The Justice Project
Overview
My philosophy on justice was non existent before we started this project. I just figured it was the way you are treated for how you behave in life, little did I know then that I was missing so much more. Through this project we have learned many different examples of injustices. For example we looked into how racial injustice was actively taking a part in our country's court, and how many people of color have had to be sent to death row for crime allegations that were not even true. We also looked into environmental ethics and how many people have little control of living near hazardous places due to financial circumstances that they couldn't help because of no way of getting out. And lastly we looked into Bears ears, and how they were overpowered by predominantly wealthy men that did not live on the land without any say on whether they wanted a monument on a land that they find sacred, and a land where they live and thrive on. With what we learned we made two separate justice monologues that compose of our own beliefs on the subjects at hand, and what we thought was the best solution.
My philosophy on justice was non existent before we started this project. I just figured it was the way you are treated for how you behave in life, little did I know then that I was missing so much more. Through this project we have learned many different examples of injustices. For example we looked into how racial injustice was actively taking a part in our country's court, and how many people of color have had to be sent to death row for crime allegations that were not even true. We also looked into environmental ethics and how many people have little control of living near hazardous places due to financial circumstances that they couldn't help because of no way of getting out. And lastly we looked into Bears ears, and how they were overpowered by predominantly wealthy men that did not live on the land without any say on whether they wanted a monument on a land that they find sacred, and a land where they live and thrive on. With what we learned we made two separate justice monologues that compose of our own beliefs on the subjects at hand, and what we thought was the best solution.
Racial Inequality Magazine
My Piece of the Magazine is the fourth page.
Justice Monologue #1
What is justice? Before I would have told you, it’s the way you are treated for your actions, now my answer has shifted. But first things first I need to share where my understanding is coming from. According to philosopher Dalai Lama, the principles of justice are, “ a general precept of fairness and redress based on the recognition of human equality--- and the narrower understanding of justice as the exercise of the law within any given legal framework.” But what exactly does that mean? The way I interpret this definition is what he says that ultimately these general principles should reflect each other to create justice. He states that compassion by no means implies surrender in the face of wrongdoing, but simply not accepting injustice and taking a stand against it, is more powerful than any destructive behavior. He uses the example of a southern Tibet person and how this person shared how another person would hit this person multiple times and yet this person stayed quiet every time. Dalai put this example to portray that this is meekness and not compassion, which is required to face injustice. Dalai later imputs that people can change and uses this as a reason why the death penalty is unacceptable. In “True Justice” they gave us the statistic that 1/10 people today are put on death row who are actually innocent. This is unjust. I believe that as humans we can change, for example when we are children we get into trouble and learn to change our behavior. We work the same way as we age. He also focuses on the ideology of forgiveness and the strength that comes with it. I've learned it is important to acknowledge the past that we cannot control, and the way we respond to our past wrongdoings which we can change. In the text there is a great example that illustrates fighting with family and how you can feel remorse later and typically try to prevent that situation from happening again. Doing this you are forgiving yourself to forgive others. This also creates peace in your mind, and negative thoughts and emotions dissipate. Understanding this concept creates an inverse way of finding what injustice is. I now know compassion is important but also how taking a stand against injustice is what is effective. Reversing what justice is gives me an understanding of how injustice takes many different forms. For example anger, hatred, and physical violence. In conclusion I would state that justice is founded on compassion and forgiveness due to them having no conflict. And finally, injustice is a failure to respond with compassion and forgiveness that ends in destructive behavior that results in self mental harm, and harm to others in the process.
Justice Monologue #2
Final Project
Justice Project Defense & Reflection
Project Defense
What did you end up doing for your project?
For my Justice project I ended up interviewing people of color in our community and getting their unique perspectives on racism in our community, and also getting their views on how relevant they believe racial injustice is in our local La Plata County area.
If you worked with a group, first explain the group project, THEN explain your individual contributions
I worked with a group where we worked on making a magazine which goal was to give awareness and a voice to racial injustice in our community. The magazine consisted of different pieces we all created. Each page had a different unique piece that added to the ultimate goal of spreading awareness, whilst not taking away from the voices from the different people of color in our community. We also included pictures of different protest signs correlating to the BLM movement, and putting the reservation’s issues into a spotlight that isn’t widely known. My contribution to the project involved conducting interviews with people of color in our community and getting their perspectives on racial injustice in our community. We added this into the zine and dedicated a whole page to it. It contains their names and they all answer the same questions. The questions were intentionally asked to make sure we received the different perspectives, and allowed us to view any differences or similarities between the different answers from all of the people being interviewed.
