My first praxis meeting was this past Friday the 28th. Every Monday me and the other co-facilitators meet to create a lesson plan for the students and on Fridays we go and lead the after school program. My praxis is located just on the outside of Philadelphia. We, the facilitators and I, first went to one of the classrooms to try to rally up the students who normally attend this program. The conversation we walked in on between the students and the teacher was a conversation on why white people think that their hair is better than black people. From this first impression, I already got the sense that there are racialized tensions in the school I was coming into.

During the program, we had 7 students attend: 2 boys and 5 girls. Our main activity for the day was about how we make assumptions about people based on their appearance. We gave them printed picture of people from all walks of life and called out statements like “choose the person you are most likely to hire”. The question that left me most uneasy was the response we got for “choose the person you believe is a part of the LGBT community”. One of the students, Judith, said that the male she picked was displaying feminine qualities. One of the facilitators questioned her asking “well are they feminine qualities or are these just attributes that society believes are feminine”, hinting at the social construction of femininity. Judith was adamant about that the qualities that the person she picked were in fact feminine, missing the point completely.

My position as a student has formed a strong and central part of my identity for almost as long as I can remember. My interactions in the classroom served as the basis not only for life-long learning, but also for evolving understandings of my identities. So it makes sense to me that much of the shifting and growth I’ve done in understanding my identities has come in the context of my identity as a student. I identify as an upper middle class, cisgendered, queer, white, atheistic, half-New Zealand, Brooklyn-raised woman. As I’ve studied and lived in different environments, as I’ve moved from Brooklyn to Bryn Mawr to Denmark and back, I’ve claimed, moved through, and even discarded different aspects of my identity in varying degrees. Being able to own each of these identities now and feel comfortable introducing myself as them is a state that has been a long time coming.

One integral aspect of my identity as a student is my voice, and it is through the lens of student voice that I explore the different aspects of my identities. I focus on race, class, and gender because those are the three aspects of my identities I have been thinking critically about most recently, and because I think these three aspects impact my interactions with others most strongly.

I. Race and Class Privilege

I’ve grown to be afraid of strong language, strong opinions, and strong, passionate declarations. I’m scared of loud voices, faces tight, sweaty, and red, jaws about to snap off throats bursting with throbbing veins. I am aware of the sensationalist writing style that began the “Apocalypse, New Jersey” article, and I am cautious of it. But I’m also wary of jumping immediately to the reaction of vehemently opposing and dismissing everything this article stated, simply because my very limited, single story of my experience in Camden didn’t reflect what I read here. I can acknowledge the danger of having limited sources of information - my two visits to Camden, the stories and statements made by those at the CFET, the article, and the informative city profile - and that I can never know the full story. But of course, there is never a whole, full story. There are infinite stories that create some sort of poly-sided, multi-dimensional shape object thing. But for now I’ll keep away from my usual everything-is-so-complex-let’s-just-give-up-before-our-brains-fall-out.

I absolutely LOVED the time we spent with the fifth graders on Friday. It was so refreshing to be around young people, and at the same time it felt very productive, like we were doing good work together, creating ties between two very different groups of people. Though they were sort of supposed to be "teaching" us the planting process, the kids I was working with hadn't really remembered the steps, and since I have experience with planting seeds (and also since I was the adult figure and so gravitated to the leadership position naturally due to ageism), I ended up teaching them and it felt like a prelude to the lesson later in the afternoon. It was really interesting to reflect on the fact that, had I not learned the small details of gardening from my mother - poke a tiny hole with your finger, cover gently with a small amount of dirt and don't press down or pack it in) - I would not have felt nearly as confident in the instructions I gave.

I felt far less confident, however, when we got to the math lesson, despite our extensive preparation. There was really no way I could have prepared for four students at completely different levels of understanding, interest, and attention spans, for the chaos of managing all those at once and remaining calm and coherent, for students who don't just grasp what you're trying to explain after a short amount of explanation.

