Diversity Acknowlegement

 Today I slept in about 30 minutes more than the usual and it made me feel just great. I got ready in a good mood and I headed to the Ratty for breakfast. As everyday goes by I think that my schedule is finally settling in and my assignments are not as crammed as they felt in the beginning. 

It has only been day 3 of class and everyone in there is just so trustworthy and we have already created great bonds throughout the activities we have performed. This entire campus has just entirely made everyone feel so great and welcoming whether your are a from here or from a different county everyone seems to be heart warming to everyone.

Something that Brown does that many schools have not yet done or still need to meet up to is that instead of labeling someone we ask for their preferred pronouns in other words we all name the pronouns we identify the most with. This creates an accepting and demonstration of support for anyone and everyone.

Every morning in class we usually go over with what the agenda of that day is going to look like but today was quite different. Since many of us had a sort of confusion over last night's reading, Tina decided to start the first half of class with an open discussion over the thoughts we had about the assignment. The topic was very complex and difficult to come up with amends that could possibly help solve the topic. So the first activity included us to get in pairs and write down ideas of what characteristics are used to describe or categorize women, men, feminism, and masculinity. We all wrote on post-it notes and it was just a great way to emerge everyone's personal thoughts. After that activity we were asked to write down the name of someone who we think represents these different gender roles. By performing this activity all the girls and I started realizing different things that we had never thought of before. A great confusion merged, and I say great confusion because in our heads, we started realizing the true meaning behind gender roles and although it clarified one sort of confusion it developed a new one but I say it in a positive way. 

Afterwards we all attended lunch as a group. I sat on the table with a couple of girls like Jaqueline who goes to boarding school in Connecticut, Sophia, Camille from Brooklyn, New York, Lynda Bailey, and Christina our TA. While we were eating lunch at the Ratty we were also drawing out Action Plan ideas in which w can start working on. It was nice to hear about all the different concerns everyone had use and in what unique ways thy had a plan to try and improve their communities and others around them.

Coffee for this mild cloudy day.

Lunch for the day.

Then we headed back for the second half of the class where we participated in more personal based activities. We all bonded and felt comfortable enough to share very intimate insecurities. I think we have all don a great job to be confidential and respecting each other enough to share enough.

Class was then over sooner than I thought and then we had a 30 minute break which was enough to go to Starbucks and get some light refreshments before we had to go to our diversity workshop. 

At this workshop we had chance to discuss the different types of privileges that everyone. Then we were given a worksheet in which we labeled and wrote down a few words to describe who we are and what makes us up. The idea of this was to identify our intersecting  identities and we realized that the identities we are mostly aware of are discussed in our daily lives because we feel more oppressed according to those fields or characteristics we identify with.

Before our workshop ended we had another activity that was said to be very emotional for several students because they would take the courage to stand up or step down for certain privileges we have or don't have. For me this activity wasn't so emotional as it was for others but instead it proved to me that there was eventually going to more privilege people than me out in the world no matter what and I am okay with that, but some tears of fellow classmates did fall out, but we ended with an activity to help us all cheer up and end the workshop in a positive way.

Today's class discussion and workshop opened my mind to many new things I did not know before that I now I am able to understand better in very different aspects and can most probably explain it to someone very efficiently. I learned today that it is okay to not know what gender you are, that there doesn't need to be correct answer.

Out of nowhere thunder started rolling and the rain pouring. I could see everyone on the streets running into the dry buildings to avoid getting wet. Bailey, Lynda, and I luckily had our umbrellas and so we made our way to the Ratty for dinner around 5:30 PM.

We then went to the Olney's lounge which was great to study in but just too quiet and so Bailey and I headed to the campus center lounge located in the main green to try and get our work done. Before 11 PM we will need to check in our dormitories and that means we are not able to leave the building whatsoever so we are trying to work together to gt our work done as soon as possible.