May 2, 2012 Final Blog

Awwww, my last blog for Social Justice. Very bittersweet. It's nice to know I won't have homework every week now, but i'll miss the awesome discussions we've had in class. This semester has been such a great experience, despite all the stuff that happened to me. I'm just thankful I was able to return to school after my car accident in February. It could have been a lot worse.. So yeah, i'm glad I got to know everyone so well and I really enjoyed all of our class discussions. This class was a great learning and bonding experience for me. I'm sure it's the same for everyone else as well.

The presentations this week were awesome. I really did enjoy the non-traditional students' presentation. The video was so powerful! I also enjoyed the elderly presentation because I could relate with my previous experience working with that population. Everyone did so good with their projects and it was really cool to see what we all came up with.

Thanks everyone for an awesome class! I'll see you all next semester. Have a great summer and be safe! And thank you Dr. G for everything this semester. I'm glad I got to have you as a social justice professor. I really enjoyed your class.





   for now :)

April 25, 2012 Presentations this week

This week i've really enjoyed listening to everyone's presentations. I feel like we all had great visions and intentions that will make us great future social workers. The project was an awesome, fun experience for me despite all of the struggles, frustrations, and detours.

I enjoyed reflecting on my groups progress. We took a long journey through our project to get to the point that we ended up at. Even though we didn't quite gain what we expected, I still think that everything we did accomplish was worthwhile. My favorite part of this experience was when we actually went inside the Capitol. I was impressed at how beautiful it is inside there and it was really cool. I've lived up here for three years and never even thought about going inside until the project. Our struggles and change of ideas led me to a great experience that I think every person in the Austin area should experience in their lifetime. It was also pretty cool that I got to share that moment with fellow classmates that I would normally never see outside of classes. We had a great time, but at the same time we learned alot.

I also enjoyed the other presentations this week as well. I got to learn things, such as facts and stats, about the homeless and educational disparities that I didn't know before. Of course I was aware that there were problems within these communities but I didn't understand the full extent of them. I thought everyone came up with great action plans and events, as well. The food drive for the homeless is a wonderful idea and truely helps the homeless community. I also liked the idea for the Suena event because like Catalina said, kids always feel more special when something like UT is involved. I didn't ever get that opportunity when I was in school, but I know I defnitely would have enjoyed to. I thought it was also pretty cool how alot of the other groups found ways to incorporate their project into the Afterwork Activism group. It showed how well social workers can network with each other.

Great job everyone who presented so far!

April 18, 2012 Ageism

I felt like this image spoke a thousand words on the topic of Ageism.

In class discussion today we got to hear lots of different perspectives that I found interesting. Like ableism, I feel like ageism isn't talked about too much or aware to people as much as things like racism and such. While the image of the older woman above is representative of ageism, it is also not the only type of person that is affected.

Young people are also affected by ageism. Just because some people are young in age, they can be assumed to be naive, inexperienced, dumb, etc. I feel like young people are even oppressed within the term ageism because people automatically assume that ageism is only about elderly. It fails to recognize the problems that young people have to face as well. When I was looking for images on ageism the only ones that I could find when I searched "ageism" were about elderly. I had to type a different phrase to find images about youth and ageism.

For both young and older people, ageism can negatviely affect people in many ways. For example, they could possibly be discriminated against when applying for jobs and leadership positions. Young peoples' ideas could be ignored and older people can be assumed to be incompetent, due to age. One thing that I thought about was how young people can be taken advantage of by older adults in a sexual manner because they assume that younger people aren't able to be in charge of themselves and their bodies. They may feel as if they can intimidate young people because of their older age.

Age can leave people very vulnerable in many aspects of their lives.  I think the most important thing for everyone to do to stop ageism is to learn not to assume things. That intersects with other things, such as ableism. It's not right to assume that they are less capable of things because they have a disability or because of age.

April 12, 2012

This is an example of ableist language.

I must admit that I am guilty of taking my abilities for granted. I hardly ever think of ableism because i'm not affected by it. I wouldn't be surprised if there were tons of other people who do the same. Ableism isn't as known as other injustices such as racism, sexism, etc. People who aren't disabled probably don't take the time to be aware and sensitive of ableism issues, unless someone close to them are disabled.

It's sad because many times ableism forces people to leave schools, lose jobs, or limit social lives because they are unable to perform the skills that are necesary to live in the "normal world." People discriminate consciously and unconsciously based on what they see. For example, people with visible disabilities, such as wheelchairs, will be less likely to get hired based on the assumption that they will need extra help or have less skills than others. I'm even guilty of feeling sorry for someone that I see with a visible disability.

