An Ethical Being
My social identity and that of others is conditioned by larger social structures. Some larger social structures which play a big role in one’s social identity are family, religion, and social relationships. My social identity is defined by more or so, being family centered and norms in which I have grown up with. My family derives from Christianity which is a core part of my identity and my family’s identity as well.
Some social ideologies and structures which cause and perpetuate injustices includes growing up in a wealthy household, or with a family which is very politically involved and looks down upon people of another race or ethnic group, and it can even include religion. Growing up in a wealthy household can make a person believe or think that anything can be achieved with money or that everybody also has it easy/stable financial wise. With a wealthy home, people are most likely to attend top institutions or private schools making it discriminatory for other lower class students/people who are not able to afford attending great schools. Growing up in a family that is very politically oriented can affect a person making them see and believe everything everybody else in their family sees as well and blindfolding them on the experience of having one discover or believe things for themselves. “However, it’s essential to insist on it because, as unfinished beings, conscious of our unfinishedness, we are capable of options and decisions that may not be ethical” (57). This quote from Freire in Pedagogy of Freedom, reinforces what I mentioned before. Many times we are presented with situations and ideas that we do not see a certain way and people are constantly telling us what to do or how to do it in which we are not in full control of being conscious about what we are doing or the way we are doing it is completely ethical or not.
There are many things I have learned from the community partners and voices of people I have worked with this semester. I think something that I have learned which surprised me this semester is constantly seeing the students at Canal Alliance UP unmotivated to complete school work or be able to see them focus in their educational aspirations and diving deeper into some of the roots which cause these things to manifest themselves through these kids. Many of them, as I have mentioned before, have gone through traumatic events in their lives while being children of immigrant parents, being brought to a totally new country, culture, and environment, which impacts their internal and external well being as well as their psychological health. Through the Census interviews conducted through this class, I was able to get a bigger picture and insight with some of the voices of community members from Canal. It surprised me to hear the interviewee’s ideas and thoughts about what they thought is able to get done in order to motivate others to complete the census this upcoming year. Many of these people have brilliant and well thought out ideas on bettering the community which many do not get to listen to which would help out community services like Canal Alliance better their services. The participation in the census is important for these communities to receive more funding for schools and community organizations as well as housing. The Canal area inhabitants are also, always complaining about the parking space situation where they cannot find a parking spot for their cars due to the insane amount of people that live in one apartment because of the high amount of rent they need to pay. Completing the census would be able to help out in this situation by letting the county workers know that there are a lot of people living in this area of the county and that more parking spaces need to be made. Building more public schools for the children of all the people in this area, who most of the time are not able to have their kids attend schools nearby because they are completely full and have no more space, even if they live right next to the school, would benefit the community greatly. This also connects back to us and our humanization and acknowledging that there are lots of people who have it harder on them and completing the census and making ourselves be counted for, will eventually benefit the people around us as well as ourselves.
A larger context which I believe perpetuates structural injustice is by focusing on the negative effects social rules persistently generate for members of such groups, for example, by considering the amount of resources comparatively available to them, their access to offices and social positions, their opportunities for further development, and so on. This in turn points to the degree of power controlled by members of oppressed groups and to the use of such power to scrutinize, question, and amend dominant social rules which also ties back in with the census definition of being “hard-to-count”. I believe that we all bear an ethical responsibility to examine and challenge social ideologies and power dynamics and structures that perpetuate inequality and cause suffering.
Community engagement plus course texts, themes, ethical principles and methods have deepened my critical consciousness. A key component of critical consciousness is the ability to recognize inequality and injustice. I am able to put this into practice more often now that I have deepened more thought into it through this course work and will continue putting it into practice and making others aware of it too. I believe that when people understand the social, economic, and political forces threatening their communities, they’re more likely to engage in activities that challenge those forces. The ways in which I have benefited from community strengths and wisdom from “placing subjugated lives at the moral center,” is that it has made me more aware and a critical thinker. Paulo Freire writes, “What makes men and women ethical is their capacity to ‘spiritualize’ the world, to make it either beautiful or ugly. … It is impossible to humanely exist without assuming the right and the duty to opt, to decide, to struggle, to be political” (53). Working with the community like Canal Alliance has definitely created greater awareness of diversity and at the same time, given me insight into where I feel called to make my small contribution to the good of society.
