justice issues I relate to are LGBT rights. Social justice for me means fighting for the rights of those who do not have what I have the right to have. Which for me means pursuing marriage equality in America and making sure that people are not discriminated against based upon the people that they love be it same sex couples or male-female. When I look at my life later on, I want to be able to say that I pursued making sure that people were not discriminated against because of who they love.
Social Justice is about preserving and promoting equality among all people. I think that it is about making sure that everyone gets not only the basic human rights they deserve but also equal chances to succeed in society. It’s about standing up for those that are often marginalized and left without a voice.
ReplyDeleteMy first experiences with social justice were volunteer work through my church and through Girl Scouts when I was young. We worked with those in greatest need in the city of St. Louis like the homeless and victims of domestic violence. It was those experiences that opened my eyes to the issues in our society that social justice aims to correct. It saddened me to realize that so many people become stuck in cycles of poverty and abuse and aren’t given many opportunities to succeed. These experiences taught me that social justice was about helping people in need.
A couple of social justice issues that I have been exposed to are the right to access of quality education and women’s rights. In cities like St. Louis and Kansas City inner city schools are losing accreditation but students cannot afford to look for an alternative. The ability of all citizens to obtain a quality education is essential to building a better society. Every child deserves a fair shot at a future. And it hurts me that in this modern age women are still battling for equality. Equal pay, health coverage, and representation in government are among the rights women today are still fighting to achieve. Not to mention the worldwide epidemic of violence against women. For my part, a friend and I started the Jayhawk Women’s Organization which supports social justice for women. I hope to help support these and other issues of social justice.
The term social justice has many possible meanings including rights, diversity, equality, and various other things. I believe that the most important aspect of social justice is that life would be much easier if people were more accepting in general. To me, social justice means that everyone has the right to be proud of their own background and beliefs. It also means that no one else has the right to be judgmental toward another person because of their background and beliefs.
ReplyDeleteIn my experience, people encroach on the social justice of others no a daily basis without a second thought. People tend to pass judgments on others based solely on their background and beliefs without getting to know them first. However, by letting another person’s judgments bother you, you are allowing your social justice to be stripped away. In general, people need to learn to respect the social justice of others as well as protecting their own social justice.
Personally, it has always been my goal in life to help people. I intend to help people no matter what their background is, no matter what the situation is, and no matter what stage in life they are at. I am interested in health care because it does not discriminate. I hope to become a Pharmacist someday and it will be my job to help people no matter what.
For me, social justice is about helping people who cannot help themselves and making sure that everyone is given an equal chance at life. It is often used to categorize anything profession such as being a lawyer or some sort of advocate for a particular cause.
ReplyDeleteMy first personal experience with social justice occurred last summer. I was volunteering at a family services organization and there were many social workers working with seniors. Many of these seniors were very elderly with various stages of mental deterioration and it was up to the social workers to make sure they were taken care of and not taken advantage of. Unfortunately I heard a few stories about con men convincing these seniors to give them money because they pretended to be their grandchildren or pretending to be a member of the government and asking for money. Many of these seniors did not speak English as a first language and it was very easy to manipulate them. I saw how the lawyers in the charity were able to take some of these con men to court and return money or property to the seniors. Although I was proud of the work being accomplished it made me sad to live in a world where some people are so greedy that they will truly hurt anyone to get money. I hope that by volunteering I will be able to inspire someone to stand up for what is right and not just take the easy way out of a situation.
-Rebecca Howard
I think in my own opinion, social justice is people have the same rights and all the humans are equal. No matter what nationalities they are and what race they are, everybody is the same. Also, I think social justice is using justice as the concept and combined it with laws to make sure that even people share different cultures and have different races, they would still being treat the same as others. As a international student, I think it is a little bit difficult for international students study in the US sometimes. Sometimes American people have racial discriminations and they do not like people from other countries. I have heard several of my friends had these kinds of experiences before. US have laws about racial discriminations which help a lot immigrants from other countries to protect their rights.
ReplyDeleteLike others said, women's right is another social justice issue. There are women still could not have equal rights as men does in some countries. They cannot go to schools, cannot drive cars, and cannot work. Also, health insurance is one of social justice issues. In some countries, farmers cannot have health insurance and they have to pay hospitalization expenses and medicines.
Social justice is a board term. It creates the idea of social groups interacting with each other and the all encompassing relations between those social groups. Currently, the world we are living in does not have perfect social justice. Not everyone is equal, and there is an imbalance between social groups.
ReplyDeleteThe LGBT world is just beginning to get it's own legs in the political world, and there have been great strides to getting social justice for this group. Gay marriage is being legalized all over the place, and I think it's just a matter of time before it's legal everywhere, and people will look back to this with much the same mindset as they did to the civil rights movement.
However, the big difference between the gay rights movement, and the civil rights movement is money. I know, it sounds ridiculous. But gay people have a ridiculously high amount of spending power (no children, they often spend liberally), so not only do advertisers market towards them making them more socially acceptable, but they have means of purchasing political power. The gay lobbying groups are getting more powerful as time passes, and I think it's only a matter of time before social justice is reached for this group.
Social justice is equality among different groups.I think that it is the belief that everyone of different class, race, gender, sexual orientation and religion is given equal treatment. Social justice has increased dramatically in the last 80 years. The sixties were a time were there was a lot of strives for social justice for both women rights and African Americans. Though there was many positive strides in the recent past, it is still a long road away from reaching a utopian level of equality that would be true social justice. Social justice is still a pressing issue which are represented by the occupy wall street movement and the gay rights movement.
