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Education

The what, so what, and now what of social justice education

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The What, So What, and Now What of Social Justice Education provides a three-tier guide for implementing social justice education. Warren Blumenfeld suggests best theoretical practices for creating more fair communities.

Image courtesy of interviewee. January 23, 2024

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I'm a social justice educator.

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I, got my, my degree at the University

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of Massachusetts in Amherst in social justice education.

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Um, also, I grew up in a home with a Holocaust survivor.

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My grandfather lost his parents

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and nine of his, siblings to

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the Nazis in Poland.

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So I grew up with this, the sense,

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that the world was not just in many ways.

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Um, I wrote the book

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because I wanted to demystify the topic

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of social justice education

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and also differentiate social justice education from other

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educational perspectives such as diversity, multiple,

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multicultural education, which mainly just talks about,

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you know, the heroes and the holidays, and the festival.

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We need to look at the context of education in terms

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of, systems of, of oppression

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and the ways that it affects different identity categories.

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And also we need to look at path towards liberation.

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We live in a very, very conservative time.

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Uh, I know in the United States

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and in, in many of the European countries, we're seeing more

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and more governments going towards authoritarianism

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under the guise of freedom

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to determine their children's education.

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Um, we need, we see this new phenomenon.

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I don't know if it's really that new,

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but it it's least, on the surface now

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where some parents, legislators

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and school administrators are attempting

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to place severe limitations on the teaching of history,

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on the legacy of this history upon the lives of people

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and the functioning of institution.

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I know in the United States anyway,

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Republican legislators throughout the US

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have enacted new laws

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and policies intended to

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define the narrow parameters of what

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and how students will discuss our country's

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past and our present.

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And I, I, I wanted to write a book

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for teachers, for educators, for community activists,

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looking at ways to negotiate the times

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to demystify this whole context of

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what are we talking about, social education.

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Um, and, and to look at ways that we can empower students

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to be transformative in,

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changing themselves, changing their communities,

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and changing the world to be a, a, a better place.

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So that was basically some of the,

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assumptions or the motivations that I had.

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And I know one book can't do all of that,

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but I wanted to demystify it

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by giving some of the terminology.

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What are we talking about? Social justice,

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education, education.

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I, I teach courses in social justice education.

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And just this semester, one of the students complained that

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in a course on social justice education,

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we talked too much about social justice, which is

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such a contradiction.

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And the student said, we should discuss the other side

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more, because I only give the social justice

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and liberation side.

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We have to talk about the other side.

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And he said, what is that other side to me?

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You know, the other side is fascism.

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The other side is authoritarianism.

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This other side is, is non-democracy.

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Um, I had a, a colleague once

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who taught this course called Race and Education,

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and she was accused

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of talking about race too much in a course on

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race and education.

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So there, there's this real backlash, in,

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in discussing issues that, that are of concern

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to a lot of students.

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And the process,

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and the title of the book, the what, the so what

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and the now what of Social Justice Education.

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This is an educational pedagogical strategy to

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begin, have a middle and, have an ending.

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The, the, what is identification? What are we talking about?

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This is called the descriptive stage.

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Uh, what are the terms, what are the definitions?

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This is the, the context. This is the structure.

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This is the foundation, the language

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that we're gonna be using in the course, in the topic

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of social justice, education, et cetera.

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The second part, the so what? So why is this important?

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Let's understand what the, what is

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we're, this is the interpretive

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and the analytical stage of

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what we're talking about in social justice,

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and that now what, okay, we have the terms,

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we have the understanding.

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Now what do we do with it? Let's plan.

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It's the action planning stage.

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Let's plan as individuals, as groups,

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and as institutions to look at ways

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that we can change ourselves, our environment,

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our communities, our world for the betterment.

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This is how we empower our students

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to go out into the world,

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to change the world for the better.

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So we have these three stages,

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and hopefully by the time we go through the stages, we go

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through, the identification,

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the understanding, and the planning.

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Then we can demystify this whole thing that we call social,

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justice, and,

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and hopefully make ourselves better and our world better.

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Social justice has been defined in a number of ways.

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I, I came up with my own definition.

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First of all, it's process.

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As, as the, the wa the,

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articulate.

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It is a process. Uh, to me it is the concept

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that local, national,

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and global communities function,

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where everyone has equal access to an equitable distribution

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of the rights, benefits and privileges and resources,

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and where everyone can live freely, unencumbered by social

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constructions of hierarchical positions of domination

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and subordination based on social identities.

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Now, social identities themselves are socially constructed.

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There is no such thing as gender, except

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for the fact that humans constructed this thing

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called gender masculinity, femininity.

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We are assigned a gender at birth

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of male or female.

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And with those assignments, we're handed a script,

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like an actor is handed a script in a play

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that has happened before and rehearsed and rehearsed.

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By the time we get the script, it seems to be natural.

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It seems to be biological.

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So gender is one of those social identities

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that is socially construction, socially

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manufactured, the same thing as race.

