blog post 9

Social Injustices-
I am often embarrassed to say, of my 26 years of life I have not faced many unfair situations or injustices whether it has to do with race, sexism, income/poverty levels etc. When I say I have been embarrassed, it is because in my recent years, especially within the last year, I have heard so many others or witnessed others around me that have gone through injustices and I have not much personal background to relate to them, or offer words of help and or encouragement to these people. I would even call myself naive to many social injustices. Where I was raised my entire life, and still live to this day, where I worked for many years (Smithfield, RI) and even attended college (besides at RIC- CCRI; Lincoln, RI and Keene State; Keene, NH) there were not many situations where I experienced racial injustices. With that, comes a lack of economical injustices. As a white female I also have in immense amount of "privilege" which I suppose can contribute to my lack of experience as well. As grateful and amazing my life has been, my knowledge of what others go through is merely through books, TV and news and seeing other communities I pass by.

As far as seeing injustices on my own accounts- as I said within the last year my eyes have been opened to them more immensely. I started to work in Pawtucket a little over a year ago. Here, I came from a school that was middle to upper class cliental to now working in a school that is completely low income and on government assistance. Most of the families within my school receive free or discounted state paid daycare assistance. While there are some families who are middle class and pay full price, I would say that is less than twenty percent of my center. I have seen how the state disperses its "help" whether it is a low amount of funds to a single working mom who works "too many hours" to receive a decent sum of money to help her and her children, to some parents who do not work and receive funds and benefits to get them by plus some. I never can get my head around it. What is the middle line here? I also have seen the therapeutic special needs program in my own place of work where the only way a child can qualify to get into the program, is if they are on state medical insurance, which more than often are families of low income status. I love what the program does for the kiddos in my school, they make leaps and bounds from the beginning to the end of the program however, a family in middle to upper class with a child with special needs (social, behavioral, physical, etc.) and now have to receive private paid services elsewhere. I believe this is a social injustice that I have to see daily. I am not sure when this will change, or if it can be changed ever, but I am a strong advocate for this program to open up to more.




Comments

  1. educatedhotmessNovember 24, 2018 at 8:55 AM

    I never thought of looking at the macro systems to talk about the inequalities our students face. I grew up in Pawtucket and it was always the same.

    ReplyDelete

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