BY PROFESSOR STEIN
My free association around our class session leads me back to the many issues that appear, at first, as polarities: the aspirational self versus the self-in-progress, the pragmatic mission versus the ideological one, the “real self” (imagine those as exaggerated air quotes) versus the self we perform for others, the heroic rescuer versus the grassroots reformer. I prefer to think of them all as paradoxes rather than polarities, each side complementing the other. Complementarity refers to the fact that the world is realized in dual ways; everything has a visible and an invisible side. When we perceive red, we can’t perceive green. They are color complements. This doesn’t mean that one color stops existing when you see the other. The principle is most aptly illustrated in figure-ground illusions: here you see a vase, there two profiles meeting. It has been used to great effect in art, such as Dali’s famous painting of Abraham Lincoln. If you view the painting from afar, you see only the face of the former president. If observed up close, the painting details the death of Christ. You can never see both images at once, although they exist simultaneously and, in fact, are mutually constituted. Both skilled art and metaphor: without the lines and shapes and colors that make Christ, there is no Lincoln. In this course, we will keep prodding to ask what you are NOT seeing when you focus on something, what you are NOT thinking about or discussing when you choose a particular issue to highlight.
Our last session focused on the internship experience. I keep picturing all of you being dropped on your heads in the middle of these new cultures. For some, this is stranger in a strange land time. However-as Ruby and Roberto noted-for other Fellows, the faces of the clients or the problems the seminar is addressing are startlingly familiar. Your empathy gets drawn from the well of your own identification; you feel like you know what people are going through because you have been there, done that. When you do not have an immediate simpatico, it may be more difficult to find the right rhythm but easier to find a pinch of objectivity. You see something different than the first person, who is paying attention to how in sync they feel. But you also may miss subtle things that the more naturally attuned person picks up. Same thing with a disciplinary perspective. Professor Reitz is an English professor. Maybe she sees people as walking narratives. I favor psychology so everyone looks nuts to me.
Because we have asked you to reflect on the overlaps and divergences between your personal mission and those of your agency, please take this post to brainstorm how we might bring all of ourselves (and all of our selves) to bear on the internship and seminar experience. So far, in the short a time you have been at your agency and in the seminar, what are you seeing/hearing that you didn’t expect to see/hear? Are there any assumptions you didn’t know you were making (about yourself or others) that you are suddenly questioning? Through which particular lenses have you/we reflexively looked at social justice? What might we all be missing?
21 comments:
The painting of Abraham Lincoln was hard to grasp, because I can barely make out Abraham Lincoln from afar unless I use my imagination to fill in the details of his face. However, I do understand the message of the painting is supposed to be about what people focus on when there are multiple things occurring at the same time.
When I first began my internship with the Children's Centers, I thought it was just something normal and did not think too hard about it. When I remember Dr. Stein's comment about the centers being the children's first experience with the criminal justice system, I realized it was a lot more important to them than I could imagine. I heard about many different situations from the people who already work for the Children's Centers, but now I am only recently starting to understand the importance of it all. I always assumed that people who needed help would get help, but as I work on the referrals given to the parents, I can see that there are many complications that prevent people from getting the help they need. My job at the intern is to provide more information between all the centers, and I think that in this era of information, people need a lot of help with obtaining the information about how to get even more help. It is like social networking if a person were to meet somebody and then the initial acquaintance introduces others to the main person.
"I cannot stand when my kids read books, I throw them out the door." I assisted in one of my first support groups yesterday for HSI. (Just a recap: My agency helps former homeless and/or drug addicts along with mentally disabled whom are all HIV positive find apartments. We work closely with HASA, who we obtain our clients from).
Okay going back to my somewhat traumatizing support group meeting....one of the clients that was there for the group, we'll call her "Lisa," was very upset with her two sons who do nothing but 'read, read, read.' She told us that while they're in school she goes through their rooms and throws all their books out the front door. For me, it got personal at that point but there was nothing I could say, we're there to support her, not her children.