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There is no such thing as race. There is no gene for race.

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There are genes for skin color.

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There are genes for facial features

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and for hair, texture and color.

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But there's no gene for race.

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Uh, race is a social construction that was

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manufactured by Europeans, I'm sorry,

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in the 15th century as a way to

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subordinate to colonize people of distant lands

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that looked different from them.

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So they define them as the separate human form.

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In the United States Constitution,

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we have what's called the three fifths clause.

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At the time the Constitution was written, slavery

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was legal in most of the states of the Union.

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And as a compromise, the Southerners wanted,

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the enslaved Africans to

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be counted in the census,

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because in the census,

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you have representation in the Congress.

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So there's a clause in the US Constitution

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that each enslaved person is equal

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to three fifths of a human being.

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Social construction, we're de defining them

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as less than human,

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but for census purposes, they couldn't vote

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for census purposes.

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They're considered as three-fifths of a human being.

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So these things we call

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identities are mainly fabrications.

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Uh, there is no such thing as gender.

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There's no such thing as race.

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Um, many of these other social identities are,

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are constructed in order

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to place some people in privileged dominant positions

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and other people in subordinated,

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marginalized positions.

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So, social justice education demystifies all of that

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and looks at the ways in which

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oppressive systems can have function,

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the history of that, that function,

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and ways to dismantle those systems

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of oppression towards liberation.

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I use social justice as a lens of perception.

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As in front of my classes.

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I take off my glasses, then I can't see my students.

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I take, okay, many of you will not be teaching

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social justice education.

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There are very few social justice education classes.

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You are education majors.

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You are psychology majors,

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you are sociology majors.

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You are school psychology majors and administration majors.

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You will not be teaching social justice education,

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but this course will help you to use social justice

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as a lens of perception, a way

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of viewing the world.

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And that's how I have always used social

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justice education.

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When I, I, I see a situation when I, I I,

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I just wrote this essay on i i

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on my Mars Briggs personality test.

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You know, it says that I make connections,

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and I've always made connections.

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And I, I, I looked at the ways in which Hitler

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and Mussolini considered,

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issues of race, sexuality, both Hitler

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and Mussolini in their autocratic systems.

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A banned abortion, banned homosexuality,

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banned women's liberation, banned

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sex education in the schools, banned books,

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banned knowledge banned.

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Transgender transformations banned because,

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and I came up with this notion that if one has

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bodily autonomy, one is more likely

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to have autonomy of mind.

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So if you restrict

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and take away one's bodily autonomy, you have a more

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chance of, of,

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of taking away their freedom of thought,

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their critical thinking.

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There's a connection between bodily autonomy

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and autonomy of thought.

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And I see the same things happening in many countries,

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including the United States, including Brazil, including

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Hungary, and definitely in Russia.

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I mean, and Hungary is going the way of, of the,

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of the autocrats.

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And recently in Poland, I I, I've traveled back to Poland

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eight times to do genealogy work and to do Holocaust work.

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And in those times, I've seen the changes in, in,

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in the restrictions, the autocratic ways in which the law

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and justice party, which is such a misnomer, has,

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tried to take away people's bodily autonomy.

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Luckily, they were just voted out of office.

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And I feel so optimistic

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that maybe we're sending a new trend

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that maybe we'll see some reversals in places like Hungary

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and, and maybe in the United States as well,

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which is not a leading democracy anymore.

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We've been downgraded by an, an international organization

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about the United States as no longer the world's longest,

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lasting democracy.

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We've been downgraded.

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So what is, why are we discussing this?

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Why is this important?

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I mean, the student, unfortunately, in my class,

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we're talking about social justice too much.

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She never got to the second point.

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So what I do, this, this,

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I think it's a very interesting assignment for students.

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They don't have to source anything.

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They don't have to read anything.

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It's called a multiple identities,

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critical multiple identities project.

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And I asked them four questions.

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I asked them to step outside of themselves

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and look at themselves from

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a 30,000 foot perspective.

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They might even want to, interview some family members.

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So I ask them, define yourself physically.

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And that pushes a lot of buttons, you know,

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and they say, I don't wanna,

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and they always go to the part

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of their bodies that they hate.

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They don't talk about, you know, you know,

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I have a pretty face, or they always go to that one.

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So, you know, they're, they're looking at that.

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Now, I want you to give me your values system.

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How are your values based on what are your values based?

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Okay? Uh, the the next one is,

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how were your experiences in, in early childhood education,

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in your early childhood education?

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Um, and, part of the second part is when were you

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aware of people of other races,

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of other genders, of other sexes?

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About how old were you and what messages did you get?

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And they, they go back into their socialization.

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We talk about socialization a lot.

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We go, they go back into their socialization. Ugh.

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You know, uncle Benny was really racist, you know?

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And it made me feel really uncomfortable.

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And I was only seven years old,

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and I knew something was wrong.

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So we're going back to their socialization.

