Social Justice and Inclusion

Participate in activities that assess and complicate one's understanding of inclusion, oppression, privilege and power.

Summer 2020 | During this time, I made it a priority to use my voice at protests and donate to various Black Lives Matter funds. I used this time to humble myself and use my privilege to help the BLM movement.

Integrate knowledge of social justice, inclusion, oppression, privilege, and power into one's practice.

Student Affairs Professional 2018-Present | A Lot of the education I have received in social justice has come from my own passion and interest in being a better advocate for minoritized groups. I realize that being an advocate does not mean to simply say you are one, or to post something on social media. For me, it means hard work, difficult conversations, searching for readings, watching documentaries, donating, protesting when I am able to, listening to music or buying art by black, brown, or queer artists. Being an advocate also means bringing this passion and advocacy into any type of work I do. I have not had the chance to work as a graduate assistant in a department that focuses on social justice. But that does not mean I have not brought social justice workshops, conversations, and education into my daily practice. If I did not do this, I would not be able to call myself an advocate.

Advocate on issues of social justice, oppression, privilege, and power that impact people based on local, national, and global interconnections.

Summer 2020 | During this time, I took it upon myself to stay educated on the systematic oppressions that are happening everyday. I had difficult conversations with family and friends to try and explain the oppression that minoritized groups feel everyday. During this time, conversations about Black Lives Matter were particularly relevant and difficult to talk about, but absolutely necessary. I also took this time to reach out to my district leaders and those within different counties about the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, arguing that their killers should be tried for murder.

Engage in hiring and promotion practices that are non-discriminatory and work toward building inclusive teams.

Involvement Graduate Assistant |University of Missouri | Within this role, I spent time reviewing resumes to hire new involvement ambassadors as well as promoting students to higher positions within the executive board roles. One of my main goals in building our general assembly as well as our executive board was to bring more diversity into our mainly white staff. For me in my role, this meant making sure everyone had equal opportunities to apply, have interviews for the team, and even giving more flexibility to students of color (whether that meant trying harder to find a good time for an interview, rereading through their resume, or giving them extra time in the interview to think about their answers).

Provide opportunities to reflect and evaluate on one's participation in systems of oppression, privilege, and power without shaming others.

WGS 490: Feminist Theories and Methodological Issues | This class was helpful in that every student was willing to learn from each other and remain humble in the space. This class was a diverse group, which helped to understand everyone's views on different situations. Though I felt comfortable to speak up on a range of topics, I was conscience of not taking up too much space as a white woman. I took this opportunity to learn and reflect on living my life with the privilege of being white and cisgender and also certain oppressions such as living in a female body and also being a lesbian.

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