Psychologically, I knew why her sons buried themselves in books, their mother was an extreme former substance abuser, has eight children and equipped with a very forceful personality. They did it to disappear from the world they lived in and we're obviously still doing it..as Professor Stein quoted above, I had a very 'been there, done that attitude' towards this particular situation and knew exactly what her sons were going through.
I'm not going to lie, during the entire time 'Lisa' was talking, I wanted to get up and slap her. I realized it was taking all my energy to appear calm. Afterward it dawned on me that the general public, the politicians and the government assume that once the non-desirables find housing or have rehabilitated that it's the end of the 'problem'. People still need help, they still need support. They've been scarred from their past and need support for their future. I guess we all do in the end.
(In case anyone wanted to know the result of the support group with Lisa. She turned and asked me what she thought she should do with her 'out of control sons.' I compromised with her that to get them out of the house and socialize, she should start by taking them to a bookstore or library that has people in it to talk to and work her way from there)
Simon, your comment in class made an indelible impression on me. If I could manage it without embarrassing myself, I would literally get down to the eye level of a four year old just to see what it feels like to be caught in the vortex of smelly feet and bony knees and oversized pocketbooks that are, for that child, the family court system. (And then fast forward twenty years to see how this introduction to “help” has influenced your outlook.) It’s a new perspective.
Dani, you have foreshadowed something we will talk about in the seminar. What happens when instead of being perfect victims, grateful for our interventions, clients have objectionable personalities, habits, attitudes, and aromas? Or just hate our guts? How do we stay compassionate? Your client sounds like she would infuriate anyone. I wondered, hearing your story, whether the mother herself knew how to read. Has she ever been able to read to her kids? Has she ever had someone read to her? What might we be missing as a cause/solution for the problem?
When I first started at DVLEAP (Domestic Violence Legal Education and Advocacy Program) with Urban Resource Institute, Jenn White (my mentor), told me that my work would be to try and get the resources that each of our clients needed. This week as I sat down on the desk to enter data, I read each story and thought to myself, this is someone's everyday life. It occured to me that my job was to not only provide them with resources, but try to change the way they live.
As I observed Dali's work of art, I started to see that just as our vision from afar can see one thing, as we get closer we see something completely different. The same situation applies to what I do at the office every time I work there. Not only do I do my job from behind the scenes and far from the client, but in one way or another what I do brings me to see the change that is caused through the help I provide at a closer angle.
It took me a while to see it because I was thinking about how the experience would benefit me. Now I stand to look through another lense and ask myself: What difference are you willing to make and leave when you finish at LEAP?
The Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) serves as a bridge for individuals transitioning from prison to the "free" society. It is easy for anyone to see these individuals as simply criminals who have engaged in acts such as dealing drugs, robbery and theft, just to name a few. Some of these ex-convicts may be remorseful when considering the people they may have harmed as a result of their actions. But depending on which set of lenses you choose to use when viewing the CEO participants, one may possibly see these "black and brown faces" as victims themselves. Victims of a system that strategically administers opportunity, reward and punishment at a rate of great disproportion.
I have learned that by focusing on my interests and desires, I can sometimes simutaneously address my wants and needs. Growing up in an impovershed, underpriviledged environment has not only exposed me to, but also allowed me to recognize acts of injustice like racial profiling and job discrimination. To now be involved with a group of people whose goal is to provide services to the individuals who may be a product of social injustice has kind of brought me full circle. It's like I am working for myself!
On my first day interning at CEO, an employee approached me with a smile and we began to engage in a little small talk. She began to ask me questions like "Are you working?" "Where are you working?" It didn't take long for me to realize that this employee was under the assumption that I was a participant. I was curious to see how far our conversation could have gone with her under this assumption. Unfortunately, after about two minutes or so, another employee intervened and let it be known that I was interning at CEO. I came away from that brief encounter with two thoughts.
First, At one time or another, we all are probably guilty of making assumptions and preconceived notions of others based on race, attire and maybe even because of the enviornment we've met them.
Second, sharing things in common with some of the participants such as ethnicity and dress code, not to mention the similarity in neighborhoods that is ridden with poverty, drugs, crime and lack of education, may serve as a huge positive while interning at CEO. How I see it, through the pair of glasses I choose to wear, I can actually serve as an inspiration for many of the participants. I can pose as a model to some of how one can transform a personal state of hopelessness into a glimmer of hope. If I can then they can too!