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We're going back and how does their socialization square

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with their values, and how do their values

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and their socialization square with

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how they consider their own physicality?

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And they link all of those things together.

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They were taught that, I'm, I'm pulling this up.

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People with black curly hair ugly,

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and people with straight blonde hair are beautiful.

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And I had, a black curly hair,

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and my sister had straight blonde hair,

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and I always felt less than

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because of, so they, they,

17:10.115 --> 17:13.365
they really are interrogating their own socialization

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and their social identities as a way of

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gaining empathy for and understanding the larger context.

17:21.915 --> 17:24.085
They're looking at themselves on a micro level.

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And then we, we, this is the, so what I said,

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okay, the, so I get it now.

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I get why we're talking about black people

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in the inner city, even though I am white,

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I get it why we're talking about black

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people in the inner city.

17:46.345 --> 17:49.660
So that I do on the second week of sc, of class.

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And it really pushes them into the, so what,

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why is this important?

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And it gives them empathy.

17:58.605 --> 18:01.855
Hopefully, empathy is something I think we're all given,

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but as we get older, it's, it's killed in us.

18:07.525 --> 18:12.455
It's drowned out because I, I, in England is not as much,

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but United States is an individualistic society.

18:15.875 --> 18:18.015
We think about ourselves, we think about our family

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and our neighbors.

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You know, not so much we don't think in terms of community.

18:23.895 --> 18:27.575
I say this to my students and they re resent it

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and deny it.

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But I think social media has taken people away from

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community and connection.

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And I, I, I have this rule in my class that I know,

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I can't tell you, you can't use your media,

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because I know you'll go through withdrawal shakes

18:50.235 --> 18:52.475
and whatever they do, it's, it's addictive.

18:52.935 --> 18:56.235
So I said, if you need to use your media, except, you know,

18:56.255 --> 18:58.355
to take notes, which, you know,

18:59.055 --> 19:00.435
you need to sit in the back row.

19:01.565 --> 19:04.225
And the back row is always overfilled.

19:05.095 --> 19:08.625
They cannot put down their media. When I, I, I don't drive.

19:08.785 --> 19:12.185
I have bad vision. So I, I haven't driven a car since

19:12.845 --> 19:14.265
in 1967.

19:15.565 --> 19:17.105
So I, I, I take the bus

19:17.565 --> 19:20.665
and I see these students, on the bus going

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to our university.

19:22.695 --> 19:24.425
It's called the Five College Area.

19:24.605 --> 19:27.425
So we, we stop off at two other universities

19:27.605 --> 19:31.025
before, it's a, it's a brain trust around here.

19:31.135 --> 19:33.625
It's great. But we get on the bus

19:33.685 --> 19:35.905
and I see these students waiting

19:35.965 --> 19:37.865
for the bus talking to one another.

19:38.045 --> 19:40.985
You know, they get on the bus, they sit down next

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to each other and pull out their phones.

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They don't say one word for the next 10, 15,

19:48.295 --> 19:50.745
half hour to the person sitting next to them.

19:50.745 --> 19:52.105
They're constantly on their phone.

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And, and, and I feel that takes away the sense of empathy.

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I show them this film, that was taken from this,

20:03.815 --> 20:07.635
American TV program called 60 Minutes.

20:09.145 --> 20:12.205
And it's about, it's called The Bad Samaritan.

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It's about these, these two young men who

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graduated high school, and the father drives them from Los

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Angeles over the, Nevada border where they can gamble.

20:26.455 --> 20:29.515
So, they go to this casino

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and they play video games.

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They can't actually gamble 'cause they're only 18.

20:33.375 --> 20:36.275
Uh, you have to be 21. But they go and play video games.

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One of the young men sees this young, seven,

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8-year-old black, girl going to the women's room.

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He follows her into the wom women's room,

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and then his friend is standing there

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saying, what's he doing?

20:52.535 --> 20:55.315
You know? So he goes and follows his friend in there,

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and the two of them are, are throwing,

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towel wet towels at each other, you know, playing.

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All of a sudden, the first young man grabs the, the girl

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puts his hand over her, her mouth pulls her into a stall,

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and she starts, you know, screaming.

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The second young man goes into the next stall and looks down

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and sees her, sees him,

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and hears him saying, if you don't shut up

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and going, gonna kill you.

21:26.735 --> 21:31.615
So the second young man leaves the bathroom

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and goes back and plays video games

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without calling for help.

21:39.025 --> 21:40.085
And the second,

21:40.085 --> 21:42.605
the first young man comes back 20 minutes later

21:42.745 --> 21:44.485
and said, yeah, I killed her.

21:45.725 --> 21:49.485
So the two of them go to another casino

21:49.985 --> 21:52.765
and ride the rides and the rollercoaster and whatever,

21:53.545 --> 21:56.005
and then they leave, and then they go back to California.

21:57.445 --> 22:00.065
And then, the,

22:00.445 --> 22:03.345
the Closer Circuit television recorded them.

