Rachele's gaining new perspectives on how she views the world

Last Saturday night a few of us hiked Lion’s Head and later went to the Green Point Stadium, which was built for the 2010 FIFA world cup. I loved the vibe in the stadium, everyone was so happy to be there. We met Bongi there and he had all of us on our feet in minutes to cheer on the Cape Town City team against AJAX. 

 

Maddy & Rachel on Lion's Head

This most recent weekend we went on our Human Rights Weekend with Africa Unite. This was a great experience where we got to meet some of the youth in Africa who want to make a change. My roommate was so passionate about helping the youth in her community and it amazed me. As UConn students it was part of our trip to be at this weekend and learn about human rights; but the other youth who was on this weekend put their time and effort into Africa Unite and this Human Rights Training Weekend because they genuinely want to be able to make a change in the communities where they live.

I think some common themes of this weekend were to not be afraid to go against what society does and to focus on what you can do in your own community rather than the entire world. A lot of the activities that we did this weekend had a set of rules to follow or expectations and often these rules or expectations discriminated against a group or were just unjust. Vincent (our professor also on this weekend trip) would often encourage us to question rules or social expectations set out for us. Just because something is a rule or expected of us does not mean that it is necessarily just or put into place for the right reasons. And this is often something hard to do, saying something is wrong with an entire system or maybe a method that’s been followed for years. This weekend also showed me that when we become aware of all the human rights violations in the world it can be very overwhelming. It can seem like there is nothing that can be done, the task is too big, but that is why you have to look at it from the perspective of your community and the injustices that happen there. You have to start small, when people say things that encourage stereotyping, say something. Even working to do research on protests that you don’t understand can make an impact.

Also this week someone posted something on Facebook about the “cash me outside’ girl. Essentially it was something a girl on the Dr. Phil show said that she got famous for because she was a very ‘ghetto’ white girl. The post on Facebook said something about how it was a case of white privilege where this girl got famous for saying something ghetto. Immediately I agreed with the fact that it was white privilege that made her famous. This made me realize how far I’ve come in my understanding of race and gender studies. Had I seen something like that earlier I think I would have brushed it off as people just hating white people, or just would not have understood.