Ableism should be an issue that should have more awareness. I don't think people are aware of it enough to make a change.

This image speaks volumes. People should be aware of the fact that these people are just like us. They don't need our sympathy. They need our support.




Here's a positive image for the week that I found:

And here's a social injustice image:

That's messed up...

April 4, 2012 Transgender

I googled "transgender" to see what I could find because this class sparked an interest during discussion. I found the American Psychological Association (APA) website and it was titled, "Answers to your questions on Transgender people, gender identity, and gender expression." The very beginning stated this:
"

What does transgender mean?

Transgender is an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression, or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth. Gender identity refers to a person’s internal sense of being male, female, or something else; gender expression refers to the way a person communicates gender identity to others through behavior, clothing, hairstyles, voice, or body characteristics. “Trans” is sometimes used as shorthand for “transgender.” While transgender is generally a good term to use, not everyone whose appearance or behavior is gender-nonconforming will identify as a transgender person. The ways that transgender people are talked about in popular culture, academia, and science are constantly changing, particularly as individuals’ awareness, knowledge, and openness about transgender people and their experiences grow.

I feel like transgendered people can be so misunderstood. I honestly couldn't really explain what/who they were until last semester when I took Soc. on Gender. We had to read a great book about Transgenders in the workplace. It was amazing to see how they were treated equally until they revealed that they were trans. After it was out in the open, all of a sudden discrimination was flying left and right. One example in the book that I found so interesting was about the issue of sexism. There was a woman who had to give a presentation to her colleagues in a business that she worked at. (It was some sort of office/business place) Anyways, she gave the presentation and explained her work to all of them and all the men came out of the room and were complaining about the presentation. None of them were impressed or satisfied with her work. Soon after that she transitioned to a man and applied to the place as her "brother." As a man she gave the exact same presentation as she did before and when it was over a man walked out and said something like, "Wow, Ben's way better than his sister."

Here's a GREAT video on a Transgender child
I also mentioned in class a story about a child who was raised gender neutral by his parents and how they didn't reveal the sex to anyone except very few people. I'm posting the link to the article below. Apparently after 5yrs they revealed the gender and it's a boy. It's pretty interesting. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2089474/Beck-Laxton-Kieran-Cooper-reveal-sex-gender-neutral-child-Sasha.html

I also found a tragic story on Gwen Araujo, who was a transgender that was murdered. She faced death from a hate crime just for being different. There is even a movie made after her case called A Girl Like Me. I'm interested to see it.

And here's the picture of the transgender that I brought up in class who had children.










Random image for the day: It's so powerful to me

March 28, 2012 Sexism

As a female, sexism can be a very difficult topic to think about and face on a daily basis. Like every other social justice issue that we have discussed, we like to think that as a society we have come a long way, but even still the issue of sexism still exists. Women face this issue everyday in the workplace, school, grocery stores, etc. There's no escape to it. For example, this past weekend I went with my fiance to buy paint at Home Depot (which btw was my fiance's idea, not mine) and the older man who checked us out said, "Alright buddy, now you can grab some Bud Light, kick back and watch her do her thing." When he said that I was instantly uncomfortable because I felt like he said that because I was wearing shorts? Then I thought about it some more as we were leaving and I thought that maybe he meant it as painting and decorating is a woman's thing. Which btw is so stereotypical and sexist because my fiance enjoys painting and decorating more than I do. It has nothing to do with being a woman or a man. That's just stupid...I'm not sure what he exactly meant but either way it was sexist. I feel as though sexism is similar to racism because even though things have gotten somewhat better and we would like to think that it doesn't exist, the truth is that it still does. How is sexism not around if women are earning only 77 cents to every dollar that a man earns? I found an interesting article from Time magazine that talks about this issue : http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1983185,00.html

Last semester I also took a class called Sociology of Gender with Dr. Christine Williams. I normally don't plug classes because I hardly ever really enjoy them, but this class was definitely worthwhile. As a female it was an awesome and interesting class that taught me things about sexism and gender issues that society trys to ignore and pretend like they aren't there. It's very eye opening once you start looking into sexism. For women it's actually quite scary and frustrating.

Although it's easy to think that sexism is only about women issues and oppression of women, we shouldn't forget that even men can face this issue. Adams talked about the different aspects of sexism that's not only about women, which I found interesting. I know when I hear the word sexism, I automatically think of women, but we're not the only ones who face this issue.

