God is the ultimate authority over us. He is the Alpha and the Omega. God does not like injustice. Though he allows it, he is not a fan. I believe he has called other social workers, including me, to start to work towards social just. It is God’s desire to have a just world. Isaiah 20:29-31 states, “He gives strength to the weary, and to him who lacks might He increases power. Though youth grow weary and tired, and vigorous young men stumble badly yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary.” I interpret this as God saying that the weak will be made strong. This is God prophesizing social justice when he returns. Since God is my ultimate authority, it is my Christian duty to begin to do my part to seek social justice. Matthew 25:40 states, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the …show more content…
It is my belief that a perpetrator’s confession of their injustice will help the victim of injustice eventually heal. With confession comes forgiveness. This healing of the wounds of injustice applies to both the perpetrators and the victims of injustice. The example of reconciliation between perpetrators and victims in Rwanda is a perfect example of how confession and forgiveness has lead to social justice and reconciliation in their communities. The goal of reconciliation is ideal but not necessary in my eyes. I don’t think that perpetrators and victims need to be friends, but with forgiveness comes a level of respect and seeing the other person as a person again rather than something evil. I love seeing my current clients come to a point of peace with their past. This is not only moving as a social worker but spiritually as this is a miracle of God. Seeing this wants me to help those victims get to that point and heal from their wounds so they can be the person they are meant to
According to Graham, reconciliation is both “… a goal in the sense that it aims to restore relationships or to promote agonism or mutual tolerance, respect, and dignity […] [And] it is a process because it requires multiple modes, steps, stages, and transformations across all levels of society and amongst all stakeholders in a conflict” (Graham 2015). Through reconciliation and the related processes of restorative justice, parties to the dispute explore and overcome the pain brought on by the conflict and find ways to build trust and live cooperatively with each other. Restorative justice seeks to have a positive impact on offenders by confronting them with the consequences of their actions and delineating their responsibilities, giving them both the opportunity to repair the damage caused to the victim and to work on finding a solution to their problems (Umbreit, Bradshaw and Coates, 1999). According to Philpott, there are six components of political reconciliation: building socially just institutions and relations between states, acknowledgement, reparations, punishment, apology, and forgiveness (Philpott
How has guilt and anger affected avenues of reconciliation between the subsequent generations of perpetrators and victims?
Some people tend to think that injustice is not as big of a problem than it really is. Injustice is a very real and brutal thing and reading the book “Good News about Injustice,” really helped me look at injustice in a way where I can do things to help. The beginning of the book Good News about Injustice by Gary Haugen, he is telling the reader that there is such a thing as injustice and God is using his people to combat it. We as people tend to block the bad things out and injustice is one of those things. God wants to use us to combat injustice. We are people on this earth to only make it better, by ignoring situations such as Maria’s, that same thing could happen to many different girls. Instead of that happening, we need to rise to this situation and do something about it. Whether it be prayer, educating, storming brothels, anything that can help needs to be done. Once one person starts helping that creates a train affect and soon you have several people supporting a cause that God could have taken in to his own hands but instead He wanted to use His people as His weapon and shine His light through them. Throughout the book the theme is going in the direction of God hates injustice and is actively fighting it with His people. Reasons He hate injustice is because He created each of His own children in His own image and hates it when things are violent and oppressed. The people that are facing injustice in this world today may wonder where God is at, and why He is putting them through this situation. Little do they know that when they suffer God suffers right along with them. God is a man of compassion. In the book it gets into the word power and how God sees that. Saying that injustice is the abuse of power, Maria had this problem with power. This man had some power and control over Maria or so she thought. He was using his power for sinful acts and not empowering the
After going some of their darkest times, the people of Rwanda learned that nothing good came out of the genocide; nothing got better. Despite all the horrors that they had been through, Rwandans didn’t disperse to new lands or try to finish what was started, instead, they rose from the ashes and became one united force. They forgave those who had done wrong. Immaculee is a prime example of this. She met one of the Hutus who had brutally murdered her family, and even attempted to kill her. “I flinched, letting out an involuntary gasp. Semana looked at me, stunned by my reaction and confused by the tears streaming down my face. He grabbed Felicien (the killer) by the shirt collar and hauled him to his feet. “What do you have to say to her? What do you have to say to Immaculee?” Felicien was sobbing. I could feel his shame. He looked up at me for only a moment, but our eyes met. I reached out, touched his hands lightly, and quietly said what I’d come to say. “I forgive you.””. Kindness like this in the aftermath ended up being much more common than one might suspect. Everybody was tired of the hurt, tired of the pain, so they did the only other thing they could think of… forgive. The Rwandan Genocide in all is such an empowering event because of how devastating it was. There was so much hate, anger, and grief that consumed these people to commit such saddening acts. The genocide serves in
“We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape It.”; quoted by Barack Obama. This quote represents that all gender and races can come together to make a better society. Human beings were not put on earth to live in fear or fear the future that awaits them. Their mission is to serve a special purpose in society. By helping to create a better society, there would be fewer problems to worry about in cases such as education, economic, social, and health problems. By all races and genders accepting and respecting one another personal beliefs, they can create a more just, sustainable, fair society. “Mending Wall” by Robert Frost, “Theme for English B” by Langston Hughes, “Ain’t I a Woman” by Sojourner Truth, and ‘No Bikini” by Ivan E.
