A DJS Journey

This week I had the opportunity to join Dr. Galen Cicel’s Race and Ethnicity class to talk about microaggressions.   This was a fun opportunity that allowed me to get out of my office, meet a new group of students, and brush up on a topic that is profoundly present in everyday life.   Microaggressions as defined by Sue (2010) are “the brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, and environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial, gender, sexual-orientation, and religious slights and insults to the target person or group (5).”   They happen everywhere and anywhere (home, school, work the grocery store) are often unintentional and a reflection of our hidden biases.   Because they are “micro” it is easy for them to go unnoticed or questioned as significant.   Yet, they can hurt deeply particularly when they are compounded on top of each other.   In brushing up on the microaggressi...

Community guidelines, agreements, or tenants are used far and wide in social justice education settings.   Creating, stating, and agreeing upon community guidelines is typically at the top of the agendas of workshops, institutes, and new community meetings.   Lately I have noticed myself being disingenuous about the idea of establishing community standards over and over again.   What’s the point of spending time creating a list of agreements - ways in which we would like to hold each other accountable as a community, ways to create a community of learners and leaders, and ways to create a brave space that acknowledges conflict and difference exists and welcomes diverse perspectives and a range of learners – if too often we do not hold each other accountable for upholding them?   What I have notice is when time goes on, and communities have long since upheld and or revisited their commitments and guidelines, people begin side stepping around each other and issues, bl...

Last weekend I attend the ACPA Institute for Social Justice: Envisioning Vulnerability in Social Justice Education. The institute was packed with opportunities to participate in dialogue with those with similar salient identities and hear from awesome speakers who shared their social justice journeys, research, and perspectives about vulnerability. While at the institute my understanding of vulnerability became twisted and complex – particularly as a white female social justice educator. Here is the tension that I am currently sitting with: The need to lean into the discomfort of the work… Brene Brown’s TedTalk The Power of Vulnerability has been viewed by over 17,000 people and has found its way onto college campuses through leadership trainings and helping frame community development models and was a framework for ACPA ISJ. Brene suggests vulnerability is necessary and fundamental to building human connectedness and the ability to empathize, belong, and love.  I...