Doing Justice, Loving Mercy
On November 7th 2011, I attended an off campus social justice event. The event was called Doing Justice, Loving Mercy, and it was a fundraiser for the Crisis Pregnancy Centers of Burnaby and Vancouver. The Crisis Pregnancy center is a safe place for women to seek help when they are faced with an unplanned pregnancy. At the center they receive guidance, counselling, and resources. If a woman decides to carry her baby to term, they are also given resources for adoption, or get financial aid, along with child necessities if they choose to keep the child. Even though this is a Pro-Life organization, they believe in respecting the woman’s right to choose. Although they encourage options such as adoption, they also have a post-abortive grief counselling program for women who have gone through an abortion. Another service this charity runs is a Safe House. This is a house where women who are being verbally and physically abused can live in a safe environment, away from the danger of their partners. This is a place is offered to pregnant women who fear for their lives as well as the lives of their unborn children. Many times a woman will have a partner who disagrees with their choice to carry their child, and lives of both mother and child are threatened. The Crisis Pregnancy Center also holds a Rape Victims Network which counsels women who have been victims of rape. Most of the clients who go to the pregnancy center are teenagers and low income immigrants. The staff may not always know the language of a new client; however, their needs will be met through finding an interpreter, or finding a counsellor who speaks their language. At this event, I heard testimonies from some of the clients. We were given an opportunity to donate to the charity and/or given opportunities to volunteer. This is a wonderful non-profit organization that stands up for women in crisis.
The Changing Face of Prostitution
Reflective Blog
After watching the youtube video, The Changing Face of Prostitution, it makes me rethink the idea of victimless crimes. Although actions such as gambling, substance abuse, prostitution etc, do not physically harm another human being, the crimes definitely cause harm on the individual committing the crime; even though it may have been their decision to commit the crime. Substance abuse, for example, can cause extreme physical and mental health problems to the person abusing a substance and it may result in an overdose which can cause death. There are also implications in the process of acquiring substances, especially illegal drugs. Many people are injured or killed getting evolved with dealing drugs or dealing with the drug cartels. As a result substance abuse does not seem victimless. Prostitution is another example of a victimless crime; however again, the individual selling their body becomes a victim to many different things. Prostitution has ramifications with its lifestyle in general. Often prostitutes are homeless and drug addicted. And what happens if a child is conceived on the “job”, is that child not considered a victim? Who’s fate is either it’s life being terminated, developing in an unprotected womb possibly contracting diseases or being exposed to drugs and alcohol, or after birth getting torn apart from his or hers mother from the hands of a social worker. Prostitutes can damage their body on the job as well; they may contract diseases or HIV which develops into AIDS, and ultimately resulting in death. How can we say prostitution is victimless.
What Have My Cocoa Beans Got to do with Canada by Charles Quist-Adade
Dialetic Reading Method
What questions did How did the text answer How does the answer
this text raise? this? match my own ideas and
experiences?
| Do our actions have ramifications rippling far beyond our immediate environment? | Yes, through the paradigm of the Global Sociological Imagination, we find ourselves in a web, connected to everyone; our actions affect society around us. In the video Charles gives an example of this through his own life because as a child growing up in Ghana, he worked on a cocoa bean farm planting seeds. Canada imports cocoa beans from Ghana to supply Canada with chocolate. Therefore, we may be eating the chocolate, which originally derived from a seed that Charles planted. | No, this did not originally match my preconceived ideas about my actions. I most just thought that my actions affect those who are around me, like calling in sick at the restaurant that I work at, would affect how my restaurant will run that day, down a server. It may cause stress upon staff, and cause poor service to costumers. However, I did not think beyond just my immediate surroundings.
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| Does the past affect our present? | Yes, in this video it expresses how our present is greatly influenced by the past. Especially through historical sites and culture, which bring uniqueness to places around the world. | Yes, this matched my original ideas because if you take China for example, it is home to the extremely unique Great Wall of China. This man made wall is a part of Chinas past. However, it causes people to travel to this areas
to experience a new beauty the world has to offer. As a result this creates jobs in the tourism industry, directly affecting our present. |
Paraphrastic Reading Meathod
In the Article, Who will Liberate Liberia? By Charles Quist-Adade, it states how much money the US drained into putting Saddam Hussein to death and the war on Iraq. It is a sickening the amount of money when you think about all the lives that money could be used for saving people around the world who have no food, shelter, or clean drinking water, instead of causing a meaningless war at the expense of other peoples lives. Four billion dollars (which Bush has easily spent on this war) could provide nourishment and medicine to half the world’s population!
