WATKINSON SOCIAL JUSTICE DAYS

Social Justice Day is a school day of workshops designed to help teach students about social justice.  Students participate in two workshops, a group assembly and an advisory debrief about the workshops. My first workshop was called “Deaf People in a Hearing World”.  This workshop taught me about the struggles that deaf people face as they work to make themselves heard in a world of people with the ability to hear. One of the main aspects of the workshop was the difference between the DEAF community and the deaf community.  While some people believe that cochlear implants and other means of helping a deaf person hear should be used at all costs, while other people believe that deaf people should live in their own world with people like them.
The second workshop I attended was a discussion about race and society surrounding the movie “Get Out”.  During this conversation, we watched clips of the movie and discussed the different means of racial profiling throughout the movie.  Even though the film is designed to be a suspense movie, it has many underlying themes about race and society. The idea behind the movie and kidnapping of the main character, Chris, is that a white family is (literally) brainwashing black people and forcing them to do certain things.  While playing on the themes of historical slavery, there is still a great focus on modern day oppression. The metaphor of the “sunken place”, which comes into play when the mother in the movie hypnotizes Chris, is demonstrative of the suppression of black people and the control they have over white people, even in today’s society and in non-kidnapping situations.
I found this year’s Social Justice Day to be very productive and educational.  I learned a lot about different aspects of the world I had yet to examine myself.