By the end of the work day I was asking the same question whether 'Lisa' could read or not. I found out from her Case Manager she could but I think it's a very good assumption that she was probably never read to in her life. Like 98% of all the women clients in HSI, she didn't finish high school and had her first child by the age of 15 and was homeless by her 20's and in between 3 more children, she became HIV positive. She had a life that most people cannot survive.
Now that I've a couple days to mull over the events of Friday, I've had some revelations. She's subconsciously suffering a bit of resentment. In 2 weeks, we decided to do our first support group outing to Governors Island and she will be bringing 3 of her children including the 2 sons so I'm definitely looking forward to see how this family gets along. They've all had a very tough life, it'll be an interesting observation and lesson to see how they interact with each other.
I'm going out on a limb here but I think the cause/solution in situations with social justice, is the idea of just being humane to others. New York is a tough , unforgiving, busy city. A little humanity goes a long way here....had "lisa" had that, she might of had a chance at different opportunities.
Wow, I'm really blown away by the start to this week's blog. Thanks to Professor Stein for posing some rich, provocative questions and to Simon, Dani and Tim for providing such thoughtful (and well-written!) answers. I'm hesitant to answer as I don't want to step on anyone's toes, but I do want to congratulate you three for hitting the ground thinking. You all give excellent reasons why we emphasize point of view in the seminar, whether it is the perspective of a frightened child, a clueless co-worker or a threatened parent. We can't begin to understand the nature of the complicated problems we encounter without breaking it down to understand the perspectives of the different actors (or even observers, as Dani points out). I encourage all of you to use the journal as a place to note and explore these different, and often uncomfortable, perspectives as you come across them in your internships and lives from week to week. Thanks again for the comments -- really exceptional.
I'm not sure what it is tonight, but I'm in an emotional state, the perfect state, actually, to read what everyone has written so far. How I got here, to this state, I'm not sure. Maybe it was all the 9-11 coverage playing in the background of my day and my evening or the excerpt of the high school student's essay from the Bornstein reading:
"Theytay. That means 'grandfather' in my traditional Tewa language..."
Her phrase "He's my culture" really pierced into me. Maybe that was it since I had just put the reading down right before I came to check out the blog. Maybe it was the cumulative effect of the two things...
Whatever it was, feeling emotionally raw has left me vulnerable to the the full visceral impact of a lot of what's written here, especially Dani's two posts but also Timothy's, Simon's, and Cynthia's. Down there where they are, down in the details of real people's lives, and thus in the details of their own lives, there isn't a lot of room for lofty theorizing or social criticism. (By the way, I didn't say the details of "clients" lives because I hate the power dynamic it implies--the separation, the othering, the dehumanizing. I'm sure I'll slip at times, but I prefer to use something like "a person seeking assistance" or some such unwieldy term. I won't hold it against anyone else for using it, though! :)) But I was thinking about emotion--the gut reaction, as opposed to the intellectual calculation. And I was thinking about how much perspective determines these responses.
Being at Vera Main in a research department, I'm surrounded not with the particulars of human lives but rather with "data"--those particulars codified and "cleaned" and turned into numbers and averages and linear regressions and charts and graphs--and with literature that needs to be reviewed and with research questions that need to be operationalized. I sit on the 12th floor of the Woolworth building utterly removed from the emotionality involved in the work my fellow Fellows are doing. The Woolworth building is a tower, after all, and it's ivory. The view is different there.
In my emotional state, I feel a kindred spirit with the children whose mother throws away their books, with the woman who was probably never read to in her life. Notice how just changing the perspective in those two previous phrases changes everything? My first thought after reading what everyone had written was that I finally, fully understand what Professor Reitz has been harping on about with perspective. Of course, there's always more to learn. But to hear Dani go from talking about wanting to slap that mother to recognizing how difficult her life has been, well...What more do you need to know about the importance of perspective?
