Social Change (#13)

This week in our social justice class we talked about visions and strategies for change. Social change is one thing that we all strive for as Social Workers. Social change stirs up a lot of controversy for some people and creates resistance in others. Social change is when a social institution or groups of individuals change over time. However, there is always will always be a fight for social change in our society. Living in a society today where there are numerous social injustices, social is change is always at the top of the latter. When there is social change there is an alternation of an individual’s morals and values. After reading this chapter in my social justice class, I came to realize that in order for social change to occur we as a society should be able to understand how our power and privilege affects others, in order to build meaningful relationships that will result in creating social change.

Change is something that we all experience on a daily basis. Although many of us do not cope well with change and some of us are oppose to it, change is inevitable. With that being said, in order for change to occur we must be willing to change ourselves and be the change that we want to see in the world. Also we should have the willingness to learn from others, and have the intent to listen without judging others. This is one way we can be affective in creating social change. Also having an awareness of what is going on in your society and in your community allows you to see what changes need to be made to help better your society.

Trying to better a society can take a group or individual months or even years to see or produce social change, but if we have a strong support group behind us and a strategic plan and vision that we want to achieve, we can effectively implement and develop social change through or social services as Social Workers and in our society as well. This is why Marco level Social Work is important. Working on this level as Social Workers, we are the voice (along with the community) in helping produce social change in our society and the voice for many of our clients.

Observation

 There are many people horning the 50^th anniversary of JFK’S death in Dallas. On the news this morning I saw a choir singing at the memorial and a pastor giving a speech after that. I think that this memorial shows how prominent people like President Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. can bring a society together.

A Naked Oprah (#12)

Being a designer is all about expressing your artistic ability. Fashion design is all about the art of application of design and aesthesis or natural beauty of creating to clothing and accessories (Career Bear.com, 2013). To me fashion design is all about the gilts and glamour and not objectifying women’s bodies of any color. This is what I think Kanas City designer Peggy Noland did not take into consideration when she was designing this dress.  Looking at the dresses you can realize that theses dresses show the stages of Oprah’s weight over the years. According to Noland she says that this design “originated as a kind of age old red carpet question:  who are you wearing?” (Gutierrez, 2013), but it can clearly been seen that you are wearing Oprah.  I personally feel that this dress is inappropriate and is offensive to many black women, especially to Oprah. I pretty sure that Oprah would not like a version of her naked body being worn by others.  What if a black designer created a dress objectifying a white woman’s body, who is a well know figure, how would people react to that? I also feel that Noland knew what she was doing when she made this dress and that it would cause a lot of controversy and uproar in the black community. However, I feel that when some designers make things they do not realize that how disrespectful their clothing can be at times. I am not saying what Noland did was wrong because, I know that there are many t-shirts out that objectify women’s bodies that people wear. However, I wonder if she asked for Oprah's permission to make this dress, but when do designers ask permission to make anything?  Furthermore, how can we get designers to understand how their designs continue to promote sexism and oppress all women when they make clothing like this?  How can we get them to find ways to express their artistic ability in a non-offensive way? 

                                                                           Observation

Tomorrow I will be volunteering at the Austin Pregnancy Resource Center, where I would be helping them restock their baby clothing boutique with donated seasonal clothing.

Here is the link to one article about the dress: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/11/18/4632187/kc-designer-peggy-noland-creates.html

Community Outreach (#11)

