Importance of Challenging and Questioning Oppressive Structures in Society

Audre Lorde discusses the idea of silence and the way society encourages us to stay silent and “hide behind the mockeries of separation that have been imposed on us,” (Lorde). She says that especially…

Putting the Principles of Cultural Humility Into Practice

What?: In the book, “We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change” by Myles Horton and Paulo Freire, Myles and Paulo talk a lot about the relationship between practice, theory, and knowledge. Paulo…

Prompt Critical Reflection 4: Speaking Truth to Power: Challenging Social Myths

Cultural Humility

Freire and Horton explain the relationship between practice, theory, and knowledge in the simple concept that without practice there is no knowledge. Miles brings up the idea that “Practice in itself is not its theory. It creates knowledge but it is not its own theory”( Horton 98). This differs…

Critical Reflection Prompt 5: The Problem We Still Live With: Structural Racism

Cultural Humility and the Human Connection

In “Close Encounters of the Human Kind” by Abraham Verghese he discusses his experience volunteering as a physician for the Katrina refugees in San Antonio. He describes the various encounters he had with the individuals who needed medical attention, and…

Prompt for CR 3: Education for Freedom and Living Democratic Values

What? bell hooks speaks about…

Minority Groups and The Importance of Education For Democracy

What? In my understanding, Bell describes the relationship between social identity and power as something very big. I understand the means by the politics of domination and the struggle against the colonizing mindset as the struggle against the norms in our…

Structural Racism

What? Before listening to the podcast, watching the video, and reading the readings for this week, I honestly didn’t know that much about structural racism. Structural racism was something I had always heard about, but wasn’t an issue I could ever speak up on because I didn’t really understand…

Social Identity and Power

What?In reading bell hooks speak about the politics of domination and the struggle against the colonizing mindset, I understand and interpret those two things as a connected pair. Bell hooks described the politics of domination as “the impact of racism, sexism, class exploitation…