But it's interesting. I had been talking about perspective in terms of high/low, intellectual/emotional, research/service (there I go again with the dualities, Professor Stein!), but now I'm talking about it in terms of people. There are perspectives within perspectives. Even with Dali's painting, there isn't just close/far: get close enough and Jesus and Lincoln are both indiscernible; get far enough away and they disappear altogether.
I'll stop babbling now. I tend to do that when I'm feeling thoughtful, like I am tonight. But it will be interesting for me to figure out how to bring my values to bear on my work at Vera. Or maybe I won't be able to. I had assumed that I was better at the intellectual view, but now I'm not so sure. It must've been the 9-11 coverage.
I never knew why I cared about juvenile justice and what drove my motivation. After writing my mission statement, I realized the answer was simple. I was shocked it took that much reflection just to come to that realization. I cared for juveniles because I knew how easy it was to be influenced by our surroundings and how guidance could sometimes not be available. There is so much that is beyond their control, due to their age. Some are forced to be adults and engage in adult activities well beyond their time. I knew I could relate to those individuals, but often times the questions would lead to my connection with the criminal justice system. Although I have no personal interactions with the criminal justice system, I have experienced similar struggles and overcome significant hardship. Each case is completely different and must be evaluated differently, so I do not think the initial connection between clients would be a huge influence on my overall opinion.
So much of what I believe is true and what is “normal” seems to be guided by the society. I’m not sure if it is because I was in Taiwan for high school or because I’m not from New York, but I find myself not dwelling on certain issues. My lifestyle also comes into the discussion. This mentality has brought me to not be sensitive about the amount of time people need to cope with certain issues in order to move on.
At Esperanza, there are patterns to the issues facing juveniles. There are many problems that reoccur to the same types of people. I did not realize how they were treating those who have special needs. Hearing how the judge and the education system treated these children was shocking. It appears to me that they were punishing the children for being different and failed to realize the affects of their differences. I find myself feeling less willing to help someone who does not want my help and bring about much resistance. I need to understand that resistance is a part of the job and gaining trust and compromise can be rewarding.
There are two groups of people I would like to learn more from. The victims of crimes are one of them. It seems that they are just the “supporting role” in the criminal justice system, when in fact, they are the main characters. The victims seem to have less support and seldom receive any type of compensation for their loss. The other is the law enforcement and the perspective of the police. Maybe from a prosecutor whose duty is to protect the safety of the society? As a policy question, what are the goals and their ultimate mission? Are they achieving those goals with the methods they have to “stop” crime?
Ha, responding to the blog late at night has all sorts of consequences: for Robert, emotion, for me, carelessness. My apologies to Cynthia for leaving her out of the list of strong, early responses to the blog. Her work with the "people seeking assistance" (I can't wait until our week on language and Orwell!) provided such an important reminder about how we have to see where these folks are coming from and where they are now. And now great comments from Robert and Christine, as well. Keep up the good work everyone!
Language, language, language. When I moved from “patient” to “client” it felt like a sea change. Is shawty a prostitute or a sex worker? From ex-offender to “person formerly deprived of liberty” becomes a tongue twister and changing the label of someone whose has endured a situation of domestic violence from “victim” to “survivor” really obscures an important part of the story. Later in the semester we are going to read Nancy Mairs “On Being A Cripple”, a closer investigation of how politically correct language may obscure reality to the same degree that convenient but derogatory labels do. Robert, in a research setting, talks about how we reduce people to something even less human than a label: a data point. And yet, without doing that, maybe we cannot get the evidence that fuels the funding that provides the help we want to offer. Another paradox.
I echo Prof. Reitz’s comments about the richness of your blog posts. Timothy has already come face to face with the violence of assumptions. Cynthia discusses what it feels like to switch the focus from our need to succeed to a need to succeed on behalf of someone else. Christine’s mention of the victims of crime made me think of Susan Herman’s book “Parallel Justice” about how the legal system must juggle the perspectives of victim/perpetrator simultaneously. (Sometimes they are even same person, as Tim implied.)
