Social justice is defined as "justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society" according to Google. In my final project I plan to focus on the equality of opportunities given to each race and sex. I chose these two points to key in on because I'm very passionate on black rights and also the demise of sexism. One issue that stands out to me is police brutality against African Americans. I believe that this is an issue that has gone on for far too long and it needs to be stopped. Relating to the issue of equality among sexes, my main focus would be slut shaming. This is also something that has gone on for far too long but people are working to end it.
In class we went over various forms of social activism. These were spoken word, story telling, music, writing, dance, sports, fashion, and art. When we explored social activism through storying, we heard "Danger of a Single Story" by Chimamanda Adichie. In her story she spoke about how misconceptions are formed due to a person only knowing one side of a story. She tells about her life in America as an African woman and her time living with a female roommate in college. Her roommate had several preconceived notions about the life Chimamanda lived in Africa because of what she had previously heard. Chimamanda explains to her roommate that not everyone in Africa lives in poverty and that her life in America was similar to her life in Africa (Adichie, 2009). When studying social activism through spoken word, we listened to a piece titled "Sean Bell". Listening to this poem I learned about Sean Bell's story and how he was wrongfully murdered by the police due to his skin tone (Brave New Voices Philly, 2011). It was a very powerful piece that I would love to recreate. The last form of social activism that stood out to me was social activism through art. An artist that we took a deeper look at was Kehinde Wiley. He took old influential paintings that featured white people and recreated them using African Americans he recruited off the streets. By doing so he really addressed the issue of equality among races (Rogers and Mann, 2013).
I really enjoyed all of the forms of social activism that we looked at but my favorites were social activism through spoken word and story telling. I liked these the most because they seemed the most powerful to me. Also, I loved listening to the way they both were presented. For my final project I would like to include spoke word because I've always been good with poems and also presenting them.
Good job. I'm glad that were able to connect with the different creative literacy forms we looked at in class. I think you could really utilize the spoken word and storytelling aspect to create a powerful final project. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.
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