Self-education
Self-education can be defined as teaching yourself something with little to no formal education of colleges or universities. However, I feel it is also intertwined by applying that into your life to become more aware of your inner self, or developing one's self. When I learn a subject in school because it is mandatory, then I am learning this because I have to, the subject is not self-education. I would have to take this a step further and research on my own time to further educate myself to expand my way of thinking. In Malcolm's early life his education differs from his learning as an adult, in his childhood he was treated as the "other". Regardless of his outstanding academic performances in grade school Lansing, Michigan; he was still inferior. The turning point in his childhood was with his conversation with his 8th grade English teacher. His teacher, Mr. Ostrowski asks what career Malcolm is thinking of pursuing. Malcolm responds by saying, "Well, yes sir, I've been thinking I'd like to be a lawyer." (pg. 72) Mr. Ostrowoski with his half-smile replies by telling him that profession is not realistic for a black person and instead suggests a pursuit in carpentry. He began to examine himself through the lens of "otherness" and realized no matter his efforts and achievements he was "still not intelligent enough, in their eyes, to become whatever I wanted to be. It was then that I began to change-inside." As an adult, he learns street education through the lens of a hustler. Although his entanglement in crime and drugs led him to prison, this is when he became aware of his self-actualization: "It was because of my letters that I happened to stumble upon starting to acquire some kind of homemade education." (pg. 197) Education was his tool for liberation, "I had never been so truly free in my life." (pg.199) He applied the teachings of Elijah Muhhamad and the secular world and applied that to his ontological and epistemological outlook. Malcolm examined his personal experience of being black along with his witnessing's of treatment of those who were also black around him and acknowledge the unjust treatment of being black in America. He furthered his education with the religious and secular world and grown to be such a influential leader for the fights towards human rights for black people.
What is intersectionality?
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Who am I?
We are multifaceted beings in which our social identity structures such as race, class, gender, religion intersects in experiences of privilege and oppression. This concept was coined in 1989 by Kimberle Crenshaw as a framework towards describing "the various ways race and gender interact to shape the multiple dimensions of black women's employment experiences." (1991, pg. 1244). Intersectionality and it's concept has expanded outwards to explain discrimination and oppression in all parts of society. The complexity within the expansion of this entails that each form of our identity has a form of oppression and we can be dominate (go unexamined) & targeted at the same time. What I mean by "dominate" within our multidimensional identity, is that one facet of ourselves (such as race) can be a member of a dominant/advantaged social group; which often goes unexamined. Other parts of our identity that capture attention are those that others notice, and that reflects back to us. Generally we have a dominant world view that has been saturated with the mythical norm, we can see this in the entertainment industry where the lead roles that portray those of POC have been continuously played by white actors and representation of heterosexual relationships are the norm. This has been so deep seeded in our society and normalized that we often do not question or fight it, that everything is just as it should be and supported with rationalizations and justifications to dismiss the existence of inequality and misrepresentation. |
RACERace is a powerful social conception and perception that we use in attempt to organize groups of people based on physical characteristics. This classification of race perpetuates the idea of "pure" races when it is built off of social constructions with abstract historical erasures and interracial relations made to seem natural.
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GENDERGender is a social construct thrusted onto individuals through fluid definitions and physical markers, acts, and sexual desires. These Ideas, cultural representations, and social practices have made sexual differences and norms appear natural and permanent; those who fall outside the norms are deemed as "queer" or "abnormal".
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RELIGIONReligion is a set of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that defines the relations between human beings and a higher belief.
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