Unfinished Humanity
My social identity and that of others conditioned by larger social structures are very close-minded to the idea of being unfinished. Many social ideologies cause injustices in our society like ageism, racism, and etc. This idea doesn’t help our society because these standards give the population a certain blueprint on how they should live but it also limits their curiosity which blocks them from being aware of their unfinishedness. From my community partner and my census interview as well, that they believe their voices wouldn’t be heard due to the structure of racism in our community. The Canal especially is pushed to the side and disregarded when they are a community that needs attention and help from the government. Through my census interview, my interviewee thought that he couldn’t even do the Census because he is here illegally. They believe that their opinions cannot even be said out loud in fear of them not being accepted in our society. When in reality, as Freire said, “It’s the position of one who struggles to become the subject and maker of history and not simply a passive, disconnected object.” (p. 54). These people in this community who have experienced first hand the biases of our society and have opinions on it are the ones who can change history for us because they are aware of their opinions and lives being unfinished and there are still chances to change.
As mentioned before, the social ideologies that are set in our society already are blueprints for us to follow and only a few of us are able to let our curiosity flow. As Freire said, “A fruit that begins as knowledge and that with time is transformed into wisdom.” (p. 58) is the idea that our society should be set on. He talks about how everyone needs to be educated but the educators have to go in with a mindset of letting their student’s minds wander with curiosity. They have to let their students, the fruit, have the knowledge and basics to form their own idea and opinions from it and those opinions are their wisdom. This is what he suggests, but it does not happen that easily, for our society is still closeminded to these ideas and that is what makes these conditions caused by unjust structures and allows the census to have these hard to count communities. Our society does not allow everyone to have the ability to access education and even if it did, it let’s people think their opinions cannot be heard. They have your education planned out in a way that you are educated to only do these jobs or these outcomes but you can’t really use that education for your own fate that you decide. This idea allows societies to push these people without education or victims of racism, ageism, etc to have no voice, feel as if their lives are finished, and be hard to count because they are pushed out of society. We all bear an ethical responsibility to challenge these social norms and let our curiosity run like the child in the airport that Freir mentioned. As he said,
“Our being is with the world.” (p. 58).
We cannot put ourselves above others because we are all one world, no one can be pushed out and no one can be above the world. We are together and it’s up to us to fix it and the society’s implanted mindsets.