In a truly just society, justice would lead to a heightening of the vulnerable patients making their health perhaps the only position of their life that is no longer vulnerable. Until social justice is applied to our geopolitical stage, gender and ethnicity differences will continue to limit work opportunities and fair pay. But, if we were to get the health component right, their health would not be a compounding factor in their vulnerability. Instead, good health can help to establish one’s capabilities to explore opportunities and better their lives. Whether it is Nussbaum’s (2000) exhaustive list of 10 essential capabilities or liberalism’s primary good (Almgren, 2013, p. 35), good health and well-being enables a person to fulfill their
Poverty is a major social justice issue across the world. In America alone, 14.5% of the population live below the poverty line. Not only is poverty an issue alone, but it also causes other social justice issues. Poverty causes other social justice issues because in impoverished areas there is an increased rate of crime, there are bad health conditions, and education is below average.
My definition of social justice in the field of education is based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child and the British-Colombia School Act that state that every child has a right to a proper education (UNICEF, n.d.; School Act, RSBC 1996, c. 412). A proper education to me is based on opportunity. I believe that in order to have a proper education, children should all be entitled to equal opportunity in their learning process. Children should have equal opportunity to obtain the supports that will assist them in achieving their potential.
It has been proven that often, the fight for social justice and the common good comes at a great cost to those involved. Through writings such as Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and Sophocles’ “Antigone”, as well as, lectures such as Dr.Colbourn’s lecture “Confronting History and the Good Life: Life after Rosewood” it is demonstrated how life, freedom, and a normal everyday life suffer as a cost of fighting for social justice and the common good.
Social Justice, according to the Department of Government and Justice Studies, means that “all people share a common humanity and therefore have a right to equitable treatment” (“What is Social Justice?”). For me, social justice is a willingness to understand that every person has needs, which include safety, security, health, and equality opportunity for learning. Providing affordable housing to every person in the United States is something social justice advocates have always striven for, but we still have such a long way to go.
Social justice is a core value in the social work field. We define social justice as, “all citizens would possess equal fundamental rights, protection, opportunities, obligations and social benefits (Kirst-Ashman & Hull, 2015, p. 29). Unfortunately, we understand there are many members in today’s society that are not receiving social justice. Some may not want help and believe that s/he is able to do it on their own and then there are the individuals that we may not know about that could really use our help. Our jobs as social workers is to help those who need help no matter if they are rich, poor, disabled, white, Hispanic, it does not matter because everyone should be treated equally. As NASW states, “The original mission of social work had much to do with championing the rights of society’s most vulnerable members, from children to homeless people to the physically disabled” (NASW: National Association of Social Workers, 2015, para. 1).
What does social justice mean to a mother on welfare struggling to feed her family, or to a young college graduate looking for a job? Of course it can be said that all people are subject to the same experiences included in the American dream no matter race, religion, gender, economic status; yet centuries seem to fly by like water in a downhill stream, and the world’s smudged reality of social justice is still intact. Social justice is defined as fair treatment in the distribution of wealth, opportunity, and privileges: this includes education, economic opportunities, health care, property, and fair subjugation to laws. Although some progress has been made, it is still very important for society to fully grasp
We must find ways to resist unfair treatment in society because everyone knows that there is a lot of things that are not fair in life, but I won’t sit around and don’t do anything about it. I am going to stick up for what I believe in and hopefully others will have the courage to do the same. We need to be aware of all the negatives things that are happening. No one’s life is easy, we all go through bad situations.What matters the most is how we take that bad situation and turn it into a better one.There are a lot of different things that creates unfairness in this world, but it doesn’t have to be that way. We need to get rid of unfairness because we are all human, so we shouldn’t treat another human being differently because of their race, religion, sexual orientation , color of their skin or even their physical appearance.
People have the right to not be forced to do something they don’t agree with, for example, women have the right to choose what happens with their body but in some cases it is not equal for all women. Here in the United States fortunately women have the power to decide whether to abort or not. But in china and India they have different beliefs and traditions; therefore women have no such thing as rights they are not able to express their thoughts, this is discrimination against females. Just as Richard Wright states on the article “The library card”, “hiding my thoughts and feelings from them”. The speaker of the passage did not have the right to go in the library do to his ethnicity; this was not social justice towards him.
The term social inclusion may be used in a different context that is “related to government initiatives and funding”. The particular meaning, we will be discussing throughout the paper is individuals working towards making a positive impact on injustice issues and having all communities have a fair shot in society. (“The promotion of social Inclusion” 2 ) Referring to the University of the New England views of social inclusion and my personal perspective, I believe Social Inclusion is having equality for all people no matter of their cultural differences and having equal access to resources to help them to succeed. We cannot have social justice in society if we do not consider cultural diversity and what each individual may need to be successful