Presentation Reflection

So there's been a lot going on, and we've been working to summarize some of our experiences for our presentation, which was last night. I think it went well. And afterward, we had a reception with our families and faculty and graduates of the program to discuss re-entry.

There's really one thing I want to say from the presentation, but first I'll summarize a little bit of it. We talked about a lot of different things. Our individual topics are the most important. Erin talked about the structures of health care and jobs and how we cannot blame the victim when one in six Americans does not have health care (and that's before the economic crisis) and how minimum wage jobs prevent people from getting health care through the government without providing it through the job. One her points that I feel is really important is that, even with the economic incentive to not work, people want to work because there's a sense of pride. She quoted one woman on the bus who said, "As long as I have my job, I know who I am."

Tara continued with the theme of the structure causing problems through her experiences at the Contact Center working to implement policy changes. She argued that the system (defined broadly as governmental policies) as it is tries to fit people into it rather than working to benefit people.

My'eka discussed the problem of education in OTR, how there used to be three elementary schools, but now they're all combined into one. Meanwhile, they are building a $26 million state of the art arts school for K-12, audition required. It's right across from Washington Park, but I'm sure the majority of students won't be from OTR. She asked if it was worth it to attend these schools. Specifically, if it was worth it to attend school for eight years and not even know how to read. Probably not.

After My'eka, I discussed how education is related to housing, and how suburbs were created through economic segregation because of FHA policies. I also mentioned how economic segregation makes it harder for people stuck in the inner cities to get jobs because of the lack of transportation or difficulty and expense of transportation to get to the suburbs where the jobs are. I then explored the idea of creating economically desegregated neighborhoods and the advantages and disadvantages of attempting that. Advantages: we help our neighbors with an attitude of neighborliness rather than charity, and we have a more even tax base for the schools, and we work to improve the schools because they're our schools just like suburban parents are able to volunteer and so forth. Disadvantages: people with money can think they're better than those without money and make others feel inferior, and those who have the money to choose where to live have to make the choice in a socially conscious way while still doing their jobs as parents to watch out for the best interests of their children. Nonetheless, I argued that this option was something at least worth exploring more.

Austin argued the value of personal relationships in making this semester worthwhile. He talked about his friend Sommy whom he met on the Greyhound bus. Sommy was the ex-con on a bus to Texas searching for a job. But Austin discovered that Sommy is so much more than that, and they became friends. Austin argued that we have to look beyond what we would see to see that people are so much more than their bank accounts. They are so much more than their addictions or lacks of education or any of the many more things we use to judge them, to separate ourselves from them.

Chris also spoke about finding the similarities rather than the differences. He worked at the Drop Inn Center (a homeless shelter) with the men's recovery program. He discovered the similarities that matter more than the differences. He said that we are around 97% the same, but we focus on the differences in order to create another world in which that person's life doesn't affect me. He argued that it does affect us and that we do need to care.

Graham also spoke of her experience with people. She spoke of one woman she worked with at the Learning Center who she admired greatly. This woman had overcome a lot and was determined to get her GED. But during the semester their time was cut short because this woman was struggling with addiction and had fallen away. Graham said that she was convinced that her friend would succeed against addiction and succeed in getting her GED. Graham's main point was how much it helped her getting to know this woman before learning about her addiction. She saw the rest of her first. What most struck me about what Graham said was, "It doesn't matter that I wouldn't have judged her for her addiction. It only matters that I wouldn't have wondered 'What more?'"

After the presentation, we had a question. This particular question is what I really want to discuss. Someone asked for a prescription to solve the problems we'd defined. We all didn't really answer. I said we need to spend time asking deeper questions. Tara said we need to redefine it so that the people aren't the problem but the system is. Others said similar things and that we need to get to know the people. So he clarified, asking for a specific prescription. He used My'eka's school system as an example, so she answered it. I can't remember exactly what she said, and I don't know if he was actually satisfied. But the thing that struck me is that he was asking for a simple fix. (Chris Hale brought this up with me after the presentation, and we discussed it briefly.) But throughout the presentation, it was more like we were asking for a systematic overhaul and a complete societal change. Everything is so interrelated that it's not a simple fix. We've created a society of apathy and greed and complacency. (This isn't everyone, but it's so easy to fall into, too. I'm often right in there with it.) We've created a "sound-bite" culture rather than a culture of investigative journalism and investigative reading. We would rather watch TV than learn about how our world works and our place in it. (I'm not saying that TV is bad because it's useful to unwind. But it's bad when we conform our lives to it and spend all of our time watching it rather than wondering what more.) Chris argued that everything in someone else's world affects us. But that also means that everything I do affects a million other people, probably more. Every choice I make affects the entire world. And it doesn't matter how small that choice may seem: walking around the corner to the bank instead of driving, buying locally grown produce and eating in season, buying clothing made in a sweatshop, volunteering to rehab a house or donating food. Everything has it's effects. It's hard and it takes too much time to find it. And we have a media business that goes for the quick news (sound-bites) and easy to sell "news" (celebrity gossip) rather than looking into real issues. We have a culture that demands that. As Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said at Xavier this year, "We have the world's best entertained and least informed society." It's quite frankly hard to find good news anywhere. One of the breaking stories on the Indianapolis newspaper's website earlier this week was "Aniston nude on magazine cover." That's not news. That's not real. That's not important. We need to demand a return to true journalism (even as the media is changing so quickly due to the internet and blogs - like this one). We need a society that stops being okay with not searching for more truth. Someone argued just before this election that there needs to be a test of the Constitution for voting eligibility. Sorry, but knowing the Constitution is not enough. Knowing society and how things affect each other and people and everything that goes along with that is just as important. But how do you test that? You can't do it in an unbiased manner. So we can't do it. Arguably, you can't test the Constitution in an unbiased way either.

The Cincinnati Enquirer had an awesome editorial a few weeks ago, just after the execution of Gregory Bryant-Bey. That is the execution that we held vigil outside of. It argued that we need to be aware of executions and we need to be more involved. The state is killing in our names, and we too often approach it with apathy. Let's extend this. We are too apathetic of a society. In that sense, my prescription is a complete overhaul of what we expect of ourselves and what we expect of others. We need a complete overhaul of this desire to serve rather than to form relationships. Relationships are what it's all about.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary." That's what we've been doing this semester. That's what our society needs to do a lot more. That's why this semester is so important to the university and so beneficial to its students.