Walking into Intake on my first day of work, it was a shocking, profound, and a never seen before experience to me. I personally had never been in serious problems with the criminal justice system, besides fines. Therefore, I never been exposed to this type of environment. The funny part is that I did not notice the funky smell when you just walk in until Richard Azzolino, my mentor, asked me if I smelled it. I obviously could not smell it due to the state of mind I was in.
To get back on track, while looking around in Intake, I noticed that most defendants, females and males, were either Black or Latino. As Professor Stein mentioned in class about an ex Vera Fellow saying the same thing, it made me think about it thoroughly. It did not stop there. Once I was sitting in the court listening to arraignments, the same picture came up. The defendants were Black or Latino and the judge, court officials, cops, and legal aid were mostly White.
Every time I think about this picture, a lot of questions come to mind. Questions: Does all of this go back to stereotypes? Are minorities the only ones to commit crime? Is the criminal justice acting unfair only against those who are poor, underrepresented, and disadvantaged? Another point of view (not related to the criminal justice system) that just came to my mind was would this explain or support the concept that minorities have a more difficult path to success than Whites do?
I believe that our criminal justice system does not only depend on the laws or regulations, but also on the morals and values the person with authority has when it comes to making a decision. I feel like no matter how much help is given to defendants to reform, society will always think of them as monsters when in reality we are all the same physically, just with different mindsets. With this said, I do not plan on giving up, but instead to study this field more and see where within the system it needs to get fixed. Like Professor Reitz said in class, if we visit the defendants in eir cell blocks, would it not be like going to the zoo to see the animals? The comparison is so true and straight to the point. To be honest, the answer would be YES.
My couple of days at NYCJA (New York City Criminal Justice Agency) has exposed me too a lot of different situations. All I want to say is, I am ready to embark on this journey and make the best out of it.
Salvatore Dali is one of my favorite artists and I’ve seen this painting many times before. The painting aims to portray more than one message, and I’m glad Professor Stein presented it because it is a reflection of my experience this past week at CASES. Professor Stein mentioned in an earlier post that some of us maybe able to relate to our clients because we have encountered experiences that are similar if not that same as our clients. But before I get to my point, I’m going to digress just a little. . .
Last semester when I attended the Vera event, I heard Chad’s anecdote that reflected on his experience at CASES. He mentioned how baffled he was to learn that living in America, where education is free to all, there were illiterate children living in New York City. That statement might not have sunk in too well until last week when I sat in my office and was eavesdropping on a conversation that one of the GED instructors was having with one of the participants in the program. The instructor told the participant that he was on 3rd grade reading level, and the program might not be suitable for him because a majority of the participants in the program were past a 3rd grade reading level. Hearing that statement alone, was only the start of my disappointment.
Later on in the day, my internship supervisor asked me if I would like to sit in on a focus group and take notes on participant’s responses on a set of questions. One of the questions asked were something along the lines of, “Are there any educational opportunities in your neighborhood? If so, how often do you attend them?” The room was filled with dead silence for about 60 seconds. I bit my inner cheeks to reassure myself that I wasn’t daydreaming. I couldn’t even begin to imagine that these participants did not have educational programs that can enhance their reading, writing, and critical thinking. When participants were asked why, a majority of them responded that there weren’t any educational opportunities in their neighborhoods, other than the schools that they previously attended before enrolling into CASES. I instantly felt an aching pain in my heart as if someone had hurt my feelings. It’s the kind of ache I feel when I think someone is treated unfairly. And there I was sitting in a room with young adults who were maybe 2 to 3 years younger than me that did not have the same educational resources I had growing up. I sat there trembling as I forced my hand to continue jotting down notes on the responses these participants mumbled simultaneously. With a heart full of resentment, I asked myself, “How could this be? Did I get a little more help with my reading and writing as a teenager because I lived in a predominately middle class neighborhood where educational opportunities were endless?” “How can there be so many educational programs in Astoria Queens and none in the South Bronx or Washington Heights?” This didn’t make sense to me at all. I was really angry, and I could feel my eyes clouding and feeling heavy.
My comments were too long to post at once, so here's the continuation. . .