22:03.765 --> 22:07.495
And they, I don't know how the police,

22:07.635 --> 22:11.855
but the police finally catch the first young man who killed,

22:12.595 --> 22:14.495
and Ra raped and killed the girl.

22:15.365 --> 22:18.025
And then they interviewed the second young man

22:18.045 --> 22:19.985
and said, why didn't you do anything?

22:20.815 --> 22:22.465
They said, I didn't know this girl.

22:23.185 --> 22:27.225
I don't know starving people in Panama. What was I gonna do?

22:27.365 --> 22:29.585
And, and, and besides, you know,

22:29.865 --> 22:31.065
I didn't wanna get involved.

22:31.135 --> 22:32.825
They might think that I helped him.

22:33.125 --> 22:36.825
And besides, he's my best friend, we take

22:37.535 --> 22:40.425
college level, English together.

22:40.885 --> 22:42.505
Why would I turn him in?

22:44.805 --> 22:48.225
To me, that shows that empathy itself

22:48.885 --> 22:49.945
is on a continuum.

22:50.775 --> 22:54.825
This young man is on the end of that continuum.

22:55.525 --> 22:58.825
And then I show this, it's about a 20 minute video,

22:59.445 --> 23:04.215
and then I show a video of Meep Geese,

23:05.205 --> 23:09.435
which is the woman who sheltered and Frank and her family.

23:11.185 --> 23:13.465
I show the extremes of empathy.

23:15.075 --> 23:20.015
David Cash, the Bad Samaritan, meep Geese,

23:20.315 --> 23:23.255
who risked her life to save seven people.

23:24.845 --> 23:27.105
And at the end, only one survived.

23:27.285 --> 23:30.845
But, but for months, she risked her life.

23:31.105 --> 23:33.405
And after the Gestapo came

23:34.065 --> 23:38.925
and arrested seven people, meek Geese ran

23:38.925 --> 23:42.485
to the Gestapo headquarters demanding that they be released.

23:44.775 --> 23:49.315
So I show, I show this continuum of empathy,

23:49.975 --> 23:53.955
and I ask students, where do you stand on that continuum?

23:55.095 --> 23:57.795
You can dismiss David Cash,

23:58.295 --> 24:02.155
and you can, say that Meek Geese was a hero.

24:02.645 --> 24:05.875
Where are you? Where are you on that continuum?

24:07.405 --> 24:09.625
So what, when I see,

24:10.105 --> 24:12.545
students come into class wanting the now, what,

24:13.725 --> 24:16.465
as number one, give us a menu of

24:16.525 --> 24:20.105
how we can improve the world and say, no, no, no, no.

24:20.285 --> 24:22.185
That's not how it's done.

24:23.045 --> 24:26.465
You know, you, I, I can't give you this menu,

24:26.645 --> 24:29.385
and you in add these ingredients, you're gonna do it.

24:29.925 --> 24:32.625
You need to get the basis, the foundation.

24:32.845 --> 24:34.185
You need to get the terminology.

24:34.365 --> 24:36.945
You need to know how this important to you,

24:38.415 --> 24:40.675
and you have to come up the strategies.

24:40.735 --> 24:43.035
But, but we have options here.

24:43.215 --> 24:47.235
And we, I give a, you know, a anywhere from, you know,

24:48.955 --> 24:53.415
transforming yourself, looking into yourself, the the

24:54.055 --> 24:55.415
critical identity project.

24:56.355 --> 24:58.615
And then you come up with strategies

24:58.615 --> 25:00.135
that are effective for you.

25:00.435 --> 25:03.295
And, you know, we have this continuum

25:04.395 --> 25:07.135
of action strategies that they can take.

25:07.675 --> 25:10.255
And at the, at last day, I give them this grid.

25:10.355 --> 25:15.125
It has nine squares on the top, it says,

25:15.505 --> 25:19.955
me as an individual, my team,

25:20.255 --> 25:23.275
or my peers, and my institution,

25:24.475 --> 25:28.655
and the, within one week, within six months,

25:28.955 --> 25:33.575
within two years, I want you to fill out as many

25:33.635 --> 25:34.975
of these as you can.

25:35.495 --> 25:37.495
I, as an individual, what can I do?

25:38.295 --> 25:40.495
I as an individual within one week

25:40.615 --> 25:42.695
to make this school a better place?

25:44.265 --> 25:46.115
What can my friends

25:46.215 --> 25:47.875
and I do within six months

25:47.975 --> 25:49.875
to make this school a better place?

25:50.985 --> 25:53.795
What can the institution do within two years

25:53.855 --> 25:55.355
to make this school a better place?

25:56.175 --> 26:00.315
And by that time, we have discussed strategies,

26:01.095 --> 26:05.875
to empower students to make the world a better place.

26:06.535 --> 26:09.755
We talk about issues of the labor unions,

26:09.935 --> 26:14.805
how the labor unions worked to give us the middle class

26:15.515 --> 26:17.605
they worked to give us the weekend.

