Marin City Counts! Banners created this semester by Dominican Community Engaged Arts class and Marin City youth to visualize the beauty, power, and pride of belonging in this marginalized community in Marin County.

Prompt Critical Reflection 10!!!!! Doing Ethics from the Margins

Consider what you have learned and how you have practiced these principles this semester (See fuller definitions of the principles pasted below). Please respond in whatever way will best serve your final paper. You can write as notes, include quotes and reference specific stories from community experience that you can cite and recount more fully in your final paper. You could later rearrange per the organizing structure in your paper and this could be a comprehensive outline to work from (You would be essentially responding to the prompt):

1. Placing subjugated lives and voices at the moral center: Illustrate how and what you have learned from community members and community partner staff this semester. Why is it crucial that the experiences and knowledge of marginalized people be valued? What have you learned about “belonging” (see john a powell’s definition below) Be sure to include the relationship to the 2020 Census and anything you learned from the interview you conducted.
2. Unraveling social ideologies: Note what texts (perhaps with one or two specific quotes) have helped you identify and/or better understand cultural myths and narratives that perpetuate unjust structures. Describe counter-narratives you learned through your proximity with community members this semester.
3. Examining power, privilege, and social domination: What texts, research, and community experiences have helped you create an informed analysis of

• your own positionality, and the importance of being critically conscious (not neutral)
• oppressive social structures, power dynamics that impact the community you are working with (and ultimately the well-being of this society)
• what it means to be Hard-to-Count and the importance of full participation in the 2020 Census

4. Identifying victimization and agency: ∫n a sense this principle combines principle 1,2,3 — note anything else you would like to add re: texts, research, community experience. What have you learned about agency, persistence, curiosity, life-long learning etc. despite from the community you worked with? How are people struggling to overcome unjust structures with the resources they have? What did you learn from the census interviews about victimization and/or agency?

5. Creating a Social Movement: What texts, research, community experiences have informed your understanding of ways to address unjust structures? Anyway that the 2020 Census can make a difference? What will you do with what you now know?

Belonging as a sense of being part of the “circle of human concern.” “Belonging connotes something fundamental about how groups are structurally positioned within society as well as how they are perceived and regarded. Inequality, if it keeps growing, can be more accurately described a expulsion.” (john a. powell)

Principles of Ethics from the Margins

1. Placing subjugated lives and voices at the moral center: “The goal is not to denigrate information that experts and professionals can provide but, rather , to gain knowledge that only those who have these embodied experiences can impart. Such knowledge gives crucial insights for more adequate responses, often correcting stereotypes and mistaken assumptions of sources deemed authoritative. The voices of the subjugated are usually not heard. Even when their stories are heard, if their stories contradict public understandings and ‘authoritative evidence,’ then often their perspectives and contributions are dismissed.” (Stivers, 10). (Aligns with SL Program Learning outcome: Value community voice and knowledge and Practice principles of community engagement and social responsibility)

2. Unraveling social ideologies: “a key aspect of ethical method is to identify and critique social ideologies and cultural myths that serve to support oppressive and discriminatory practices…We must not simply identify cultural myths and stereotypes but also show how these ideological constructions are actualized through institutional responses and particular practices.” (Stivers, 12) (Aligns with SL Program Learning outcome(s): Apply learning in social context and Critically reflect on root causes of systemic social issues)

3) Examining power, privilege, and social domination: “Our racial, gender, and class identities shape how we are perceived and treated in society, yet many people believe that denying the significance of such identity factors, especially race, brings neutrality, and therefore justice. . . All of us are socialized into ways of thinking about the world that we believe to be neutral but are in fact influenced by dominant social ideologies . . .Thus analysis of our individual and societal identities and worldviews for their oppressive elements is crucial if we are serious about justice.” (Stivers, 13) (Aligns with all SL Program Learning Outcomes)

4) Identifying victimization and agency: “We must reject approaches that focus only on oppression [as they can reinforce stereotypes and prejudice]. However the other extreme of focusing exclusively on the courageous response people have. .. can negate the victimization they face. We must take an integrated approach that does not overstate assertions of victimhood or of agency.” (Stivers, 16). Note victimization means seeing people only as victims of structural forces beyond their control. Agency is about people’s individual capacity to act.

5) Creating a social movement: “A social movement should… create public spaces for everyday people to participate in pluralistic dialogue about social values. A broad array of coalitions should be part of the dialogue and ensuing actions” (Stivers, 17). (Aligns with SL Program Learning outcome(s):Apply learning in social context and Critically reflect on root causes of systemic social

Steps in ethical decision-making and action:

1. Seeing clearly: Recognizing an ethical issue — is this decision or situation damaging to someone or to some group?
2. Analysis: What are the facts? (in the case of our class: Mission and related information from community partner org, Social, structural, power dynamics — who benefits, who is negatively impacted?
3. Formulate Actions and Consider Alternatives: Evaluate decision-making options per values and desired outcomes?What shared values, intentions guide the decision-making process? What are alternative values and related actions that should be considered?
4. Take action and critically reflect on the outcome to inform and learn for next steps issues)