Part 1: brainstorming
One thing that's been on my mind recently is mental health in young adults (teens -mid 30's) and the lack of available resources or community support for them, especially in this age of social media. Highlighted by actress Carolyn Flack's recent suicide, more and more adults are becoming public with their mental health struggles while having no one to fall back on as people learn better boundaries for stabilizing their own mental health. People seem to be making efforts to become self sufficient in this matter, yet are failing to notice the necessity of community support until it becomes too late. I personally believe social media is exacerbating this problem, with copycat attempts being a known phenomenon and hyperbole being so common when people vent online.
Last on topics on my mind is what I'm currently coining as "excusable/comparative racism". The current racist shtick is denial of actions or words being racist or discriminatory to another group of people because it's "not as bad" as what their ancestors had to tolerate. Sure, people aren't being outright attacked or being called slurs to their faces as often nowadays - but discrimination is appearing in more insidious ways, such as people of authority choosing petty tone policing of valid anger in certain situations rather than holding the actual offensive person or instigator accountable.
Part 2: toolkit- unpacking the backpack
Strategies I resonate with:
Determining an advantage of your social or ethnic group to better understand a less privileged group.
Disrupting the idea that the most privileged social group is "normal" or the "baseline" of living to better see other groups rather than try to convert said groups into living them - "normally".
Missing:
White people have the privilege of guilt-dumping, in which they can publicly or socially denounce the common biases and predatory actions of their races and feel absolved of all guilt. In many cases they are lauded as social justice heroes over activists of color who are actually organizing, finding solutions to, and bringing awareness of these issues.
The writer acknowledges her advantages, but not the ways in which she can use them to support disadvantaged groups. ie: she has choice whether or not to listen to poc, but does not note that she can use this to amplify voices of color
One thing that's been on my mind recently is mental health in young adults (teens -mid 30's) and the lack of available resources or community support for them, especially in this age of social media. Highlighted by actress Carolyn Flack's recent suicide, more and more adults are becoming public with their mental health struggles while having no one to fall back on as people learn better boundaries for stabilizing their own mental health. People seem to be making efforts to become self sufficient in this matter, yet are failing to notice the necessity of community support until it becomes too late. I personally believe social media is exacerbating this problem, with copycat attempts being a known phenomenon and hyperbole being so common when people vent online.
Last on topics on my mind is what I'm currently coining as "excusable/comparative racism". The current racist shtick is denial of actions or words being racist or discriminatory to another group of people because it's "not as bad" as what their ancestors had to tolerate. Sure, people aren't being outright attacked or being called slurs to their faces as often nowadays - but discrimination is appearing in more insidious ways, such as people of authority choosing petty tone policing of valid anger in certain situations rather than holding the actual offensive person or instigator accountable.
Part 2: toolkit- unpacking the backpack
Strategies I resonate with:
Determining an advantage of your social or ethnic group to better understand a less privileged group.
Disrupting the idea that the most privileged social group is "normal" or the "baseline" of living to better see other groups rather than try to convert said groups into living them - "normally".
Missing:
White people have the privilege of guilt-dumping, in which they can publicly or socially denounce the common biases and predatory actions of their races and feel absolved of all guilt. In many cases they are lauded as social justice heroes over activists of color who are actually organizing, finding solutions to, and bringing awareness of these issues.
The writer acknowledges her advantages, but not the ways in which she can use them to support disadvantaged groups. ie: she has choice whether or not to listen to poc, but does not note that she can use this to amplify voices of color
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