Explore your biases, micro aggressive behaviors towards others, and the barriers you have and foresee working with communities of cultural backgrounds other than your own. Distinguish between different types of communication styles you were taught (and the inferences held within) and how this helped you navigate the world.
This is part 1 of 4 of your paper.
Review Final Paper Guidelines
Examine your life through a critical social justice lens. This is meant to integrate your personal experiences with the framework of an intersectional narrative based in socialization, oppression, racism, and privilege. This is not meant to be an unanalyzed narrative of your life story or your opinions about the various groups you do or do not belong to. Please provide an analysis of what shapes your perspectives, values, expectations, and beliefs as a member of the various social groups you belong to.
When reflecting about the feelings you experience in your group memberships, consider the things you have to think about versus those you don’t have to think about. (i.e., feeling safe as a woman, feeling stressed over shopping and being targeted).
As each module progresses, you will explain how your group memberships shape and affect your life. Remember to think critically. Describe your cultural identity and share cultural elements that are relevant to your lived experience. Think about how key influences (such as family, friends, schools, communities, ideas, values, your culture(s) and /or the wider society) have been formative in your thinking about your memberships in the different groups. It may be helpful to focus your analysis on one or two key group memberships (for example, race and gender) or to select one identity in which you experience privilege and one in which you experience oppression (for example, a White woman). Explain what has led your personal understanding of your cultural context. Illustrate your response with real-world examples.
Guidelines
- You must be a member of the groups you are writing about.
- Consider the historical, institutional, ideological, and cultural dimensions of your group’s position in U.S society that also influence your understanding of each group (societal level).
- Name a minoritized group that you are a member of. What is the dominant group in relation to your group? What kind of feelings do you experience as a member of this group? In what ways is your group made visible or invisible? In what circumstances? How has oppression manifested in your life as a member of this group? In what ways does this group membership affect your daily lifestyle? How does membership in this group affect your understanding of and attitudes toward the dominant group?