course work
This course was the beginning of my critical relationship to dominant notions of how change is created. I learned about the power-ladden process of knowledge production and community organizing as a way for those closest to state and interpersonal violence to create safety and healing for themselves and shift power in their communities. This course was transformative for me, shifting my future away from law school and towards community-based responses to harm such as Restorative and Transformative Justice. The importance of community organizing to the building of people power is a lesson I have carried with me throughout college, thinking about the importance of relationship-building an breaking down productivity-centered ways of viewing time. This class culminated in a showcase for queer and trans BIPOC students and community members. Above is the program I created for the showcase!
HONORS 230: MAKING THE HUMAN: RACE, SPECIES & EMPIRE (aut 19)It is hard to convey in words how much this course meant to me and continues to stay with me - the gentle and caring culture cultivated by Professor María Elena had a profound impact on the depth and honesty of conversation. In this course, I grew to connect justice and being gentle on ourselves and those around us; how we treat one another as an essential step to creating a more just world. I also developed an understanding of interspecies connectedness and the importance of nonhuman animals in imagining a more just world. The abolition of spaces of confinement for nonhuman animals (zoos & aquariums) can be compared to the abolition of prisons - both have long histories of reform in which the presentation of confinement is altered but the underlying belief system continues to dictate relationships.
The piece above was part of my final project for this course, in which I explored the way space is produced in order to capitalize on and construct difference, furthering domination through confinement as well as dictating the right to be in space. This art piece poses gated communities as a way to trace colonial divisions and ownership of land with the construction of whiteness. HONORS 394: FEMINISIM IN THE BORDERLANDS (spr 20)In the first quarter of classes shifting online due to COVID-19, I wondered how the discussion-basis of Honors courses might be lost in the process. Professor Habell-Pallan did a beautiful job of centering relationship-building in this course, easing the transition from in person to online classes through the environment of care she held for her students. In a time of immense insecurity and unrest, I grew to understand altar making within the broader context of how communities heal and make themselves safe outside of state spaces that often reproduce harm. Altar making is revolutionary - the emphasis is on how we can relate to our own histories and stories with respect and how that respect echoes and expands into every action. The cyclical nature of resilience in which marginalized communities return to the practices that have sustained them was beautiful to follow over the quarter and is expressed in the mini-collage we had to make as part of the virtual Ofrendas for the Future event.
My mini collage is built around the way in which altars represent micro examples of just relationships that through iteration, transform the future. Fractals, complex patterns in nature created through repetition, exemplify the ways in which through the process of making, sharing and contemplating altars represents the expansion of interdependence and love. Altars are not static and through interaction the relationality and resilience within them dismantle normative and capitalist-based ideas of interaction. My mini-collage is also representative of the lessons that nature has to teach us about pursuing social change. HONORS 230/AFRAM 498: #BlackLivesMatter in Historical Context (aut 20)In a present defined by a pandemic and global uprisings, this seminar offered a site for reflecting on the depths of disposability and the anti-Blackness that lies at the root of this nation, shaping everything down to who is being disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. If this almost year in quarantine has taught me anything, it is the preciousness of life and the inherent worth, dignity, and agency of every person. Participating in protests this summer following the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Brianna Taylor, and George Floyd, I entered this seminar wanting to grow in what it means to actively work to dismantle anti-Blackness and how it may unknowingly be present in my perceptions of the Black Lives Matter movement. Through the self-reflection and intentionality required by every piece, this course renewed the practice of writing as one for processing my relationality to a subject and as a practice of staying present. Through engaging with the writing of my peers on the same material, I became more aware of the way my positionality guides the scope I address a subject with. I am grateful to have had this space to think critically about the power of Black Lives Matter, its connections to previous liberation struggles, and its fight for a more just and liberatory future.
The piece that I put the most of my voice into is the one I feel is my strongest. In my book review of Imani Perry’s Breathe: A Letter to My Sons, I had a strong desire to convey how this book made me feel, not just its content. In this piece, I worked to balance summary and analysis with a throughline of my voice that did not undermine or overpower the voice of the writer. Drawing connections between Perry’s deeply personal account to principles guiding the Black Lives Matter movement felt like a necessary shift from thinking structurally to individually about the impacts of anti-Black racism. Writing such few words to capture an entire book was a challenge as the writing process was both an opportunity to process what I had read and think about what would encourage others to read this book. More than any other piece, the book review allowed me to convey my own emotional response to learning about the Black Lives Matter movement. |
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More than any other course I have taken within my major, we were asked to imagine justice outside the law, privileging the knowledges of resistance rather than formalized conceptions of “legality” and “criminality”. In partnership with local grassroots organizations, Free Them All and La Resistencia, we conducted research to support the Center for Human Right in writing a report documenting ongoing human rights violations at the Northwest Detention Center. This report was used by a state representative to introduce a bill to shut down the NWDC. Working with community, this course aligned with my desire to leverage my academic privilege and build solidarity through action.
The flyer on the right was an ask from these community organizations, as they were holding a teach-in about inter-agency collaboration between ICE and the Department of Corrections. The teach-in was a way to build collective consciousness around how the state’s response to COVID-19 furthers the treatment of our incarcerated community members as disposable. The image on the right is my contribution to a zine that members of my class chose to create to make our research more accessible. After attending the teach-in, I wanted to center my contribution around amplifying the lessons from organizers. |