{"id":5670,"date":"2015-06-18T22:33:10","date_gmt":"2015-06-19T02:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uropcbrp.com\/?p=5670"},"modified":"2020-08-28T14:07:17","modified_gmt":"2020-08-28T14:07:17","slug":"week-3-the-intersectionality-of-it-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/2015\/06\/18\/week-3-the-intersectionality-of-it-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 3: The Intersectionality of It All!"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to Google, intersectionality is described as “a concept often used in critical theories to describe the ways in which oppressive institutions (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, xenophobia, classism, etc.) are interconnected and cannot be examined separately from one another.” Although I’ve done the social identity activity many times before, participating it again today really allowed me to see how identities affect the lives of people I work with at the Sierra Club and live with in the apartments. I had a really engaging conversation with Eva about intersectionality that resonated with me. We both discussed our experiences based on social identities and Eva mentioned that although we both identify as women, we experience womanhood differently because of other identities that we hold. I think that her comment is something that I can take back with me to work (and beyond) and use it to change\u00a0how I view the world and interact with others.<\/p>\n

A reoccurring theme that I’m noticing in my work at the Sierra Club is that the issues affecting the people we work with are multifaceted, changing the way that I view environmental justice. For example, my project pertains to reducing toxic emissions in the Southwest Detroit area, so I assumed that the main issue of the project would be the deleterious environmental effects. Much to my surprise, we focus not only on the environment, but also on the health of people in the neighborhood, education, and empowerment.<\/p>\n

Another facet of my project is access to water. As you know, water shut-offs plagued Detroiters in the past year or so. \u00a0I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the water shut-offs are also an environmental justice issue that the SC addresses by engaging with the community to help them regain their water service. My supervisor explained that this is an EJ concern because (1) the people who are primarily affected by shut offs are poor and\/or people of color and (2) they do not have equal access to natural resources because of their social class which can be impacted by race, immigration status, ability status, and other social identities. Even within environmentalism and EJ, there is intersectionality; EJ concerns are also social justice concerns that can become public health concerns, affecting labor and education and so forth. Everything is so intersectional! I just wish that people could see that these issues are connected so we can solve them from an intersectional approach.<\/p>\n

\"All<\/a>
All the justice!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The (low quality) photo above is from a brainstorming activity for a march we’re planning. The march, held in October, is called the March for Justice and ANY kind of organization is allowed to participate. You probably can’t see but there are a lot of slogans for various causes, some of them saying things like “Black Lives Matter”, “Build community,” “Banks: Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Jail,” etc. It’s interesting to see so many different causes come together for one big goal–JUSTICE! Woo!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to Google, intersectionality is described as “a concept often used in critical theories to describe the ways in which oppressive institutions (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, xenophobia, classism, etc.) are interconnected and cannot be examined separately from one another.” Although I’ve done the social identity activity many times before, participating it again today really […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1669,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dcbrp-2015"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1669"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5670"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16189,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5670\/revisions\/16189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}