Like every other issue that we discuss in social justice, I feel like the only way to put an end to this is for us to take a stand. Men and women everywhere have a voice that can be heard. Also, one small way to make a difference is to acknowledge comments that you find offensive. For example, if I could go back I would have asked that man at Home Depot, "What exactly do you mean by that statement?" Once he clarified the meaning then I could have let him know that I didn't appreciate his comment and that he shouldn't say things like that. That way he might be more hesitant to say it to the next female. Just a thought.

Here are some images I found interesting this week:

Classism/Racism

Sexism

March 21, 2012 Achievement Gap Lecture

Hello. My name is Nikki Bonsall. I'm from Nederland, TX. I graduated from Nederland High School as the #29 student out of 365 students in my graduating class. I received awards for all A's since 5th grade. I was a member of both the National Junior Honor Society and National Honor Society. I was also Vice President of the Spanish Honor Society. I was a member of HOSA for two years and also received many awards for that. Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah!

Ok, so my introduction above was only to prove a point. I know most of you probably don't care about anything that was said. If you did, you would have asked me or someone else about it. Most likely, you came to my blog with the expectation of me writing all my thoughts, opinions, and questions about the lecture we sat through this morning. I know for sure you didn't come to my blog to read a long, drawn out introduction about myself and my accomplishments. That's not the point of my post. So why did the lecture today turn out to be such a thing?

I walked into the Utopia theater thinking that I was about to sit down and learn about the Overachievement Gap. Honestly, I had no clue what that was because i've actually never heard of it. (At least not with that title, anyway) I have always known that there have been differences between whites and non whites in the education system, as well as in jobs. I was hoping that Dr. Jonah was going to fully explain what the Achievement Gap is, explain the differences, and make known what can be done to fix the issue. Instead, we all got to sit thru half of the lecture listening to awards and acheivements of the panel. Don't get me wrong. Everything that they have done in their careers should be rewarded and acknowledged, but seriously, I felt like this lecture was turned into and award show.

The whole time I was sitting there with my notebook and pencil ready to take down notes and be engaged with the speakers. I kept waiting to hear about cultural or race differences and issues that are affecting the children in our society, but halfway through Dr. Jonah's speech I thought to myself, "Ok? So when are you going to talk about the Achievement Gap and it's issues?" Sadly, I don't think he ever really did. It was as if the whole lecture may have been a plug for the Stand for Children organization, which by the way I didn't learn much about either.

I was very disappointed at how there was only time for two whole questions. Which by the way, weren't even correctly answered. I felt really sorry for the woman who seemed so concerned about bullying. She asked a good question and only got vague answers that didn't help at all. Especially when the other woman took the microphone to "answer" the question and basically stated that bullying could be stopped by having children in a "good environment." Are you serious? If it was so easy then why are there so many problems? Does she really think that it's that easy to provide a "good environment?" If that was the case then everyone would be living in a world full of rainbows and unicorns. World peace would be attained too. As if! That answer really got on my nerves. I mean, yes she is right that placing children in good, healthy environments will promote appropriate behaviors. But that wasn't the woman's question. She wanted to know how to deal with bullying that is already going on. You can't simply move all the children around to make them function in a good environment.

I was also disappointed when they mentioned someone who worked at Kealing middle school, but failed to discuss it more. I'm very familiar with Kealing because I am taking a class called, "Leadership in the Community," with Dr. Lauderdale. Kealing is in the East side of Austin and is a block away from an open air drug market. My class meets every Monday (It's made up of all UT star athletes and a fellow SW student and I) and we all go to Kealing and meet with the kids to motivate them to do well in school and stay away from gangs and drugs. Kealing is mostly made up of black and hispanic students who do poorly in school, do drugs, are in gangs, have sex, etc. These children are high at-risk. I felt like Kealing would have been a great example for the lecture to discuss the Acheivement Gap. It would have been nice to hear some discussion on that topic since I have ties with that school.

I'm not totally bashing the presentation, but I felt like I left there unsatisfied. I had certain expectations that weren't met by the speakers. It wasn't anything like I expected it to be. It would have been better if the introductions were cut way shorter and there was more time for questions. I also think the speakers should have discussed the achievement gap and explained what it was. It would have also been nice to have better suggestions for what we can do to help, instead of giving broad statements like "Take a Stand." Or answering a question with a question. If all they could tell me is "Take a Stand," then I feel a little hopeless. Obviously, as SW students we all want to "Take a Stand," on something, otherwise we wouldn't be going into this profession. We know that already.

It would be helpful to everyone in the School of Sw if they could email everyone who attended an evaluation survey. That way we could all express what we thought and what could improve future lectures.



But anyways,


Saw this and thought it was cute: