Social Justice ... ha yea right

So I came back to school early for this thing called a "Social Justice Institute". There's about 25 of us total. It was really cool and informative yesterday. Lots of lecturing but if you paid attention it was really cool information and things to file away for the 'real world'.

Today we went to NYC for an assignment. We had to do an ethnograph of a part of the city (I got assigned Tribeca) and then interview a social justice organization (I got assigned LifeSpire). Wandering around NYC on the coldest day of the year, not so cool, but the talking part was actually pretty cool. For the ethnograph we talked to this lady who works in a pet supply store in Tribeca. She was really cool and really nice and really informative about the Tribeca area. So that went really well. Well, then we had some extra time to kill and wanted to go to Chinatown. I screwed up the directions though, got us east enough to the river but not north enough. So that was fixed with a subway ride to our original place and then going to the river. We were having a blast being tourists but we had an appointment to keep and so we made our way in that direction. Really cool interview with LifeSpire education master. You could tell that she really enjoys what she does even with it's complications. She actually told us about an old 'institution' for the diagnosed mentally retarded folks who may or may not have been actually retarded where they were abusing the residents so badly that it was shut down and legislation was created to keep it from ever happening again. (If you're interested in that story try searching North NJ and Willowbrook) But the story about the abuse really touched me. I kept thinking how could any person treat another person that way. How could someone be so self-centered that they could literally let a person run around naked because there weren't any clothes for them or not help them bathe for weeks on end. Yet the whole group is at dinner and we have a physically disabled person in the group. This particular person ran into some problems at the end of the day and needed assistance. Yet there were four students and the three administrators who even seemed to care. And I'm boggled as to how someone could overlook the obvious need for help. How someone could ignore the signs and be so self righteous to ignore such a thing. It makes me angry, like really really really angry. I can't come up for another emotion for how I'm feeling. It gets even better because the students all rode up to the city in extra long vans driven by administration members on the trip. Yet when it came time to catch the shuttle back to the vans all the students were whining about the cold but left the administrators off the shuttle. They were the ones with the keys to get into the vans and get them warmed up and the students didn't care. It honestly shocked me how people could be so self-centered. I guess I was brought up with more of a focus on treat others how you want to be treated and I was taught at a young age that you give of yourself so that others will give of themselves. Tonight just blew that out of the water. I'm standing on the corner of the sidewalk with said disabled waiting for the van to come to us cause we couldn't get her on the shuttle with one other student. It's like 12 degrees out and I'm waiting surrounded by water so there's wind, lots of it. The shuttle left without three people not counting us, two administrators and one student, who then all huddled together for warmth until the shuttle could come back and get them.

There's one day of the seminar left, technically today. I'm going to have a hard time not telling everyone that they failed the Institute, as proven by their actions in the city. I'm going to have a really hard time letting it go. I'm angry for the disabled who's too out of it on medications to realize what's going on. I'm angry at the fact that no one else stepped up to help. I'm angry with the self-centeredness I saw from people who have no right to be. It's a lot of anger to deal with and I'm not sure I'm going to sleep all that well tonight trying to digest it all, but we'll see. I gotta be up in about 5 hours to spend another day with these people, and I have to hope that they get the message.