The Agency Agency

Agency is the personal ability to do something. I’m writing that for myself so I can go back to it. I also needed a way to start this massive thing. Farmer, quoting Sen, states that agency is the “capabilities of each person”. College, you’re on your own. Always depending on home life, whether you live at home or on campus, and how far away you are from home. Passing college is about finding your own motivation to go to class every day that you are paying for compared to high school where it was law to show up every day. Nursing, especially, has its hardships. I’ve had my ups and downs but at the end of the day, it is my own doing of whether I want to finish strong or just pass by barely under the radar. Agency is the capability of making your life the way you want it to go from your own motivation, to make your own connections, and overcoming any anxiety you have about the unknown big world. Human suffering has the longest history, before industrialization, economy development, or social structures. One has always been above another for whatever reason. Farmer states, “The world as we know it is becoming increasingly interconnected. A corollary of this fact is that extreme suffering — especially when on a grand scale as in genocide — is seldom divorced from the actions of the powerful” (42). African American’s are constantly the topic of discussion for human suffering. A history is at fault for the unequal opportunities provided for them compared to those in higher economic shape, who happen to be white, who also historically owned and “controlled” African American slaves. “The analysis must also be historically deep: not merely deep enough to remind us of events and decisions such as those that deprived Acephie’s parents of their land and founded the Haitian military, but deep enough to recall that modern day Haitians are the descendents of a people kidnapped from Africa in order to provide our forebears with sugar, coffee, and cotton” (43). I saw this video recently of a group of people getting DNA tests to see what ethnicity they are. One girl in particular states that she knows she is half Caribbean and half Nigerian. When her test came back, the researcher stated that 97% of her bloodline comes from West Africa. After explaining, the Caribbean, like Haiti, is made of immigrants originally from Africa. I never put much thought to it but now reading this, I realize that so many countries have been immigrated to because of our world’s history. More importantly, human suffering sparked those to run away and immigrate to surrounding countries to escape. Racial inequality will survive, even when we try so hard to fight it.

It’s easier to think the reason for this person’s actions is because of their so-called “culture”, rather than thinking of a bigger picture of the person’s background, home-life, and personality. It is not a culture to kill others, nor is it a culture to steal from stores. My point is that we cannot blame behavior on the person’s ethnicity. Ladson-Billings helped bring to our attention how easy it is for anyone to disregard the presenting situation and create assumptions in their mind about a person. Farmer states, “Social factors including gender, ethnicity (race), and socioeconomic status may each play a role in rendering individuals and groups vulnerable to extreme human suffering. But in most settings these factors by themselves have limited explanatory power” (42). We create a box around everything that is different or something that we don’t understand. Like in the podcast, it’s easy to not think of another reason for someone’s behavior. There was an idea created as for the reason as to why the students walk in the middle of the street. They do it not to be obnoxious, but to stay safe. There’s a reason for everything, we need to learn how to think outside of the box we put people. I enjoyed reading Stevenson’s piece, his work was so non-judgemental and selfless. That’s rare now a days. He saw a human being who was mistreated because of factors he had no part of and spoke up for him. “You are the first person I’ve met in over two years after coming to death row who is not another death row prisoner or a death row guard”. I think it was easier for Stevenson to relate to Henry because he grew up living in segregation, seeing inequality every day. He didn’t know what to do with his life, but he knew he wanted to help those who were more vulnerable than others and to take a stand against racial inequality. “One in every three black male babies born in the century is expected to be incarcerated”. There are so many statistics telling us how horrible our social system is, how racism is still around today, and how unfairly people are still treated today.

English learners and immigrants, in my opinion, face the hardest struggles of our judgmental and fast paced country. The students are learning English as they are put into classrooms to learn material like math and science in English. I can’t even imagine how hard that must be. I remember taking Spanish in elementary school and I struggled learning one language in the class based on that language. The teacher’s I don’t think give them the time of day needed. As many opportunities that are available, there aren’t enough to help students become motivated to go to after school programs and take extra time to really go over material they don’t have a grasp of. Teachers easily lose patience with the students that have gotten up for the seventh time to “go and get water” and keep calling out in class. They go to detention for their rude behavior, hopefully the teachers go over material in class during their time spent away from their friends rather than just make them sit. I made my own assumptions in my 7th grade second period science class. It seems to be filled with the most troublemakers in the whole school. Three teachers have quit, and the current teacher is an older man who has given up on his students. He tries every day to make connections with them, and make jokes. But the students disregard him, make fun of his white hair, and do anything to talk about whatever they want rather than rock formations. Which for a thirteen year old is pretty normal, I didn’t want to learn about rock formations either. Later I found out that 9 of the 21 students have IEP’s assigned because they have struggling and diagnosed emotional disabilities. That really shocked me; my mom is a teacher for moderate to severe mental and learning disabilities and they have IEP’s. I never even thought to think of their home life, or their possible obstacles like a learning disability as to why they act out in class. I was so quick to think how little they care and how disrespectful they are to the teacher. The students have much less opportunity than students whose first language is English.

Quotations I enjoyed:

“’I think those cuffs are on too tight. Can you loosen them, please? ’I told you: you need to leave. You don’t tell me to do my job’”

“You are the first person I’ve met in over two years after coming to death row who is not another death row prisoner or a death row guard”

“I didn’t expect him to be compassionate or generous. I had no right to expect anything from a condemned man on death row. Yet he gave me an astonishing measure of his humanity. In that moment, Henry altered something in my understanding of human potential, redemption, and hopefulness”

“Confederate flags were proudly displayed throughout the region, boldly and defiantly marker the cultural, social, and political landscape”