Ryan Hourican, Period 5, 1/13/21, Day B

 Socio-political Consciousness

What are your thoughts and feelings about issues of inequity, oppression, and/or power?

Before these past couple of years I thought these issues were a thing of the past but I've realized that that's not the case. I have done my best to inform myself on these topics but there still a lot that I don't know and will try to learn. I don't have strong opinions on a lot of these matters due to the fact that I still have to be educated and don't want to share my opinions without knowing all the sides of the story. The one thing I can truly talk about is that I want a world where everyone is treated as equals but it saddens me because I know this won't happen. I view everyone as equals and never think of someone as below me. I hope that one day we all try to think this way. When talking about equity though, I hope that one day we wont need this. I understand the benefits of equity and that it promotes fairness but I hope for us to one day not need this and to instead focus on equality. This is all about opportunity and I'm hoping that one day everyone gets an equal chance at each opportunity so that everyone has an equal chance to succeed and those who struggle are there not due to race, religion, or gender, but because of what they did with their opportunity. The thing that I dislike about all of this is knowing it most likely wont happen. There are some people out there that just wont be able to think differently and think some people are just better than others due to race and gender. Those who think this way have created many problems within society and knowing there are still those out there who think this way crushes my hopes for a future with equality because the only way to reach it is with everyone working together as equals.

How do you reflect critically on your own beliefs, assumptions, values, and experiences, and how these can influence your perception of self and others?

My beliefs are something I keep mainly to myself because I know that there are someone people who think differently that will judge me. I instead try to focus on being a better person so people can look past my opinions on topics and instead see me as someone who is trying their best to be a good person. The people I do share my opinions with are those I am close with so I know that no matter what, our friendship wont change even if we think differently on specific matters. At the moment I am still forming some of my beliefs because I am still not educated on some matters. I like to think that forming opinions with knowledge of both sides is what people should start to do more because it makes opinions unbiased. I believe this is a good way to reflect on my beliefs because learning about both sides will keep me unbiased and, in the end, might make me rethink my opinions.