Social Justice - Rowan TH

      On April 28, 2022, hundreds of labor unions in Sri Lanka went on strike to protest the current administration, headed by  President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. President Rajapaksa was elected in 2019 and almost immediately bankrupted the nation by introducing sweeping tax cuts. This has left Sri Lanka with massive foreign debts and almost no reserve, on the verge of completely running out of essential resources like food, water, and medicine. Rajapaksa comes from a wealthy and influential family that has been deeply intertwined in Sri Lankan politics for the last two decades. There has been a buildup of debt in the nation's government for an even longer period though, and a series of economically devastating events, most recently the COVID-19 pandemic, have left the country in a very desperate place.      Sri Lanka, like many nations that suffered over four centuries of brutal British colonization, is still dealing with the impact. In terms of its econom...

      One of the things that I thought about a lot while listening to our various guest speakers was the ways that I am sheltered from issues like housing insecurity and homelessness. Our guest speaker from CU at Home spoke about how their volunteering program seeks to bring people who would never otherwise meet together. This really stood out to me as a goal because I think it can be very easy for people who don't have connections to anyone experiencing housing insecurity, or experience it themselves, to become cut off from the members of their community that do.      It seems like many people are uncomfortable with the existence of homeless people. Things like anti-homeless architecture or the way that it is illegal to stay overnight in many public, outdoor places like parks seem to indicate that many people view homelessness as primarily an optical issue. Essentially, if we don't see homeless people then homelessness isn't a problem. The issue with this ...

Prompt :  What role do you think U of I (and/or Uni) should play in addressing social justice issues, particularly related to Indigenous dispossession and its role in local housing segregation (two issues we’ve discussed in connection with U of I).     I think that the term "Land Acknowledgement" is misleading. This phrasing frames it as one distinct action that can be repeated as many times as necessary but is just for all intents and purposes, one and done. In addition, calling it an "acknowledgment" allows for it to stop there without a need for any further action, with just acknowledging...what exactly? It's a little unclear. The University clearly views it as acknowledging the fact that this land used to belong to other people, but not the method by which it was acquired. The Native American House's approach does include this second part, but their version is of course, optional. You could argue, and I think I would, that this intentional ignorance of t...