This was a memorable week because I got in touch with
Jane Elliot, a feminist I look up to. She used to be an elementary school
teacher and is famous for her "Blue Eyes" experiment where she
essentially proves that racism is not natural. She also focuses her work on how
to address white supremacy and white ignorance. Her work is interesting in my
eyes because I'm interested in topics that have to do with race and
socio-economic justice and how to bring white people to the conversation.
So for this past week of my internship I've been
doing research on "whiteness", race as a social construction, and so
on. I think it's extremely important to get white people to acknowledge the
issues surrounding white supremacy and how this literally is a "white
man's world"...because white people hold the power.
I've even been having conversations regarding
whiteness and white supremacy with workers and interns at IJR. I've been
longing for conversations like these since I'm deprived of them back at home
where no one likes to talk about race.
Everywhere you look you'll see that the world favors
white people...that's white supremacy. The problem is that white people are
either ignorant or not willing to even care that it's an issue.
So what I've learned about myself this past week is
that in order to be a great feminist I have to be willing to dive deep into my
research and never stop questioning. It's so nice to know that I have Jane to
answer my questions.
I'm finding that I value learning and who I want to
become is a woman who never stops learning.
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