There are approximately 2,300 homeless people living on the streets of Austin and over 900 of those people would be considered chronically homeless; people who have been homeless for over one year, or four times in the past 3 years (Austintexas.gov, 2013). It seems that the population of homelessness continues to grow in Austin and is a complex issue to deal with. While watching the news this week, there was one story that really caught my attention. This story was about opening up a homeless RV park in East Travis County.  This story really grabbed my attention and many questions began to arise. How would Austin residents react with the opening up this RV Park for the homeless in their neighborhoods, how would it be beneficial to the homeless population, and will it help decrease the amount of people who are homeless? There has been a lot of debate about opening up this RV Park in East Travis County prolonging the process. The Mobile Loaves and Fishes homeless charity group is all about making this project happen (My Fox Austin, 2013). The project will be called Community First! Village (My Fox Austin, 2013). The park is designed to provide supportive, affordable, and sustainable housing to people with disabilities and the chronically homeless (My Fox Austin, 2013). The park will stretch out over the 27 acres of Hogg Eye Road near Decker Lane near East Travis County (Murray, 2013). However, there are many people who are still in opposition with the development of the RV Park due to their uncertainty in the project and many who question their safety.  I think that this is a good innovative project because it will give the homeless population a sense of self dignity again, provide them with a roof of their heads, and maybe help them find niche in society again.

Observation

While on my bus ride to Houston this weekend, I realized how gender roles have a huge effect on how individuals treat each other and how people use their gender roles to manipulate certain situations for their benefits.

Ablesim (#10)

This week in our social justice class we talked about Abelism. Ableism is discrimination or prejudice against individuals with disabilities (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2013). Ableism prevents many people with disabilities from having the same access to services that average people have no problem obtaining. People with disabilities are in a constant fight to obtain the rights as average people because they face many barriers on a daily basis, whether it is systematic or physically.

We had a guest speaker come in and talk to us about people with disabilities. We played this game where we had to figure out the history of disability movement in which they occurred and line up in order. Through playing this game I learned a lot of things that I did not know about the disability movement/people with disabilities. I also learned more about the harsh things that they had to go through as well, such as sterilization.

Reading the chapter about Ablesim and discussing it in class, I really learned more about people with disabilities and how to use first person language. Learning about first person language in class and learning what to use instead of the terms I use in my own vocabulary is going to be a process to change. However, the main thing I learned from the reading and discussion this week, is that no one should let their inability to do something keep them from striving to do their best because everyone is capable of achieving their goals whether they have a disability or not.

Looking at Ablesim through a social work perspective I see how strong advocacy is for this group of people and how fighting for their rights as an individual is very important on a marco level. If we do not work to change things on a marco level all the work that we put in on a micro level will seem useless in my opinion because if we want to see change we have to start with the legislation that is enacted while still working on an individual level with clients.

Observation

If you are a person with a disability Social Security can help, by paying benefits to these individuals who cannot work. Here is a link to an article that talks more about it. http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/porter/valparaiso/social-security-can-help-those-who-can-t-work-due/article_8adfb683-60e1-5c88-99c3-b257bf22ee40.html

Progress (#9)

Social injustices are still prevalent in society today. Some social injustices that commonly occur throughout society are racism, oppression of other groups/races, sexism, discrimination, and the list goes on and on. The social injustices that one may experience can build up one’s self and even build up a community or it can plague individuals within a society. Discrimination among gay and lesbian individuals are indeed prevalent and in occurrence in our society today. It seems as though that some people are becoming more accepting of same sex marriage but it is still a work in progress. The ban on same sex marriage is a big issue that the U.S. is facing and is still not accepted in many states. The rights that are given to a heterosexual couple such as the institution of marriage, taxation compensation based on marriage and adoption privileges is where equality for homosexuals does not exist (Blackwell, Ricks, and Dziegielewski, 2004). The people in this community are in a constant struggle to gain equal protection of their human rights and moral equality. After learning more about the LBGTQ community last week I came across an interesting article of another state that has legalized gay marriage. The Hawaii Senate has approved legislation to legalize same sex marriage on Wednesday (Shapiro, 2013). If the bill passes in the Senate Hawaii will be the 15^th state to legalized same sex marriage (Shapiro, 2013). If gay and lesbians have human rights and human rights are supposed to be universal and everyone has an entitlement to them, why do social injustices occur in a society where there are theories and perspectives that are used to help guarantee social justice among individuals equally then. So why are gay and lesbians banned from marrying in some states?  Social activist are in a constant struggle to pass legislation for the LBGTQ community to have equal rights as heterosexuals.

http://news.msn.com/us/hawaii-senate-passes-bill-to-legalize-gay-marriage

Observation

Today I went trick or treating for cans to donate them to the Austin Capital Food Bank area.