26:18.345 --> 26:21.565
We talk about the, climate crisis.

26:21.865 --> 26:25.405
And Greta Thunberg Thunberg Berg about

26:25.405 --> 26:29.645
what this one young woman has done to spark a movement.

26:30.185 --> 26:33.845
We talk about the, March for our Lives,

26:34.295 --> 26:36.605
young students in Florida

26:37.355 --> 26:40.245
that have really pushed the discourse

26:40.945 --> 26:43.565
on gun control in the United States.

26:44.265 --> 26:48.045
We give these examples. We give Meeb geese as an example.

26:48.945 --> 26:51.375
Um, that young people

26:52.005 --> 26:56.975
have always been the change agents to empower,

26:57.235 --> 27:00.015
and to, and to give them the tools.

27:01.335 --> 27:04.145
Intuitively, many of them already have the tools,

27:04.885 --> 27:09.385
but to supplement that, to empower them, to continue the,

27:09.765 --> 27:12.745
continue to

27:14.145 --> 27:16.105
reinforce their empowerment.

27:16.645 --> 27:20.825
So by the time the semester ends, there's one student,

27:21.765 --> 27:24.145
she, called me during winter break,

27:24.765 --> 27:29.535
and she said, your course ruined

27:30.195 --> 27:32.015
my relationship with my fiance.

27:33.675 --> 27:35.815
And I said, how? He said, I never realized

27:35.835 --> 27:39.735
how racist he was, and I broke up with him.

27:40.355 --> 27:42.495
You know, we, we were having dinner

27:42.555 --> 27:44.455
and he was just going on and on and on.

27:44.455 --> 27:46.095
And I guess he always was like that,

27:46.095 --> 27:47.575
but I never realized before.

27:47.575 --> 27:49.535
And it's like, I'm not gonna marry him.

27:51.455 --> 27:55.095
I mean, that's an example of empowering people

27:55.515 --> 27:57.095
to understand themselves

27:57.315 --> 28:01.515
and to understand the world better, you know?

28:01.575 --> 28:05.595
And, and now the, the young, one of the young men

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who was of,

28:08.075 --> 28:12.715
a survivor at Marjorie Stoneham Douglas High School in,

28:13.015 --> 28:17.635
in Florida, who was one of the founders of the

28:18.915 --> 28:23.235
Movement for Gun Control, started a new organization

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to empower young people to run for office.

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So it, it, it,

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he started an organization called Leaders We Deserve,

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stemming from his empowerment as a gun rights advocate.

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So that's, that's how things are done.

28:41.995 --> 28:43.075
Margaret Mead said, you know,

28:43.075 --> 28:46.515
the only way change is possible when a, when a a a group

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of committed people take actions.

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I'm paraphrasing, but that's how change happens.

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You know, the individual, the group, the,

28:57.935 --> 29:00.235
the community, the country, the world.

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That's the process

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I hope readers take from this book, some empowerment,

29:07.675 --> 29:11.035
because there's a backlash that people are being fired.

29:11.705 --> 29:15.035
This book is banned

29:16.175 --> 29:17.235
in 11 states.

29:18.185 --> 29:22.315
It's banned in 11 states, specifically Florida

29:22.895 --> 29:25.835
and Texas, because it deals with topics

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they don't want young people to learn about.

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They don't want young people to learn about the history,

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the legacy of oppression, and the ways of liberation.

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They wanna control their bodies in order

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to control their minds.

29:41.065 --> 29:45.445
So I hope this book empowers educators,

29:46.085 --> 29:49.285
students, community organizers demystifies

29:49.955 --> 29:51.085
what social justice.

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Social justice is, is empowerment.

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Social justice is freedom, social justice is liberation.

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And we really need to push up against

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the forces that are trying to take away our freedom.

00:00 - I'm a social justice educator. I, got my, my degree at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst in social justice education. also, I grew up in a home with a Holocaust survivor. My grandfather lost his parents and nine of his, siblings to

00:24 - the Nazis in Poland. So I grew up with this, the sense, that the world was not just in many ways. I wrote the book because I wanted to demystify the topic of social justice education and also differentiate social justice education from other educational perspectives such as diversity, multiple, multicultural education, which mainly just talks about, you know, the heroes and the holidays, and the festival.

00:59 - We need to look at the context of education in terms of, systems of, of oppression and the ways that it affects different identity categories. And also we need to look at path towards liberation. We live in a very, very conservative time. I know in the United States and in, in many of the European countries, we're seeing more and more governments going towards authoritarianism under the guise of freedom to determine their children's education.

01:38 - we need, we see this new phenomenon. I don't know if it's really that new, but it it's least, on the surface now where some parents, legislators and school administrators are attempting to place severe limitations on the teaching of history, on the legacy of this history upon the lives of people and the functioning of institution. I know in the United States anyway, Republican legislators throughout the US

02:10 - have enacted new laws and policies intended to define the narrow parameters of what and how students will discuss our country's past and our present. And I, I, I wanted to write a book for teachers, for educators, for community activists, looking at ways to negotiate the times to demystify this whole context of what are we talking about, social education.

