One concept that is central to understanding the nuances of social justice activism is to have a thorough understanding of power dynamics. This post helps get you there.
Category: Yopp Academy
An educational resource on social justice topics, sorted by level of difficulty.
If you’re new to social justice, start with the 100 and 200 level posts, and work your way up– or, dive right in and do some googling along the way.
Spoon Theory: What Silverware Has to Do with Chronic Illness
Have you ever dealt with a chronic illness and struggled to explain to your healthy friends why you just can’t go out with them anymore? Have you ever heard someone say, “I don’t have the spoons for that,” and wondered what they were talking about? They’re talking about Spoon Theory! In this article, I’ll provide a basic overview of spoon theory, how it was created, how it’s used, and further expansions on spoon theory that I’ve found helpful.
A Comprehensive Guide to Assisting with a Mental Health Crisis
Over the course of three months, guest blogger Lucy Merriman put together an amazing 5-part series entitled, How to Lend a Hand in a Mental Health Crisis. The series looks at the gaps in our current mental health care system and provides information on how to fill those gaps on an individual basis, even if you yourself have little to no crisis training. This post puts the links and summaries for those five articles all in one place.
What Does It Mean When a Group Has Power?
When discussing oppressed and privileged groups, you’ll frequently hear me talk about who in the interaction has the most power. But why is identifying the power in an interaction so important and what do I mean when I say a group has power?
Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist, and Sexist, and…
If you were to make an off-color comment to me and defend yourself by saying that you don’t have a racist/sexist/classist bone in your body, or that you are “colorblind” your response would give me an important piece of information about you. Because as the song goes, everyone’s a little bit racist.
What Is Socialization?
If you’ve been in the social justice world for very long, you’ve probably heard variations on the phrase, “You were socialized to be X.” But what does that mean? What is socialization?
Explaining Privilege Part 4: Privilege is an Invisibility Cloak
Privilege can bring you many benefits, and eliminate many obstacles for you. But privilege can also mask negative traits such as incompetence, unethical behavior, and dishonesty. Privilege can give you literal get-out-of-jail-free cards, to the detriment of people who lack that privilege. Privilege is an invisibility cloak.
Explaining Privilege Part 3: The Scrutiny of Oppressed Groups
We often talk about privilege in terms of the positives, the benefits you receive: Resources, freedom, trust, and benefit of the doubt are extremely common ones. But what about the flip side? The opposite of privileged groups receiving the benefit of the doubt is the scrutiny of oppressed groups.
Explaining Privilege Part 2: The Cycle of Reinforcement
In the second part of the Explaining Privilege series, I talk about how the socialization of marginalized and privileged groups reinforce the blindspots of privileged groups, which in turn causes a cycle that deprioritizes the needs of marginalized people.
Explaining Privilege Part 1: WHAT Is Privilege?
This article covers the absolute basic answers to the question, what is privilege, including social, financial, and institutional privilege.