Introduction to Social Justice
The first assignment we had in our social justice unit was the tracing hand assignment. This assignment showed me that, before we got deep into the unit, I had no clue about all of the social injustices in the world. On one of the fingers of our hand we had to list a social injustice in the world that we were passionate about. I didn't know what to put down so I just said bullying.
The second assignment kinda opened my mind, and I realized that there were way more injustices in the world, like racism. racism is a big one and Adam Falkner had a great poem about how his life was impacted by racism. Falkner is white, so he felt bad about it. What happened was, when Falkner was a kid he commited a crime and instead of him being arrested, a couple of black kids did. After that incident Falkner started to try acting as black as he can. Which I didnt really understand. He is a guy that is against racism, then why did he act "black"? He said he started living his life in a sort-of ghetto way. Making rap-mix-tapes, drank 40's, wore track suits, etc. What I don't get is why would he do that if he was against racism? Why didn't he act like a "Martin Luther Black" a really smart person, who really impacted society. Its because Falkner didn't have to think about his white-ness. He was so used to being white that he never had to think about how others treated him differently, or thought about him in a bad way. That's why he wanted to feel like he was one of them kids who was arrested for a crime they didn't commit. He wanted to feel the pain of black people. I'm not sure if he succeeded or not, but I'm pretty sure that was his intent. Falkner tried to act like a stereotypical black male. So that he could feel the way they do.