How did your project reflect your personal philosophy of justice?
General potential changes should all be handled in a manner that respectfully come to positive results and/or neutral results that are a result from compromises. Also treating everybody the way you want to be treated, whilst putting yourself in the shoes of others that would be affected for actions you have control over. And finally giving everybody a voice to input what they believe is best. This is my stance on what I believe justice should be based off of, and is my foundation philosophy on justice. Looking back onto everything we covered in class, from racial injustice in our country's systems and laws, to how the Native Americans at Bears Ears were unfairly overpowered to institute a monument that would ultimately affect them and their daily lifestyles, I can see that following a similar philosophy to mine would've helped them. Although my project was a little piece of an overall bigger project, by adding voices of different people of color in our community I know it corresponds to my philosophy because by adding their voices it is a primary source to the problem at hand.
Why was your project a just way to address your issue of injustice? How did it bring about more justice or if you were trying to raise awareness, why were the ideas/arguments/messages you were expressing through your work/writing/art more in line with justice than other ideas?
My addition to the project was a just way to address racial injustice because it comes straight from the people being affected first hand. This goes hand and hand with my philosophy of justice in the sense that I believe the only way to combat a problem is to understand the viewpoints of both sides of an issue. I believe using the voices from the negatively impacted side of the issue is crucial. I did that and added what they had to say via various interviews to make sure their voice was emphasized to spotlight and clarify to individuals who may not realize this is a problem, and broaden their understanding to the issue at hand, and why it is an injustice.
Did you do sufficient research and background work to pull off your project, take an informed stance or succeed in your endeavors? Explain!
I did not have to do any research other than finding connections and reaching out to people of color in our community that were willing to be interviewed and add their input to our magazine. I had to branch out to friends and family friends to get people to interview. It wasn’t too hard and after a few texts and phone calls I had a handful of people accept participating in the interview.
The Project Reflection
In what ways were you successful in meeting the goals you established in your project proposal? What contributed to your successes?
I was successful in making sure to format everything I received in my interview into a way that didn’t change what they said, but simply made it to the point and still 100% still their words making sure their voice is actively present which was our biggest goal starting this magazine in the first place.
In what way were you successful in meeting the goals you established in your proposal? What contributed to your failures? What did you do to try to overcome the obstacles? What should you have done differently? A failure I faced was not having as many interviews as I initially wanted. I could have reached out to more people, but my time frame did not allow me to get as many as I would've liked. Many people did not accept doing the interview which did make getting interviews in the first place a challenge.
To what extent did you SHOW UP for this project? How engaged/committed/involved were you in the work? How much did you strive to create beautiful work worth doing? To what extent were you accountable to yourself and others if relevant?
I showed up for this project by making sure to meet all of the deadlines my group set up from the start. I also did help out my peers on their writing pieces, refining them making sure they were meeting all of our general broad goals for the zine. I took part in arranging the zine, and making sure the zine was aesthetically pleasing for any reader that would read it.
What TWO key lessons did you learn from this project that you can apply to your senior project?
The first lesson that really stands out to me for my senior project is making sure to make to do list and follow it step by step like I did for this project, because it has been successful for me and I know from past experience that when I don’t organize myself step by step I struggle to achieve everything I want to achieve for a final product. My second key lesson that I learned was to make sure I do not get distracted as much as I typically do on projects, especially at home for online learning. I tend to get distracted doing literally anything that comes to mind. Although I have gotten better I admittedly still struggle with getting distracted, and that is something I need to work on working on for my future senior project because it is a much bigger project that will require most of my attention and my best work effort.
What did you end up doing for your project?
For my Justice project I ended up interviewing people of color in our community and getting their unique perspectives on racism in our community, and also getting their views on how relevant they believe racial injustice is in our local La Plata County area.