The Article suggests that the US is blinded by their own greed and that they say they are helping liberate Iraq; however, they are only there because Iraq has something precious, oil. Oil is a depleting resources and is necessary in order for developed Countries to function. Liberia on the other hand, needs help in their own struggle yet they do not receive any. Why, because Liberia does not have something which is of value to the US. It is unfortunate that when Countries which are in actual need of help, that they do not get aid, unless they have something of interest.
Paraphrase
The values and morals of Christianity which is what the USA was based on can be put aside.
I think this is an extremely important to this article because it is basically stating that Bush has no morality. He only has ulterior motives that benefit him and his Country. And if he says that he and his Country live by these Christian morals, then it is a complete lie. It is a travesty that so much money can be spent on war, and ego, rather then what truly matters, the sanctity of live of all human beings.
Paraphrastic Reading Meathod
The article, Negotiation, Not Retribution, by Charles Quist-Adade put an interesting spin on the terrorists attacks which occurred on September 11. The article recognizes the tragedy of the terrorist attacks, however, it also reminds us that we do not acknowledge a disaster sometimes until it hits us at home. There are tens of thousands of incident people in developing countries who are dying daily, yet we fail to recognize this and do not morn over these people. This is so because we are not directly affected by it.
Another point which the article tries to reveal is that the West is not just a victim in terrorism. The article suggests that the West does just as much damage directly and indirectly to other nations. The industrialized Countries create military weapons, along with weapons of mass destruction, which are sold to Countries which use them to harm innocent people. It is only until those Weapons were used against the US that people can realize what is actually going on.
Paraphrase
The West should not be naive to the enlarging gap between the rich and poor Countries.
I thought this line was extremely important because I think so many people are uniformed with what is actually going on in this world. People need to start researching and reading between the lines to really know who it is they are voting for, and putting in charge of their Country.
Chimamanda Adiche
The Danger of a Single Story
The speaker, Chimamanda Adiche, is trying to express how a single story (or a single perspective on something) can inhibit the whole picture. It does not give people enough understanding or does not “shed enough light” on the circumstance. She explains this theory through referencing her childhood. She had a boy working for her family in Nigeria, where she grew up. Her mother always told her how poor this boy was. Therefore, Chimamanda’s only perspective of this boy, and his family, was that they were poor and they had nothing. One day, when she met the family of this boy, she saw the bigger picture. She realized that there was more to the family then her perpective offered. They were hard working, kind, and loving. They were not just simply poor. She looked at them through a one story perpective and defined them by their poverty.
When Chimamanda grew up she went to the United States for University. It was there where she began to realize that the western world looked through the same lens as she once did towards the boy. People were shocked to see how well she spoke English and that she enjoyed some of the same types of music as her peers. Chimamanda felt that she was being viewed by a single story which limited her to just being a woman from Africa, nothing more.
Chimamanda expressed how English literature portrays Africa just as a place that has wars, poverty, and aids. As a result, people are influenced by what they have read and begin to develope a one story perspective. She explains that the “Single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”
To look at people through one story and to ignore the many other stories that have created them, steals their self respect. There should be more opportunities to hear the many other perspectives, such as triumph and progress in people’s lives so that we do not become stereotypical and lump people into a category because of their race, gender, or appearance. There is so much more to people then a single story and it does not define who they are.
September 11: Forgiveness is not Part of the Lessons Learned, by Charles Quist-Adade
What questions did How did the text answer How does the answer
this text raise? this? match my own ideas and
experiences?
| Does the US Practice what they Preach? | No, the US does not seem to practice what they preach. They want other nations to forgive and forget, yet when it comes to the 9/11 attacks they cannot seem to forget it. They want their form of justice, an eye for an eye. | I did not know that the US told other Countries to forgive and forget, however, it makes sense. The US has done terrible things in their history, and disaster would occur if the other Countries wanted revenge. |
| Can We Move Forward Without Acknowledging the Past Mistakes? | No, one must reflect and learn from past mistakes or else we are doomed to repeat them. | I agree with the article completely with this idea. In order to learn and prevent mistakes from re-occurring we must acknowledge our past in order to move forward. |
| Was President Bush Actually Seeking Justice?
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No, he was in reality seeking retribution for the crime committed against his Country. His form of justice was taking the lives of others to compensate for the lives lost in the US. | Yes this matched my own ideas of the US. I believed that the response of the 9/11 attack was to show and prove that the US is a super power that will not be pushed around. |