Eye Opener (#8)

 

 This week in our social justice class we talked about Heterosexism, Transgender, and Oppression. We live in a society that defines the way we view gender roles and how we perceive men and women. The gender roles in society today have flipped and there are a lot of people who don’t identify with society’s gender roles, yet heterosexism still dominates our society. We had a wonderful guest speaker named Shane Whalley who works for the Gender and Sexuality Center on campus talk to us about the LBGTQ community. I really enjoyed hearing Shane speak and I gained a lot of information that will be valuable to me and my career. During this week I realize that there was a lot of information I did not know about this community besides the stigmas that they fight for. I realized that I did not understand all the language that this community uses. I know that language is really is important to individuals and the way that they use their language to identify themselves is also important. Not knowing their language and what language that this community feels is offensive, is the one thing that I did not know about. Learning more about this community of people has opened my eyes more.  As social workers we have to know the context of a community to help clients and need to have a knowledge and information of every population (if that is possible) because there are still going to be things that we do not know and things that we have to continue to learn, if we want to advocate for the people in our society.

Observation

                  While watching the news this week, I came across the story of a 14 year old boy who killed his teacher in Danvers, Massachusetts. On the other hand I looked on the GSC website to see what events they had coming up and they will be celebrating their 3^rd annual Cabaret tomorrow.

http://ddce.utexas.edu/genderandsexuality/ut-and-community-events/

An Open Book (#7)

I really enjoyed watching the Ted talks from Brene’ Brown this week in class. I have listened to these talks in some of my pervious social work classes, but actually listening to the talks again put a lot of things into perspective for me. I appreciate her for studying human connection and how the power of vulnerability plays into that human connection. I gained so much information from this video and learned that vulnerability is not a weakness but is a tool that is needed in making connections. Before I even heard about Brene’ Brown’s research I always viewed vulnerability as a weakness and felt that many people would judge me and see me as weak if I did let my emotions show. I have been told that I am too vulnerable (emotional) by guys but I guess being caring makes you vulnerable. I also doubt myself sometimes before I even try to anything and I think this is where the shame and fear comes in that Professor Brown talked about. As she conducted her research on shame and fear she found that excruciating vulnerability lies within these to emotions, and listening to her explain this more I totally agree. I feel that a lot of us put up walls and have these stoic personas to us. I am also a person who does this because I don’t want people to judge me and at times I am afraid to let people see the real me, unless they are really close to me. The fear/shame that we have as individuals keeps us from doing many things in our lives and making connections with people. Nobody in this world is perfect and there is no such thing as perfection, so why are we still afraid to be vulnerable around others?  

This talk was more intriguing to me the second time around because I was able to apply it to my own life and in my work as a social worker. The one thing that stuck out to me that I feel is good for social work practice is where she said “we can’t practice compassion with other people if we cannot treat ourselves kindly.” This is the number one key competent I feel is essential to your work as a social worker especially on a micro level when you are working with your clients. In order to help others we have to know how to help ourselves first (self-care). As social workers I feel that we are empathic towards our clients and their situations but at the same time we have to control our emotions to help our clients achieve their life goals (we can be vulnerable but not too much because we have to draw a line between business and personal). The connections that we build with our clients and the empowerment that we give our clients (by showing them that they are worthy of more) is what I want to strive for throughout my career as a social worker. At the organizational level I feel that we have to be compassionate about the people in our community and understand the community that we are  living in and show the people in our community that they are worthy of belonging.

Observation

There will be an a human trafficking talk on October 21^st held at Gregory Plaza from 7-9pm where students can talk and connect with organizations working to end human trafficking and the issues that led to this. https://www.facebook.com/events/155520127991799/