Annotated Bibliography: Readings For Diversity And Social Justice

In “Thinking About Diversity”, Frank H. Wu details about his experiences as an Asian American. Wu says that, “some non-Asian students do, indeed, assume that I am gifted with mathematical, scientific, or computer-programming talents solely on account of my race” (Wu, 147), this concept shows the overview picture of Asians, but this does not apply to every Asians. The mathematic, science or computer programming is a universal subject that most industrialized places like Asia teach to students. Most Asian immigrants are familiar with those subjects because they already learn it back home and are able to do well on them, not because of a race. A race cannot provide a special intelligent to people, it’s just a different classify groups of people.

I find that the concepts of diversity, inclusion and social justice to be important because they build on each other and have the power to change the world. When all of these aspects work together and are acknowledged then we are able to work toward changing social norms and creating aspects in society that are focused on equity, rather than equality. Of course, social justice should be the goal that we as individuals want to achieve in liberating areas of our that have limited and restrained others. I connect diversity and appreciating diversity with being the foundation to this equation of equality because individuals need to understand that there will be differences between people. I enjoy the statement on, “… Who is in the room?” because it starts to explain the variations in personal characteristics within a group of people. This is going to be part of my position as an RA within Resident Life because a floor’s residence are going to have wide range in their own diversities through their age, sexual orientation, journeys to get to college, race and ethnicity, etc. I am proud to have experienced the things I have and lived and go to high school in such a place like Aurora, CO to where I was able to live and embrace a diverse community. I came to define this diversity to be normal, but coming up to CSU and Fort Collins has shown me how much of Colorado does not have the same kind of standards. The next support beam to building this idea that works toward social would be

Individuals can make a difference and enact change within society. Even though people may have beliefs and opinions that differ, it is still possible to make changes that help to put all citizens on a more equal footing. In chapter one, Virginia Ramirez teaches us that we are never too old to find our inner strength to stand up for what is right. This is exactly what she did for her elderly neighbor who died because she could not get the help she so desperately needed. Virginia spoke up and advocated even though it angered her husband at first. Her story like many others found throughout this book inspire me to want

In this context, Audry Smedley’s Race in North America provides the reader with a chronological approach to the concept of race that explores its evolution and their implications in the configuration of societies among the world.

The concept of race has always been a prevalent part of history and has been a driving force in defining and understanding certain time periods. The analysis of race is something that is not always easy to do, but W.E.B. Du Bois and Howard Winant allowed readers to better understand within their articles. Du Bois begins the article by stating the ever changing and developing concept of race. He also gives the idea that race was a way to divide the masses, and this concept is clearly seen throughout several events in history. Because this divide, many would try to distinguish by physical characteristics rather than the personality, morals, and experience that a person could offer. Further into Du Bois’ argument, the

Something that I connected with was in the Readings for Diversity and Social Justice, was the idea of multiple identities based upon their social location. I liked how the author explained what was social location and the use of the overlapping circles that are specific features of our identity (race,gender,class) and a persons social location is where all those circles meet. I connect this to the classroom by thinking about how each student comes from a different life, experiences, culture, and backgrounds and as a teacher you need to realize and accept each student for who they are and do not try to change them or make them into someone they are not. Each student brings their own set of tools and knowledge to the classroom that enrich your

Marsiglia, F.F.,& Kulis, S. (2015). Diversity, oppression and change (2nd ed.). Lyceum Books, Inc., Chicago, IL.

When we talk about race, what are we really talking about? The issue of race is a complex issue, with socially ambiguous undertones that have plagued our society for decades. Race has been a marker and maker of stereotypes. Race has been used as a justification for injustice. Whether slavery, Japanese internment, or social and economic exclusion, race has given an avenue for those in power to exclude ones deemed ‘other’. In the following paragraphs I will examine the premise of race and try to demonstrate why it is a social construct.

Most individuals think that one person can't make a difference. This generalization is one that Over the course of this paper I will give examples of individuals who made a difference in my life, The United States and even the world to try and eliminate this generalization. I believe that one person can make a difference and influence others to make a difference themselves.

If the Western literary tradition has been defined as a “more-or-less set of closed works that somehow speak to, or respond to, the “human condition’ (1891), excluding works from that literary tradition excludes people of color as experiencing the “human condition”. In making these tropes seem an innate part of cultural existence, no one questions racial practices because these tropes “naturally” exist. There is no reason to question or challenge these tropes because they are not created, the simply exist. They are natural characteristics that can only be observed, which is another subversion of the racial other.

Races are irreducible to biology and naturalistic understandings can also be regarded as collective social identities forged through processes of racial formation; eliminating ‘race would attempt to erase significant histories of hard-fought struggles (Alcoff, 2001 in Murji and Solomos, 2015:131).

So the argument runs that we live in a world in which there are deep-seated conflicts between cultures embodying different values. Different peoples and cultures have different values, beliefs and truths, many of which are incommensurate but all of which are valid in their own context. Social justice requires not just that individuals are treated as political equals, but that their cultural beliefs are also treated as equally valid. The irony of multiculturalism as a political process is that it undermines much of what is valuable about diversity as lived experience. When we talk about diversity, what we mean is that the world is a messy place, full of clashes and conflicts. That’s all for the good, for such clashes and conflicts are the stuff

One could say that scholarly debate over the roots of race is a recent phenomenon even though its background stretches back to early anthropologists and sociologists. Franz Boas in his The Mind of Primitive Man (1911) rejects race as a determinant of culture, intelligence, or temperament (5-6). Articulating a concept of “cultural relativism,” Margaret Mead, in the year 1928, built on Boas’ assertions, articulated the idea that one must judge other cultures by their own criteria and not those of the observer’s community (234). Some anthropologists, by the 1940s, even rejected race and racism. Ashley Montagu offered such an argument in Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race (1942). According to Anderson, the debate on the origin of slavery was a more recent ancestor of the history of race and emphasizes that “in the past, most scholars had uncritically assumed that both race and slavery had existed from the first contact of white Virginians and unwilling African immigrants. With the latter subjected to reevaluation, it became possible for the former to be questioned as well.” (91) As such, the categories of

In preparation for this paper I identified the following key themes and my thoughts and feelings related to race. When I first arrived, I was

This essay is a review of David Dudgeon’s article “Accept no substitute: biodiversity matters” published in 2014. The outline of the essay is to first introduce Dudgeon’s arguments and then move on to explain his criticisms of our current way of life in Hong Kong. Finally, this essay will critically discuss Dudgeon’s position.