Now, you all maybe wondering why this encounter had such a great impact on me, well, it reflects back to the painting. I was born in Bangladesh and raised by an illiterate mother because her parents preferred to educate her brothers over her because men were deemed the dominant gender in Bangladesh. My father, on the other hand, can speak 6 different languages and is very well educated. Growing up, I was always thankful for escaping a country that provided very little opportunities to women. However, sitting in on that focus group made me realize I did not escape a stratified country, I was obliviously still living in one. I was living in a country that provided more educational opportunities to those living in a higher income neighborhood than those living in a lower income neighborhood.
Tomorrow is another day at CASES and maybe there might not be as many educational opportunities for these participants in their neighborhoods, but I know I can make a difference in the lives of these brilliant young adults one Tuesday at a time despite the unfairness in the “equal opportunity” educational system. As Dali once said, “There are some days when I think I’m going to die from an overdose of satisfaction,” I just hope I have a dangerously close encounter when I see an improvement in my client’s reading and writing.
As Timothy and Dani pointed out people tend to not see certain things for what they are, but instead of seeing the truth and taking it at face value we to often let previous experiences form ideas which are to often wrong. As everyone in this class social justice has always been something important to me. Growing up in poverty myself, I was so embedded into volunteering for the
advancement of poor people everywhere. I volunteered to assist in sex education programs, food drives, mentoring sessions with young youths and many other
things. I began to realize that the people I were helping wouldn't look as thankful or caring about what I thought was being done for them.
While working for a non profit organization in Brooklyn named Vanguard Urban Improvement as a seasonal summer job. I was responsible for over 16 summer
youth job sites. My first summer working there I was all about the youth workers trying to help them gain invaluable work experience and make sure they could
get paid the right amount every pay cycle. The first two three weeks they loved me and I loved them equally. It felt worthwhile at the end of every two weeks say
that "that I'm responsible for over 300 summer youth participants pay. But around week four the participants began to suddenly changed on me. People began to
come to work late, and tell their supervisors anything to leave early. I began to think everyone began to take advantage so I began to be increasingly accurate as to
how many hours I was going to put in weekly for each participant. Things suddenly changed things were back to normal. Well Almost. There were still a few kids
from each site who simply could never come to work on time or sometimes wouldn't come all together. I began to call houses to see what was wrong with these
participants. Out of probably the 25 numbers I called that evening only 6 picked up their phones. I began to think that these kids were inadequate workers who
simply didn't want to work. The six promised to fix their habits and come to work on time. The other nineteen had to find ways to get into contact with them.
Out of the remaining 19, I ran into some of them in the streets, then it hit me that most of these kids were simply worse off.
While preparing those 19 kids paper work I realized they were simply worst off. Some of them were court involved and had many court appearances, homeless, living in a shelter, and many of them had no work experience. They also didn't have a role model who they observed leave their house at a set time every morning to go to work. Although I lived in a black community where poverty, drugs, and high unemployment were rampant. But I was still somewhat was oblivious to the fact that unemployment in certain communities were incredible difficult. Being blessed enough to grow up in a household with both parents who both had a regular nine to five I thought it was like that simply because a person wanted it to be. But with the constant volatility in this economy nothing is certain. Many adults are without a job in this country today and to often some youths don't know why their parents wake up and don't go anywhere. I feel like this may cause a cycle which could ultimately breeds poor work habit and more criticism from others who will not even try to see or find the answers. Sometimes no matter how much experience you may have in doing something, or simply feeling a certain way when observing that particular issue you still may miss the main point because it is hidden like Abraham Lincoln painting.