If you worked with a group, first explain the group project, THEN explain your individual contributions
I worked with a group where we worked on making a magazine which goal was to give awareness and a voice to racial injustice in our community. The magazine consisted of different pieces we all created. Each page had a different unique piece that added to the ultimate goal of spreading awareness, whilst not taking away from the voices from the different people of color in our community. We also included pictures of different protest signs correlating to the BLM movement, and putting the reservation’s issues into a spotlight that isn’t widely known. My contribution to the project involved conducting interviews with people of color in our community and getting their perspectives on racial injustice in our community. We added this into the zine and dedicated a whole page to it. It contains their names and they all answer the same questions. The questions were intentionally asked to make sure we received the different perspectives, and allowed us to view any differences or similarities between the different answers from all of the people being interviewed.
How did your project reflect your personal philosophy of justice?
General potential changes should all be handled in a manner that respectfully come to positive results and/or neutral results that are a result from compromises. Also treating everybody the way you want to be treated, whilst putting yourself in the shoes of others that would be affected for actions you have control over. And finally giving everybody a voice to input what they believe is best. This is my stance on what I believe justice should be based off of, and is my foundation philosophy on justice. Looking back onto everything we covered in class, from racial injustice in our country's systems and laws, to how the Native Americans at Bears Ears were unfairly overpowered to institute a monument that would ultimately affect them and their daily lifestyles, I can see that following a similar philosophy to mine would've helped them. Although my project was a little piece of an overall bigger project, by adding voices of different people of color in our community I know it corresponds to my philosophy because by adding their voices it is a primary source to the problem at hand.
Why was your project a just way to address your issue of injustice? How did it bring about more justice or if you were trying to raise awareness, why were the ideas/arguments/messages you were expressing through your work/writing/art more in line with justice than other ideas?
My addition to the project was a just way to address racial injustice because it comes straight from the people being affected first hand. This goes hand and hand with my philosophy of justice in the sense that I believe the only way to combat a problem is to understand the viewpoints of both sides of an issue. I believe using the voices from the negatively impacted side of the issue is crucial. I did that and added what they had to say via various interviews to make sure their voice was emphasized to spotlight and clarify to individuals who may not realize this is a problem, and broaden their understanding to the issue at hand, and why it is an injustice.
Did you do sufficient research and background work to pull off your project, take an informed stance or succeed in your endeavors? Explain!
I did not have to do any research other than finding connections and reaching out to people of color in our community that were willing to be interviewed and add their input to our magazine. I had to branch out to friends and family friends to get people to interview. It wasn’t too hard and after a few texts and phone calls I had a handful of people accept participating in the interview.
The Project Reflection
In what ways were you successful in meeting the goals you established in your project proposal? What contributed to your successes?
I was successful in making sure to format everything I received in my interview into a way that didn’t change what they said, but simply made it to the point and still 100% still their words making sure their voice is actively present which was our biggest goal starting this magazine in the first place.
In what way were you successful in meeting the goals you established in your proposal? What contributed to your failures? What did you do to try to overcome the obstacles? What should you have done differently? A failure I faced was not having as many interviews as I initially wanted. I could have reached out to more people, but my time frame did not allow me to get as many as I would've liked. Many people did not accept doing the interview which did make getting interviews in the first place a challenge.
To what extent did you SHOW UP for this project? How engaged/committed/involved were you in the work? How much did you strive to create beautiful work worth doing? To what extent were you accountable to yourself and others if relevant?
I showed up for this project by making sure to meet all of the deadlines my group set up from the start. I also did help out my peers on their writing pieces, refining them making sure they were meeting all of our general broad goals for the zine. I took part in arranging the zine, and making sure the zine was aesthetically pleasing for any reader that would read it.
What TWO key lessons did you learn from this project that you can apply to your senior project?
The first lesson that really stands out to me for my senior project is making sure to make to do list and follow it step by step like I did for this project, because it has been successful for me and I know from past experience that when I don’t organize myself step by step I struggle to achieve everything I want to achieve for a final product. My second key lesson that I learned was to make sure I do not get distracted as much as I typically do on projects, especially at home for online learning. I tend to get distracted doing literally anything that comes to mind. Although I have gotten better I admittedly still struggle with getting distracted, and that is something I need to work on working on for my future senior project because it is a much bigger project that will require most of my attention and my best work effort.