Critical Consciousness

The concept of critical consciousness is tha ability to perceive social, political, and economic oppression and to take action against the oppressive elements of society (as defined by Paulo Freire). Freire definitely had made a number of important theoretical innovations that have had an impact on the development of educational practice. For example when he helped third world peoples gain an awareness of worldly matters while he had taught them to read. I believe it’s important to gain a critical awareness in the developed world and undeveloped world within individuals because we can then avoid all the oppressive acts in society and not be so blind towards the issues most of us don’t see. However, this is easier in developed worlds because of all the distractions with new technology and the fact that they are “must haves” by us nowadays makes it even worse.

Different People, Different Perspectives.

With the 2010 Olympics coming to Vancouver, it brings a lot of new people from around the world and creates a lot of new construction going on of places Vancouver , and around Vancouver. All these changes for an event that wont last long, and not only that, but it costs a lot of money for the Olympics to come here, and they are already over the expected budget. Although the bad seems as though it outweighs the good because of things like money issues for tax payers who are actually paying for these Olympics, and the fact that it takes the Olympics to “clean up the streets”, it’s not entirely true (or so we are made to believe!). The security used for the Olympics will be very beneficial for the violence, and even after the Olympics they talked about using this “harsher” security for policing after the Olympics.

Perspective number 1, the privileged: I believe the privileged people, would be the ticket buyers, especially the ones who come from all over the world to stay and see these games. I was browsing the ticket prices for the Olympics and was shocked to see that opening ceremony was $1,000, the closing ceremony was $775, and just the normal games ranged from anywhere to $100-600. To think about adding on the additional hotels or condos costs that are rented out for this time it blew me away thinking people can actually afford to do this and yet still be financially stable.

Perspective number 2, the oppressed: The oppressed in this case, would be the residents living near the 2010 Olympic Winter games. These people are being pushed out of their homes so there is more room to rent out for people staying for the Olympics, and even construction workers that are building near it. I read this article that i have posted below and it was appalling to hear what these people have to go through because of this huge event, even if they aren’t going to it. Again this is an example of people who will do anything for money, and if these landlords or hotel owners had cared for these people safety they wouldn’t even of had the thought cross their minds. It’s sad when these tenants have to pay for this when they weren’t even a part of it to begin with.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/09/04/bc-vancouver-downtown-eastside-olympics-eviction-claim.html

Social Justice Concept – Race Discrimination

The concept topic i chose to research is race discrimination. While researching articles for this topic, I came across a very interesting one about two places( Georgia, and Russia, with Abkhazian people separating the two) that had a lot of tension raised between them, yet it got worse as a result of race discrimination. Tha Abkhazian authorities were supposed to prohibit teaching the Georgian language in district schools even though the teaching was in Russian already. Moreover, they were supposed to prohibit it because Georgia was being ” an unfriendly state for Abkhazia”. Their excuse was ” Russians’ ultimate objective is expulsion of remaining Georgians from conflict areas”, which they then imposed new textbooks in Russian for these Abkhazian people even though it had stated that Russian textbooks were very scarce and claimed the Georgian historical facts were falsified. They then came up with an even “better” plan to raise the salaries of the teachers in these schools to almost double just to accomodate Russia, which i believe is ridiculous. All that just to keep the teachers from raising a stink per se, yet we do know peoples minds when it comes to money, the same as it had been before and forever will be, people do anything for money, or in this case, don’t do anything, like have a voice of their own.

Click Here For The Link.

http://www.georgiatimes.info/en/articles/6589.html

I beleive our biases affect the way we see Social Justice a lot. Not everybody thinks the same, we do have our own biases, and because of this, some will try to obtain justice in some situations they agree needs justice, and others will think in an unjust manner because of their own experiences, what the media has put in their head or from family and friends. This varies from place to place, religion to religion and person to person, but i see our biases as what makes people interesting to see their outlook on things. I do think it is important to know our biases, seeing as how we all have them, and we can discuss these biases with others aswell.

Intro

I’m Brandi and i have been attending LSS since grade 8. Luckily i am graduating at the end of this semester, so i wont have to be here for another semester (thank god!). This is my first time even hearing about social justice, it sounded interesting so i took the class. I look forward to learning more on this topic, and hope i will enjoy it!