Although there is no relation to sports in the painting the idea of the hidden can certainly be exemplified in sports. While speaking to my eleven year old cousin Dario who is the star linebacker for his little league team said many things which left me baffled. As I waited to see another younger cousin played he automatically assumed that the other team players were talented simply from a certain "walk". Even though in life espicailly sports people have ideas how well someone can get a task accomplished from how confident that person is from the beginning. But when the game actually started that kid actually had a terrible game. Although his team won he dropped easy passes and even fumbled twice. His coach berated him and it eventually led to his teammates berating him as well, for some reason this all looked to common, my guess was that it happened often. I spoke to Dario about what he said earlier and he tried to end the conversation simply by laughing. Then I used his older brother as an example. HIs older brother Woody is 5'11 210 and moves as if he is sixty pounds lighter then he actually is. But if you ever meet him you would think hes a lovable giant, his stride resembles that of someone who is nervous and confused. But when he is on the football field a different side of him appears. Throughout the entire game saw him by himself nearly win the game by putting fear in his opponents hearts. As team captain and All- American honors even his coaches admit they didn't think he could be so productive because he "looked soft". As coaches who have won many championships even they misjudged and underrated their star player. What I am trying to say is that when we do misjudge and fail to see the main idea because we are used to look a certain way. It is how we recover from it. Its how we grow and the effort we make to avoid that from happening again.
Everyone's entries have definately topped what I was trying to say and maybe because I can't refer to my clients as others because their information must be confidential for their safety, but regardless of that, I really agree with Dani. Sometimes we do need to be human and not have a heart of rock just because its the workplace.
For us its out job, but for these victims it's the place where they can get part of their life back. Right after my philosophy class I came and sat down to read what everyone else had written and my mind just started to think of how these clients are just trying to get their essential rights back.
This might sounds like a whole other topic, but if we come to think of it, isn't that what the whole picture implies?
The social ent. job is too work in order to attend what society needs or in other words for society to have the ability to exercise their rights as individuals. Within each human right is the purpose to make our society a serve a better function in our world at least.Every person has the write to have a home, be free of harm, get a second chance to live regardless of their background, and get an oppurtunity to be employed in order to provide for him or herself.
Every agency has a different approach of going about to provide this person with that opputunity of reopening or opening the door to whatever their essential neccessity might be at the time or for that matter, in the long run.
Wow!!! If this is a taste of what's to come, I AM SOLD!! First I must say thank you to all of the fellows for writing such profound honest comments and sharing with all of us your experiences. I want to share an experience i had last thursday that really made me reflect on how i view others and social justice in general: I was challenged on my views after a comment i had made and it was as sure of an epiphony as they come. I assumed that by someones actions, it defined who they were as an individual and i made a very harsh judgement and shared it with a collegue. At the time i didnt realize what i was doing, i was fueled by this subtle but present anger for an answer as to why this individuals actions went unnoticed and then i was humbled by a very wise and experienced individual who said, ' You dont know his/her circumstances or situation. Perception sometimes isn't reality." I cant begin to express how ashamed i was with myself. This once very stubborn, seventeen yeard old mother and high school dropout was always on the other end of such criticisms and here i was; the perpetraitor of the never ending god forsaking cycle. Professor Stein said it best:"When we perceive red, we can't perceive green". So many ways to internalize what i now call the 'Stein Words of Wisdom'.How can it be possible to experience the exact if not more traumatizing experiences as another and then feel rage for the actions of those same experiences? Boy was this the revelation of all revelations. Prof. Stein asked what, if any, assumptions were there that we may not have been aware of that we are making of ourselves and/or others and i must say that i have become aware of both. I am a person that has always viewed myself as an empathetic individual and now i realize that i have been only to those that i can relate to. I dont really understand yet what this does to my overall thinking process as of yet, however, now that i am fully conscious of this it is something i will add to my evolution of life. 'Live life on life's terms'- that's another favorite quote. Some adapt more quickly than others and yet we call that 'the weak and the strong'- why is everything affiliated to hardship and unconventionality, labeled?
On another note;
Dani's comment of "lisa" and her rage against her sons who read to get away from thier present reality, resided in my mind and heart very strongly. I too was so enraged with Lisa's actions and way of thinking. As just another participent in the very naive notion of the wanting to save the world group, my only feelings were to hold and hug those boys and tell them that they are strong and will have the option to change things whwen they grow up, but that's not entirely true. If they survive the streets and the drugs and the poverty, their battle is still not done, they must then fight the corrupt mentality of those who are supposed to serve their constituents to the absolutely best of their abilities ( school counselers, D.O.E. teachers, social workers, ACS etc)and dont. I guess one day at a time isn't something that only A.A's should live by.
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