ReplyDeleteMy personal place with social justice began with watching Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech when I was in kindergarten. I also remember hearing stories from my mom about how she participated in women's rights protests in the 60s at her college. I believe that this trip to Detroit would be a chance to participate in social justice. I would be working at a guidance center which would help with the mental health of less fortunate people. This provides a service that would not be freely available to them, services like this etch ever closer to the ideal social justice.
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ReplyDeleteI honestly didn't know much about social justice or what it meant before coming to KU. This semester, I am taking Marta's social justice literature class and I have learned so much about what social justice is and who it affects. In an oversimplified definition, social justice is the equality of opportunity for all people. One of the most important points about social justice, in my opinion, is that it is not necessarily the same thing as legal justice. It is not hard to look at history and see that the laws mandated by the government are not always just. The most obvious example of this is slavery.
ReplyDeleteIn this class we have read works concerning various social injustices including The Jungle (on labor laws in the early 1900’s,) The Devil’s Highway (on immigration,) and Under the Feet of Jesus (on migrant worker conditions.) These works, along with countless others (perhaps one of the most famous being Uncle Tom’s Cabin) provide insight into social injustices against many subsets of people throughout time. While novels and testimonio are great ways to spread the word of social injustice, there are other outlets—perhaps the best being media. The reason I mention raising awareness of social justice is because that is the only way conditions will ever improve.
I fit into the social justice equation as someone who thinks no one should be denied their basic human rights for any reason; I am also willing to fight for that cause. I believe that our country was founded to ensure equal opportunity for all people (note: not equal outcome.) The Declaration of Independence says “all men are created equal,” and that is a statement I take very seriously. As a volunteer with KU Alternative Breaks, I think it is important not to look down on the people we are interacting with for their position, but rather to look for ways to improve the system by minimizing the inequality of rights. For my trip in particular (826 Chicago) we should be careful not to judge inner-city kids who need help with reading and writing, but find out how the system failed them and do what we can to make it better.
Food For Thought
ReplyDeleteIf we are to make any kind of impact on the social justice issues we face today then we must get to the roots of the problems. By that I literally mean roots. By creating a strong base in the food industry we can fuel the change we hope to see in all areas.
• Fair Trade And Economy: If an independent farmer is given a fair price for his (or her) goods then they would have the funds to invest in their land which grows not only produce but their local economy as well.
• Health: If we consume food that is organically grown and not over processed then we might see a decrease in the health issues associated with poor diet such as diabetes and heart disease.
• Slavery and Immigration: In being responsible consumers and become educated on how our food is really being grown and by whom then we can see change in the lives of many who are being mistreated in the food industry. Right now there is slavery in the US in the same farms that grow the produce we consume every day. The farmers recruit workers from Mexico and Guatemala with the hollow promise of a better life.
As documented by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), the immigrant workers were beaten and physically threatened for attempting to escape.[5] At times, the farm owners even chained the workers inside a box truck to keep them from escaping.[6] To further ensure that the workers would not leave, the employers held the workers’ visas and passports.[5,6]
U.S. attorney Doug Molloy called the conditions: “Slavery, plain and simple."[5]
• Environmental: Simply in buying meat responsibly we could reduce the environmental impact of our food industry. Factory Farms are one of the top contributors to global pollution of water, land and air.
One organization that has taken this food first approach in looking at these social issues and many more is The Food Empowerment Project.They have made it very easy to get involved with all of these issues through their site. Anyone can volunteer or donate. Their website is http://www.foodispower.org/index.php
Even if not a single penny is raised or hand lifted simply by thinking before you eat you can make a difference.
When I think of social justice I think of the idea and the fight for equal rights for all people despite race, religion, income/class, age, gender, sexual orientation, or anything else that separates one person from another. I think social justice is an opposite of discrimination and a desire to treat everyone the same and provide equal opportunities to all.
ReplyDeleteFor my current job in the Department of Student Housing I went through many training sessions on social justice and diversity where I have opened my eyes to just how common injustice and maltreatment really is. People in my training sessions were of all different backgrounds and many had experienced discrimination, in subtle and obvious ways. One guy in my training session stated that people often told him he is the “whitest black guy they’ve ever met.” He said he laughed it off at the time but really he felt offended. I feel like this comment is a strong example of how one group of people can so easily belittle another. I feel like it is all of these little comments and actions that keep building and building that cause society to be unjust towards people. When this injustice of individuals and groups keeps occurring, it gives others that this type of treatment is the norm of society. When I think social justice I think of people who are willing to speak out for what is right, even if it means they will also receive a great deal of criticism.
I feel like I fit into the social justice equation by being someone who cares about others and is willing to get others to also feel this way. I feel like I fit in by being someone who knows friends and family who have been treated poorly and deprived of human rights. I fit into the equation because I am someone who will help those around me achieve a just society in which no one feels discriminated against. I am not someone who will stand back and watch unjust actions take place.
To me, social justice means people in different classes in a society have the same rights and equal opportunities. “All men are created equal” was quoted on the Declaration of Rights of the Inhabitants of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which states the equalization between people in this nation. We all try to believe that we are living a just world. However, there are many obstacles in front of us, which to stop us from achieving the social justice.
ReplyDeleteOne of the obstacles is privilege. The most people in the society that were privileged are not realized they were privileged. For example, school has the winter break during the charismas month, so that people who believe in Christianity could practice their religion and celebrate the holy day. However, people hold other religions do not have the benefit of having day off to practice their religion. I did not think about the religion privilege issue until it brought up during our meeting in last week. I used to think our winter break supposed to during that specific time period; it just the way it is. I did not link the timing with the religion practice. I believe there are many more people just like me who used to the social rules without realizing the privileged parties behind the social pheromone. I think people should be aware of the privileges within this society. We could fix them only if we aware of them.