I Will... Will You? What can you do to move toward a more just society? Take part in the “I Will” campaign during the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Symposium and continue these commitments throughout your life. |
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What Will You Do? |
I will center the voices, interests, and experiences of everyone in order to make positive change.
I will expand my comfort zone and continually assess, understand, and challenge my biases and prejudices and how they impact my expectations for, and relationships with, all people.
I will engage in a self-reflective process to explore the ways in which my identity development impacts the way I see and experience different people.
I will invite critique from others and accept it openly. Though it's easy to become defensive in the face of critique, I will thank the person for their time and courage (because it's not easy to critique another.
I will never stop being a student. If I do not grow, learn, and change while the world around me is changing, then I necessarily lose touch with the lives and contexts of others. I must continue to educate myself and to be challenged by a diversity of perspectives’ of those around me.
I will take responsibility for and learn from my privilege, power, and influence, because most individual-level oppression is unintentional despite our best intentions.
I will reject the myth of color-blindness. As difficult as it is to admit, I know that I react differently when I'm in a room full of people who share many dimensions of my identity than when I'm in a room full of people who are very different from me. I will be open and honest about that, because those feelings and inevitably inform the experiences of people in my classes or workshops. Color-blindness denies people validation of their whole person.
I will recognize my own social identity group memberships and how they may affect others. People do not always experience me the way I intend them to, even if I am an active advocate for justice. One’s initial reaction to me may be based on a lifetime of experiences, so I must try not to take such reactions personally.
I will build coalitions with others who are different from me (in terms of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, religion, first language, disability, and other identities). These can be valuable relationships of trust and honest critique.
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| I will not rely on people from historically underprivileged groups to teach me how to improve myself (which is, in and of itself, a practice of privilege).
I will address issues of diversity and equity in an educational manner and not allow theses moments to slip away, either because I am uncomfortable or because I am scared.
I will listen actively and model a willingness to be changed by the presence and experience of others, with hopes that mine change them.
I will think critically about my preferences and address the needs of others with flexibility and objectivity.
I will affirm and demonstrate an appreciation for all forms of intelligence and the wide variety of ways in which others illustrate understanding and mastery of skills and knowledge.
I will ask critical questions about all information that may be communicated from a bias perspective.
I will challenge myself to take personal responsibility when I am at fault for an injustice and not look for fault elsewhere.
I will acknowledge my role as a social activist and how my education and work can change lives, providing me with enormous power and tremendous responsibility. I must acknowledge and draw on that power and responsibility as a frame for guiding my efforts toward equity and social justice in my work.
I will fight for equity for all underrepresented or disenfranchised people. As an advocate for educational equity, I will not justify my inattention to any group of disenfranchised people due to the worldview or value system into which I was socialized.
I will celebrate myself as a unique, holistic person. I can, and should, also celebrate every moment I spend in self-critique, however difficult and painful, because it will make me a better person. |
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