Philosophy of social justice
What is social justice?
Social Justice is something I believe does not have a universal definition because each person can define it differently. At first I had no idea what the words meant especially when I applied to Social Justice High School. I thought that the words merely referred to the topic of law and it incorporated the ideas needed to become a lawyer. My belief of what the words meant surely changed throughout my four years as I grew to realize that social justice to me meant the inequalities people of color face and the necessity to gain awareness in order to put an end to them. My definition developed as I heard of the stories of factory workers being abused in third world countries or children working in factories for franchises like Forever 21 and being under paid. It was not until I took AP Chemistry that my definition became clear as I learned about the soil contamination that my own community suffered from due to power plants in our proximity and the fact that our community members were not even aware about it. People of color and minorities suffer from many injustices all of different forms and it crucial that we take them into account and make it known that enough is enough so that our people can be freed from such abuse.
What obstacles do we face while struggling to achieve social justice?
Social Justice is clearly not something that is easily obtained because there are many injustices that are still existent to this day. The reason why I believe it is so challenging to obtain is due to the fact that our voices are not always heard let alone acknowledged. For instance during my junior year we had a situation in which our interim principal appointed by CPS had removed our AP classes at the beginning of the year because she believed we were not capable of taking them. Students’ continued to voice their opinions of the injustice that was taking place at the school but nothing was being done. The students’ voices were not taken seriously and it was through the actions of a sit-in and march in our community that led to our demands to be finally met. If we truly desire to obtain social justice then we have to let our actions speak for us because as it has been said actions do speak louder than words.
what is your vision for struggle?
Since social justice is very challenging to obtain people have come together to create multiple ways to achieve it throughout the years. People all over the world take part in marches, protests, petitions, sit-ins, walk-outs, etc. just to get their point across and each have had positive results. For instance, if you think back to Cesar Chavez his inspirational words through his protests led to better workers rights’ specifically higher wages for farmworkers. In the struggle to obtain social justice it is key to live by Cesar Chavez words of “Si se puede” meaning “Yes we can” because it will give us the strength to not give up as we know anything is obtainable. With this motivation social justice will hopefully become much easier to obtain.
what is your role in the struggle?
My contribution in the struggle to obtain social justice is to give people more awareness of the injustices upon them by gaining a higher education while at college. I will provide this awareness by letting them know of the mental and physical effects these injustices can have on them specifically focusing on the effects air pollution can have on cancer. While in college I plan on taking part in cancer research in hopes to be able to help minorities if they have developed cancer due to the injustices that they might have lived through. My fire is to put an end to the inequalities minorities face such as a the lack of health care and that will be achieved if I learn enough to take part in treating the people who do not have the resources to be treated. In order to obtain such a goal I will first have to finish high school so that I have the full knowledge to succeed in college and take part in cancer research.
how is your chosen issue conected to social justice?
The issue of environmental racism is connected to social justice since it is an inequality that is burdened upon people of color and needs to be stopped. It is not fair that people of color have to live through the social inequality of living near hazardous facilities that pollute the air and their land. It is clearly an inequality that many are unaware of which is why I chose it as my project in order to bring people knowledge of what is happening around them. Putting an end to environmental racism is not an easy task that can be obtained through words and that is why I need to implement actions such as creating this website and taking part in cancer research in the future in order to be able to help those affected by environmental racism specifically those who developed cancer from it.