It is strange--I just reflected on how hopeful, joyful, and warm the folks in Camden were the other day. But then, this article on Camden portrayed nothing but hopelessness, anger, and violence. Such contradictory impressions of a place. It makes me wonder just how individuals judge a place, how they make those distinctions. Perhaps it has to do with who you talk to and what you experience. I felt like this article was quite problematic—it only portrayed one way of perceiving Camden. Yes, there is a lot of crime. But that doesn’t always have to define a place, right? But I also don’t want to trivialize the serious issues in Camden. It’s a hard balance to find. And also, if you’re only ever told you are a dangerous person and you live in a dangerous hopeless place, will you ever grow up feeling like you can achieve? Will the kids we worked with the other day get caught in this system of oppression? I hope they hold on to the joy and ambition they found in that greenhouse, regardless of both the physical danger they may face in Camden, and the mental danger they face of being told they are hopeless.  

In the few hours that I have spent in Camden, it is difficult to fully and truly comprehend that 'America's Most Desperate Town' and Camden are one and the same. I had a pretty strong reaction to reading Matt Taibbi's article. I was struck by how suprised I was to read the horrible things that happen in/to Camden, despite the fact that I 'know', or am at least aware of, the devestation that exists there. How can the home of the CfET and the official "most dangerous place in America" be the same city? I am quite aggravated at the way Taibbi chose to portray Camden, and I feel defensive of a city that I barely know. Mostly, I am confused as to what to think about the benefits and detriments such an article can have for Camden. On one hand, the article brings to light the injustice that has been done to Camden by way of external forces such as funding cuts that essentially halt their entire Police department. It is important for people to know how New Jersey chose to deal with Camden's safety problems, such as the "new $4.5 million command center". On the other hand, Taibbi paints a picture of the people of Camden that is only detrimental to the reader's view of the city. He shows a dwindling community that is exploiting the lack of police force, one that is "celebrating the tranfer of power from the cops back to the streets".

As a tour guide now, part of my general introduction is stating where I’m from. If the people on my tour have never been to California or have very little knowledge of the state, I tell them I was born in Pomona—which is true—to which they jump and say, “oh, Scripts College? Harvey Mudd?” and I say “sure”.

            Though most college towns are similar, the people on my tour never take into consideration that I could have been born and grew up in the part of Pomona that wasn’t the picture of middle class suburbia they think of. I grew up on the side of Pomona with the indoor swap meet, family own car washes, and graffiti tagged on the walls of grocery stores. I currently live in the neighboring city of Ontario where the population is predominately Mexican/Latino along with pockets of Vietnamese and Black families. You might even consider us working class or below that.

            My mother is Colombian (emigrated at age 16) and my father is Mexican (emigrated at age 15). They met in high school, fell in love, had me, fell out of love, and I’ve had a rocky relationship with my father ever since. Despite the fact that both my parents are Latino, speak fluent Spanish, and understand Mexican and Colombian culture from the “motherland”, I am pale, speak very mediocre Spanish, and understand little of my heritage.

Like many of my classmates, I was also taken aback by the Apocalypse, New Jersey: A Dispatch From America’s Most Desperate Town article written by Matt Taibbi. Taibbi painted an extremely dark and negative picture of Camden through his writing, describing the city as "an un-fantasy Island of extreme poverty and violence where the police just a few years ago essentially surrendered the city of 77,000". Taibbi continually others Camden, comparing its violence and crime rates to places like Somalia, Honduras, and Iraq. While he incorporates some of the obstacles the city has had to face such as detrimental budget cuts, which were especially to the police force, he fails to address many of the issues Camden faces that we have learned about from visiting the city and hearing more about its history from Michael. This is an incredible example of how powerful and problematic the single story is. As I was reading this essay, I kept thinking about my friends who had been surprised that the 360 was visiting Camden. "Isn't it too dangerous to be there? why would you go there?" many of them had asked me. If any of my friends who asked me these questions had read this article, the image and stereotype of the city would only be reaffirmed. Luckily, this whole 360 class has had positive, enlightening, and fun experiences in Camden, which keep us from supporting the assumptions that Taibbi puts forth, but there are many who haven't had such experiences.