02:44 - and, and to look at ways that we can empower students to be transformative in, changing themselves, changing their communities, and changing the world to be a, a, a better place. So that was basically some of the, assumptions or the motivations that I had. And I know one book can't do all of that, but I wanted to demystify it by giving some of the terminology. What are we talking about? Social justice,

03:16 - education, education. I, I teach courses in social justice education. And just this semester, one of the students complained that in a course on social justice education, we talked too much about social justice, which is such a contradiction. And the student said, we should discuss the other side more, because I only give the social justice and liberation side. We have to talk about the other side.

03:49 - And he said, what is that other side to me? You know, the other side is fascism. The other side is authoritarianism. This other side is, is non-democracy. I had a, a colleague once who taught this course called Race and Education, and she was accused of talking about race too much in a course on race and education. So there, there's this real backlash, in,

04:21 - in discussing issues that, that are of concern to a lot of students. And the process, and the title of the book, the what, the so what and the now what of Social Justice Education. This is an educational pedagogical strategy to begin, have a middle and, have an ending. The, the, what is identification? What are we talking about? This is called the descriptive stage. what are the terms, what are the definitions?

05:01 - This is the, the context. This is the structure. This is the foundation, the language that we're gonna be using in the course, in the topic of social justice, education, et cetera. The second part, the so what? So why is this important? Let's understand what the, what is we're, this is the interpretive and the analytical stage of what we're talking about in social justice, and that now what, okay, we have the terms,

05:35 - we have the understanding. Now what do we do with it? Let's plan. It's the action planning stage. Let's plan as individuals, as groups, and as institutions to look at ways that we can change ourselves, our environment, our communities, our world for the betterment. This is how we empower our students to go out into the world, to change the world for the better.

06:03 - So we have these three stages, and hopefully by the time we go through the stages, we go through, the identification, the understanding, and the planning. Then we can demystify this whole thing that we call social, justice, and, and hopefully make ourselves better and our world better. Social justice has been defined in a number of ways. I, I came up with my own definition. First of all, it's process.

06:34 - As, as the, the wa the, articulate. It is a process. to me it is the concept that local, national, and global communities function, where everyone has equal access to an equitable distribution of the rights, benefits and privileges and resources, and where everyone can live freely, unencumbered by social constructions of hierarchical positions of domination and subordination based on social identities.

07:12 - Now, social identities themselves are socially constructed. There is no such thing as gender, except for the fact that humans constructed this thing called gender masculinity, femininity. We are assigned a gender at birth of male or female. And with those assignments, we're handed a script, like an actor is handed a script in a play that has happened before and rehearsed and rehearsed. By the time we get the script, it seems to be natural.

07:54 - It seems to be biological. So gender is one of those social identities that is socially construction, socially manufactured, the same thing as race. There is no such thing as race. There is no gene for race. There are genes for skin color. There are genes for facial features and for hair, texture and color. But there's no gene for race. race is a social construction that was

08:27 - manufactured by Europeans, I'm sorry, in the 15th century as a way to subordinate to colonize people of distant lands that looked different from them. So they define them as the separate human form. In the United States Constitution, we have what's called the three fifths clause. At the time the Constitution was written, slavery was legal in most of the states of the Union. And as a compromise, the Southerners wanted,

09:11 - the enslaved Africans to be counted in the census, because in the census, you have representation in the Congress. So there's a clause in the US Constitution that each enslaved person is equal to three fifths of a human being. Social construction, we're de defining them as less than human, but for census purposes, they couldn't vote

09:37 - for census purposes. They're considered as three-fifths of a human being. So these things we call identities are mainly fabrications. there is no such thing as gender. There's no such thing as race. many of these other social identities are, are constructed in order to place some people in privileged dominant positions and other people in subordinated,

10:07 - marginalized positions. So, social justice education demystifies all of that and looks at the ways in which oppressive systems can have function, the history of that, that function, and ways to dismantle those systems of oppression towards liberation. I use social justice as a lens of perception. As in front of my classes. I take off my glasses, then I can't see my students.

10:42 - I take, okay, many of you will not be teaching social justice education. There are very few social justice education classes. You are education majors. You are psychology majors, you are sociology majors. You are school psychology majors and administration majors. You will not be teaching social justice education, but this course will help you to use social justice as a lens of perception, a way

11:15 - of viewing the world. And that's how I have always used social justice education. When I, I, I see a situation when I, I I, I just wrote this essay on i i on my Mars Briggs personality test. You know, it says that I make connections, and I've always made connections. And I, I, I looked at the ways in which Hitler and Mussolini considered,

11:48 - issues of race, sexuality, both Hitler and Mussolini in their autocratic systems. A banned abortion, banned homosexuality, banned women's liberation, banned sex education in the schools, banned books, banned knowledge banned. Transgender transformations banned because, and I came up with this notion that if one has bodily autonomy, one is more likely to have autonomy of mind.

