It feels like this course, blog, and post is appropriate for this time in America. Just as we let the recent and newly President Donald Trump, enacted a legislative plan to ban Muslim as it seemed. However after doing some self education on the whole situation. I found out from an article on CNN the "Muslim Ban", is a ban of entry of citizens from the seven following countries, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, and Somalia. Although, this is not to be taking lightly, real life human beings are being affected by these decisions. If an individual that doesn't have a green card confirming U.S citizenship, those individuals will not be let into the country. In fact the article stated that they would be, either shipped back immediately on a plane or detained like criminals until further notice. As I was reading the article and seeing all of the protest on social media, the only questions that I could think of was, "How could we let this happen as Americans?", "Is this really happening?" and lastly, "If this gets out of hand, what can I do about it?"
This is where I believe that social justice plays a big part, because we as citizens should take to right precautions to stand up for what's right, and personally I feel that what’s right is all citizens working together to makes things in society run smoothly. This goes to back to the duty of the social worker according to the National Association of Social Worker, “ "Social work is a practical profession aimed at helping people address their problems and matching them with the resources they need to lead healthy and productive lives.”. This also pertains to the question proposed by police brutality victim Rodney King, “ Why can’t we all just get along?”, this simple question has left our society so confused, due to the fact that it’s a simple question but so hard to answer. However the small extract from Johnson book Rodney King’s Question, Johnson also addresses the privileges that are possessed by the dominant groups in society, and how it creates oppression and different many “isms” within society. He also elaborates on how the individuals who aren’t on the harmful side of the oppression, try to sweep their privileges on under the rugs and the discomfort that is felt when these subjects are brought up in discussions and in many different setting and environments. Johnson uses the analogy that about how his dogs interact with each others and things in things around them, then he explains that humans have thumbs and possess the mental capacity to actively many different things. However we have failed to be able to interact together as whole, in a sense that we let our differences keep us separated. Johnson also explains that the only way that we can get pass this massive issue is to work together. However we have to have open discussion that acknowledge the issue, make sure the privilege know that they, meaning the issues exist.
To answer the questions that internally ask myself, we let something like the Muslim ban happen, because we as a society didn’t think that it was possible, or we acted like the blatant discrimination doesn't exist. This is really happening and if it gets out of hand, I will do all that is humanly possible to defend and fight for those affected.
I've also been struggling to come to terms with Trump's executive order and the impact it will have on already marginalized groups. Even scarier than the executive order are the offensive posts I have seen on social media that support the order. I also want to know how this happened, and I'm afraid for the next four year of potentially harmful legislation that will continue to promote inequality in America. Your last paragraph was really inspiring to me, and I'm so thankful to be a Social Work student so that we will one day have the tools to make significant changes in our society. That being said, we do still have opportunities to make our voices heard now by participating in protests, speaking out on social media platforms, calling policy makers on a local and state level, and educating those around us. I also found Johnson's call to action to be inspiring, and found it very true that we are not going to solve anything by pretending the issues don't exist and being afraid to talk about them. Privileged groups not recognizing their privilege, or using their privilege to stand up for the groups that need their help is a huge issue, and I can only hope that policies such a the ban from those 7 countries will motivate these groups to recognize that it is time for them to take action. With executive orders that go against the founding principles of America, there has been no better time than now to take action.
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