Critical Reflection #2
Freire and Horton explain how practice, theory, and knowledge share a relationship with each other in that, there is no knowledge without practice, but practice in itself does not create a theory. Theories create knowledge. Freire and Horton explain it in a way that all three coincide together like a triangle, each of them need each other for it to complete this trio. Freire and Horton talk about this in their dialogue saying, “But I also know that without practice theres no knowledge; at least it’s difficult to know without practice. We have to have a certain theoretical kind of practice in order to know also. But practice in itself is not its theory. It creates knowledge, but it is not its own theory” (Freire, Horton98). In this trio of understanding, Verghese was able to really get an understanding of how these patients came about. As he was volunteering, he saw many different types of individuals and he was able to see the hardships that they go through by their physical condition. Verghese explains a tattered man saying, “ A man in his 70’s with gray hair and beard came in looking fit and vigorous. One eye was milky white and sightless, but the glint in his good eye was enough for two. His worldly belongings were in a garbage bag.”
In the cultural humanities video, one of the specific event that helped create and implement the principles of cultural humanity was Nakia Dilliard brother who is autistic and innocent has spend two years of his life in a jail cell or what she says, “modern day slavery”. She believes that the judicial system is set in a way that treatment is more harsh towards African Americans in a high or low income state. This shows how unjust power in our system works. This could connect to Freire and Hortons text with the way that neutrality works. They go on about how neutrality can hurt individuals like Nakia’s brother. It is used as a way for them to overlook his innocence and just to look into the bias or policies that the judicial system has. Freire and Horton explain neutrality in the text saying, “It became very obvious to me there can be no such thing as neutrality. It’s a code word for existing system. It has nothing to do with anything but agreeing to what is and will always be…” (Freire, Horton102).
Verghese during his volunteering time was staying neutral. What I mean by that is he did say many hardships that happened during his shift, but as I was reading the story, he kept everything professional and did show empathy towards them, but did not offer to help any more. Verghese is practicing Life-long learning and critical self-reflection. What he is doing is trying to gain more knowledge of how individuals without proper health care go by for aide.
Some actions that I could take for my community to practice cultural humility is volunteering in the food bank at San Francisco to better understand how the homeless population survives without the basic necessities that they need. I feel that by doing this, it will allow me to better understand their perspective and also a self reflection moment for myself to stop and think about how grateful I am to be in a great position that I am. I have volunteered in the food bank before, and have talked to some of the homeless people. Some of them were army veterans or had degrees, but things got in the way and they are were they are now.