12:34 - So if you restrict and take away one's bodily autonomy, you have a more chance of, of, of taking away their freedom of thought, their critical thinking. There's a connection between bodily autonomy and autonomy of thought. And I see the same things happening in many countries, including the United States, including Brazil, including Hungary, and definitely in Russia.

13:07 - I mean, and Hungary is going the way of, of the, of the autocrats. And recently in Poland, I I, I've traveled back to Poland eight times to do genealogy work and to do Holocaust work. And in those times, I've seen the changes in, in, in the restrictions, the autocratic ways in which the law and justice party, which is such a misnomer, has, tried to take away people's bodily autonomy. Luckily, they were just voted out of office. And I feel so optimistic

13:44 - that maybe we're sending a new trend that maybe we'll see some reversals in places like Hungary and, and maybe in the United States as well, which is not a leading democracy anymore. We've been downgraded by an, an international organization about the United States as no longer the world's longest, lasting democracy. We've been downgraded. So what is, why are we discussing this? Why is this important?

14:14 - I mean, the student, unfortunately, in my class, we're talking about social justice too much. She never got to the second point. So what I do, this, this, I think it's a very interesting assignment for students. They don't have to source anything. They don't have to read anything. It's called a multiple identities, critical multiple identities project. And I asked them four questions.

14:44 - I asked them to step outside of themselves and look at themselves from a 30,000 foot perspective. They might even want to, interview some family members. So I ask them, define yourself physically. And that pushes a lot of buttons, you know, and they say, I don't wanna, and they always go to the part of their bodies that they hate. They don't talk about, you know, you know,

15:15 - I have a pretty face, or they always go to that one. So, you know, they're, they're looking at that. Now, I want you to give me your values system. How are your values based on what are your values based? Okay? the the next one is, how were your experiences in, in early childhood education, in your early childhood education? and, part of the second part is when were you aware of people of other races, of other genders, of other sexes?

16:01 - About how old were you and what messages did you get? And they, they go back into their socialization. We talk about socialization a lot. We go, they go back into their socialization. Ugh. You know, uncle Benny was really racist, you know? And it made me feel really uncomfortable. And I was only seven years old, and I knew something was wrong. So we're going back to their socialization. We're going back and how does their socialization square

16:33 - with their values, and how do their values and their socialization square with how they consider their own physicality? And they link all of those things together. They were taught that, I'm, I'm pulling this up. People with black curly hair ugly, and people with straight blonde hair are beautiful. And I had, a black curly hair, and my sister had straight blonde hair, and I always felt less than

17:07 - because of, so they, they, they really are interrogating their own socialization and their social identities as a way of gaining empathy for and understanding the larger context. They're looking at themselves on a micro level. And then we, we, this is the, so what I said, okay, the, so I get it now. I get why we're talking about black people in the inner city, even though I am white, I get it why we're talking about black

17:44 - people in the inner city. So that I do on the second week of sc, of class. And it really pushes them into the, so what, why is this important? And it gives them empathy. Hopefully, empathy is something I think we're all given, but as we get older, it's, it's killed in us. It's drowned out because I, I, in England is not as much, but United States is an individualistic society. We think about ourselves, we think about our family

18:18 - and our neighbors. You know, not so much we don't think in terms of community. I say this to my students and they re resent it and deny it. But I think social media has taken people away from community and connection. And I, I, I have this rule in my class that I know, I can't tell you, you can't use your media, because I know you'll go through withdrawal shakes and whatever they do, it's, it's addictive.

18:52 - So I said, if you need to use your media, except, you know, to take notes, which, you know, you need to sit in the back row. And the back row is always overfilled. They cannot put down their media. When I, I, I don't drive. I have bad vision. So I, I haven't driven a car since in 1967. So I, I, I take the bus and I see these students, on the bus going to our university.

19:22 - It's called the Five College Area. So we, we stop off at two other universities before, it's a, it's a brain trust around here. It's great. But we get on the bus and I see these students waiting for the bus talking to one another. You know, they get on the bus, they sit down next to each other and pull out their phones. They don't say one word for the next 10, 15, half hour to the person sitting next to them.

19:50 - They're constantly on their phone. And, and, and I feel that takes away the sense of empathy. I show them this film, that was taken from this, American TV program called 60 Minutes. And it's about, it's called The Bad Samaritan. It's about these, these two young men who graduated high school, and the father drives them from Los Angeles over the, Nevada border where they can gamble. So, they go to this casino and they play video games.

20:30 - They can't actually gamble 'cause they're only 18. you have to be 21. But they go and play video games. One of the young men sees this young, seven, 8-year-old black, girl going to the women's room. He follows her into the wom women's room, and then his friend is standing there saying, what's he doing? You know? So he goes and follows his friend in there, and the two of them are, are throwing, towel wet towels at each other, you know, playing.

