Week 8
As I read
the piece written by Leslie Do and Shannon Deloso, I found the portion that Do
had written to be particularly interesting. She mentions how institutionalized
student activism has actually restricts student autonomy and activism. As Do
goes on to state, student activists went against a university lecturers’
classes simply because he did not use gender inclusive pronouns deeming him “homophobic.”
However, Do finds through her experience with the lecturer that he’s respectful
towards his students and his actions nor his speech indicated any signs of a
racist or homophobic. She doesn’t specifically state in here, however, by
students doing these sorts of actions, they are actually alienating potential
allies who may be actually trying to help their “cause.” Such was the case for
me. I went to do a workshop in one of these retreats where they teach students
these gender neutral pronouns. As I went to the workshop and I began, I used
the term, “guys.” Right when I said that, the participants of the workshop
began to police me and force me to conform to their gender neutral terms.
However, I did not wish to conform and fought against them. This went on and on
until they decided to not listen to me unless I conformed to them, which I did.
Through this workshop, I saw how students actually alienates potential allies
and as Leslie Do states, limits student activism and student autonomy. I
myself, did not want to participate in any more of these workshops due to the experience
of being policed and forced to conform to their terms of conditions which goes
on to support Do’s claim.
References:
1. Green, A. (2015, November 19). Do Historically Black Colleges Provide the Safe Spaces Students Are After? Retrieved May 21, 2017, from https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/11/are-hbcus-necessary-racial-sanctuaries/416694/
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