Group Reflection Essay Example

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My Un-conference experience was very pleasant and informative. Amusingly, my discussion group members, in the Everyday Racism cluster, were all black women. Perhaps, black women are more likely to observe injustice based on our position in America’s racial and patriarchal system. My group discussed many topics from microaggression, white discomfort, mixed race issues, representation of black women in the media, and policing blackness. Using class articles from Simba Runyowa, Sara Ahmed, Ewuare Osayande, Gay Seidman, and class/Un-conference discussions, this reflection essay focuses on microaggression, white discomfort and its significance, and marginalized groups’ use of passive words and actions to avoid upsetting the dominant group while …show more content…

Movements, organizations, and people that use nonviolence strategies are praised and held to a higher moral ground. A possible reason nonviolent strategies are respected is because these strategies make the oppressive community comfortable. However, anything that includes violence is automatically condemned. For example, the recent 2015 “riot” in Baltimore grabbed mainstream news attention. News channels continued to show the destruction of buildings in Baltimore, but made little references to reasons why the protestors were angry—living conditions, police brutality, broken education system, and other disadvantages that have been occurring for years—and wanted immediate change. In no way am I advocating violence, I am just highlighting that violence, like the term white supremacy, is too forceful for the oppressive structure. This realization leads marginalized people and allies to use passive means and terms to gain the attention of the dominant group with hopes to eventually change the oppressive

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