This past Wednesday students gathered in the Union to learn the basics of social justice. The Service Leadership and Community Engagement (SLCE) group invited the Creative Strategies for Change (CSC) organization to campus to host this beginner level workshop about social justice.
“We don’t come in as experts,” said Rachel Sharp, one of the leaders of the workshop. “When we’re talking about social justice you never really become an expert.”
Approximately 20 students and professors attended the event to learn the very basics of social justice in society. The workshop began with a breathing exercise to slow the breath and a ritual to appreciate the fact that everyone could come together for the event.
Participants were guided into a discussion of what they considered social justice to be and how culture is tied to it.
“To be human is to have culture,” said Franklin Cruz a member of CSC and leader for the workshop. “If you tried to detach yourself from culture you’d just stop being human basically.”
People within the group were asked to reflect back on what might be apart of deep culture for them. People responded with attitudes, physical traits that are valued and judgments that occur within certain cultures.
“If you struggle to identify what kind of culture you might be apart of, chances are really high that’s the dominant culture in whatever location you’re at.” said Cruz.
Next participants were shown a 4-point framework that CSC uses to discuss the varying aspects of social justice. These include learning how place matters, identity matters, the fact that oppression does exist and how communities can come together to take informed action. Workshop leaders encouraged people to keep these points in mind during other exercises and activities.
People broke into small groups to look at social labels and how people either benefit or are oppressed by certain systems.
“For example, if you’re a woman you might say that you’re oppressed by systems,” said April Axé Charmaine, one of the leaders for the workshop. “But if society labels you as male, you can benefit from these systems.” On handouts that participants received there were categories to fill in how society would label them included ethnicity, religion, class, age and national origin.
One of the more physical aspects of the evening was an exercise pulled from the Theatre of the Oppressed developed by Brazilian artist and activist Augusto Boal. Two volunteers were asked to be “hypnotized” and follow the hand movements of one person in the center. Additionally another four volunteers followed the hands of the two volunteers.
“Place matters. The person in the middle has the most control, they don’t have to follow anyone,” said a participant in response to observing the exercise.
“Think of the people in the middle s people who benefit from societal labels and systems,” said Cruz. “Then you have people in the middle who may not benefit directly or be directly oppressed by the system. Then the people on the very outside are the people who are oppressed. They struggle to keep up with something that is easy for the person in the very center, benefitting.”
To wrap up the workshop Cruz, Sharp and Charmaine presented the 4-point frameworks for looking at oppression and liberation. The oppression framework starts at the ideological level, moving down to institutional, interpersonal and internalized levels. The liberation framework is the reverse of the oppression framework, showing that liberation begins with one person and moves outward into interpersonal liberation, institutional liberation and finally touching the ideological level.
Cruz, Charmaine and Sharp hoped that people would take away some more knowledge about social justice. To end the workshop participants got to identify one thing they would work on to further social justice.
“There is oppression and judgment all around us,” said Sharp. “The only way to move beyond that is to learn and ask questions.”
