Philosophy Of Social Justice
What is Social Justice? A question that may have many intricate answers. Social Justice for me means to be united against a common problem in a community or group of people, to have equality and justice for a problem that is considered to be an injustice. Some may or may not know that our community had its fair share of injustices that influenced community members to become united and have their worries heard. Community members had to promote solidarity countless times, times such as the 19 day hunger strike that took place in 2001 where 14 parents and grandparents held the strike to urge politicians to keep their promise of a new high school in the Little Village community, and when LVEJO also promoted solidarity to shut down the Crawford power plant at Pulaski. With the knowledge of social justice from the classroom of Environmental Science and the other classes at SOJO my definition of social justice would just have been justice for people, but it has changes with those classes. I now have a better idea of social justice now than I had some years ago when I first arrived.
I know that we haven’t achieved social justice because of the amount of inequalities in the world that it may have frighten people and it may have dissuade them from even trying to make a change. There is a chance that people do not even know that they can make a difference. Some obstacles include the mention and the believing of conspiracies about the worlds that it cannot be changed since the world is controlled by the wealthy. We have seen this kind of suppression of racial before, when immigrants were told that they should plant crops and harvest them. And even by just giving them a job they didn’t even give them their rights, therefore leading up to the creation of the United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez. Although he succeeded in gaining the rights to the farm workers there are still many more problems to be solved .We haven’t achieved social justice because of the number of problems and the lack of knowledge for the people to know that they can make a difference.
Strategies and techniques that help us achieve social justice are very widely known. Strategies such as solidarity, where a union or fellowship arises from common responsibilities and interests as members of a group or class, were used in the Civil Rights era and in the current news in Ferguson, although the actions taken by the citizens of Ferguson is a direct example of what to avoid when trying to achieve social justice in an orderly manner. In my lifetime social justice will be very important to me since the future, I believe, will have many injustices. Due to the latest advancements in nuclear energy there may be problems in the waste management of radioactive materials. With global warming there may be shortages of fresh water conflicts may arise from them and some other political news that are yet to be forgotten as the Ukraine incident with Russia.
My contribution for the struggle for social justice is very little for now. I have only been an intern for LVEJO this past summer aiding them in their struggle for environmental justice in Little Village, aiding them in raising awareness of the collateral channel by 31st and Albany. My passion for social justice or fire comes from the memory of my father, he used to work at a factory when he first arrived in the United States he had to work with chemicals and lift heavy objects luckily he did not attract a disease but his friend, his roommate at the time attracted to cancer years later he died in 2005. Today I worry about my father’s health since the company has been shut down and the causes of cancer are a bit unclear I do not know if my father will have cancer. My career would aid the struggle since I plan to become a scientist specifically a chemist to help them in any way I could. I would also help in the enforcement of not using certain chemical that can lead to death or cancer if a human is exposed. In providing water samples, testing for chemicals or just simply raising awareness for a problem. I would be committed in helping the community in achieving social justice.