21:03 - All of a sudden, the first young man grabs the, the girl puts his hand over her, her mouth pulls her into a stall, and she starts, you know, screaming. The second young man goes into the next stall and looks down and sees her, sees him, and hears him saying, if you don't shut up and going, gonna kill you. So the second young man leaves the bathroom and goes back and plays video games without calling for help.

21:39 - And the second, the first young man comes back 20 minutes later and said, yeah, I killed her. So the two of them go to another casino and ride the rides and the rollercoaster and whatever, and then they leave, and then they go back to California. And then, the, the Closer Circuit television recorded them. And they, I don't know how the police, but the police finally catch the first young man who killed,

22:12 - and Ra raped and killed the girl. And then they interviewed the second young man and said, why didn't you do anything? They said, I didn't know this girl. I don't know starving people in Panama. What was I gonna do? And, and, and besides, you know, I didn't wanna get involved. They might think that I helped him. And besides, he's my best friend, we take college level, English together.

22:40 - Why would I turn him in? To me, that shows that empathy itself is on a continuum. This young man is on the end of that continuum. And then I show this, it's about a 20 minute video, and then I show a video of Meep Geese, which is the woman who sheltered and Frank and her family. I show the extremes of empathy. David Cash, the Bad Samaritan, meep Geese, who risked her life to save seven people.

23:24 - And at the end, only one survived. But, but for months, she risked her life. And after the Gestapo came and arrested seven people, meek Geese ran to the Gestapo headquarters demanding that they be released. So I show, I show this continuum of empathy, and I ask students, where do you stand on that continuum? You can dismiss David Cash, and you can, say that Meek Geese was a hero. Where are you? Where are you on that continuum?

24:07 - So what, when I see, students come into class wanting the now, what, as number one, give us a menu of how we can improve the world and say, no, no, no, no. That's not how it's done. You know, you, I, I can't give you this menu, and you in add these ingredients, you're gonna do it. You need to get the basis, the foundation. You need to get the terminology. You need to know how this important to you,

24:38 - and you have to come up the strategies. But, but we have options here. And we, I give a, you know, a anywhere from, you know, transforming yourself, looking into yourself, the the critical identity project. And then you come up with strategies that are effective for you. And, you know, we have this continuum of action strategies that they can take. And at the, at last day, I give them this grid.

25:10 - It has nine squares on the top, it says, me as an individual, my team, or my peers, and my institution, and the, within one week, within six months, within two years, I want you to fill out as many of these as you can. I, as an individual, what can I do? I as an individual within one week to make this school a better place? What can my friends

25:46 - and I do within six months to make this school a better place? What can the institution do within two years to make this school a better place? And by that time, we have discussed strategies, to empower students to make the world a better place. We talk about issues of the labor unions, how the labor unions worked to give us the middle class they worked to give us the weekend. We talk about the, climate crisis.

26:21 - And Greta Thunberg Thunberg Berg about what this one young woman has done to spark a movement. We talk about the, March for our Lives, young students in Florida that have really pushed the discourse on gun control in the United States. We give these examples. We give Meeb geese as an example. that young people have always been the change agents to empower, and to, and to give them the tools.

27:01 - Intuitively, many of them already have the tools, but to supplement that, to empower them, to continue the, continue to reinforce their empowerment. So by the time the semester ends, there's one student, she, called me during winter break, and she said, your course ruined my relationship with my fiance. And I said, how? He said, I never realized how racist he was, and I broke up with him.

27:40 - You know, we, we were having dinner and he was just going on and on and on. And I guess he always was like that, but I never realized before. And it's like, I'm not gonna marry him. I mean, that's an example of empowering people to understand themselves and to understand the world better, you know? And, and now the, the young, one of the young men who was of,

28:08 - a survivor at Marjorie Stoneham Douglas High School in, in Florida, who was one of the founders of the Movement for Gun Control, started a new organization to empower young people to run for office. So it, it, it, he started an organization called Leaders We Deserve, stemming from his empowerment as a gun rights advocate. So that's, that's how things are done. Margaret Mead said, you know, the only way change is possible when a, when a a a group

28:46 - of committed people take actions. I'm paraphrasing, but that's how change happens. You know, the individual, the group, the, the community, the country, the world. That's the process I hope readers take from this book, some empowerment, because there's a backlash that people are being fired. This book is banned in 11 states. It's banned in 11 states, specifically Florida

29:22 - and Texas, because it deals with topics they don't want young people to learn about. They don't want young people to learn about the history, the legacy of oppression, and the ways of liberation. They wanna control their bodies in order to control their minds. So I hope this book empowers educators, students, community organizers demystifies what social justice. Social justice is, is empowerment.

29:55 - Social justice is freedom, social justice is liberation. And we really need to push up against the forces that are trying to take away our freedom.

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