Kenny Chui, Period 6, 9/23/22

 SocioPolitical Conscious

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

Inequity is definitely caused by the environment and decisions of people. It is an aspect of luck in a sense because they had the chance of being born and growing up in a specific environment that would shape the way they live, think, and behave unless forcibly changed. Even when social class changes, the fact that they were born in a lower class as well as the memories gained from being in that lower class remain. Then it is the decisions that utilize that luck. Furthermore, those decisions may be influenced just the same. For example, someone with experience handling emotions will be able to keep calm in intense situations, while someone else that never got to practice keeping calm may lash out with a temper, and even that results in differences based on the reaction of people around them. 

Without a doubt, inequity is due to the infinite amount of variables in peoples’ lives from way before they were born, and have effects for long after they die. In my opinion, best way to get out of the cycle, though imperfect, is to make as many conscious decisions as possible to achieve your goals, whether it be fame, power, wealth, peace, or simply comfort. Sometimes you have to go against your nature and think before relying on intuition in order to get into and avoid situations, all the while utilizing what you know, experienced, and are capable of.

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

I always accept information without taking it completely. 

By compiling information, I can compare it to what I know, and then discern if the information is to be believed or not. I think that by doing this, I can better understand others’ perspectives, whilst not taking all information and trusting it without discernment. Because I know that people can have drastically different minds, I concluded that there are too many variables to expect certain behavior from people. The only constant you can control is yourself and your reactions.

Especially by knowing that others think differently, I can expect and not feel attacked by criticism, because I know that words are a complex interaction. Maybe their intent was different than their words? Maybe their words didn’t come out clearly and I could have misheard. Especially due to those things, I don’t take things personally in order to take the information as objectively as possible.

I am very introspective. Whenever I have a big event or conflict, I think about the actions of others and myself as objectively as possible, but I analyze myself the most. Because no one is perfect, especially myself, I have to be prepared to accept change.