Prisoner Reentry: Civil Death as Moral Exclusion

Hi everyone, thanks for a great class today! 

I hope Walter’s insights and personal experiences allowed you to further appreciate the issue of reentry within the broader framework of moral exclusion and scope of justice. I’d like for us to talk a little more about Opotow’s framework* as it's broadly applicable to many of the social justice issues we care about and grapple with. For this week’s blog I’d like for you to share how Opotow's framework applies to the population your agency serves. How are these individuals morally excluded, and what are some of the processes of exclusion? A few examples in the reading are: biased evaluation of groups, double standards and blaming the victim. Also, what are some strategies or solutions to counteract this exclusion? 

For instance, at my agency, the individuals served by the Pathways Project are deemed unworthy of public funding for their higher education needs because of their “criminal” status that further dehumanizes them. Many college-in-prison programs, like the one run by Walter, recruit volunteers for learning exchanges in prison, which has the effect of humanizing incarcerated individuals in the eyes of the public. 

Looking forward to reading your comments! 

*Click here for the link to the reading. 

Activism and the Right to Imagine the Future You Want

Hi Verons!

Social justice activist and visionary Eduardo Galeano died Monday (April 13) at age 74.

Galeano wrote: “…we have the right to imagine the future we want,” and urges his readers to exercise “the never-proclaimed right to dream.” He also offers 30 visions of a new world in the essay we sent you. In thinking about Galeano’s words in “The Right to Rave” and the activist exhibit—what people envisioned, what they dreamt, what future they imagined—use the following start of a paragraph and fill in the rest with your own ideas:

My own dream, my own vision for the future of the world is….

Hey everyone

The concept of Micro-aggressions is still a relatively new one in academia and like with many other research topics more data in regards to possible contexts of privilege and intersectionality needs to be collected.

To continue this discussion I'd to  post some questions to think about:
What are some connections between privilege, intersectionality, and micro-aggressions? Are there solid connections? Is it something vague? What are examples? Do micro-aggressions affect the aggressor? If yes, how? If not, why not? Lastly, what is the danger in being too hyper-aware or too vigilant of micro-aggressions?

I hope you all enjoyed the class and the discussion. Thank you everyone for your participation!!!
Have a great break!