Justice project
In the justice project we studied justice and injustice from historic instances of both to modern examples and studied the similarities/differences swell as developed our own philosophies and in the end created projects to express our philosophies or ideas. In this project we looked at things such as historical racial injustice to things as recent as the Bears Ears debate as a form of climate justice. We studied different ideas of justice and the people which have proposed them In the past. All of this research leading up to our own projects in the end.
Justice Monologue #1
“Obeying the law that sends you to war seems wrong. Obeying the law against murder seems absolutely right. To really obey that law, you should refuse to obey that which sends you to war.” Howard Zinn. The line between law and justice is one we like to pretend that we walk with the utmost precision and elegance. We have convinced ourselves the words of our constitution and the actions of our criminal justice system, have created a just society. We preach that our laws are there to protect our good citizens and we are as free as we want. Collectively we have put a price on self ownership and that price is giving up a little bit of our self autonomy. In our country our justice is purely a punishment system so much that punishment has become an industry. Like most things here somebody and now many people have decided to capitalize on our primitive idea of justice. You might ask what the motivator to justice is in our country and to that I would say money. Clearly if you have the funds the justice system is more of a hoop to jump through than anything. The entitlement to have a fair trial with an indescrimitory jury is a fleeting vision. The Dalia Lama while speaking on the relation between compassion and justice said, “The objection rests, in my view on a fundamental misunderstanding of what compassion entails in practice. Nothing in the principle of compassion-the wish to see others relieved of suffering-involves surrendering to the misdeeds of others. Nor does compassion demand that we meekly accept injustice.” I found this quote to align with my hope for what a productive justice system could be founded upon here. Too many times I feel the way we have formed our policies locks people into unjust punishment. We have things like mandatory sentences and inflexible policies that hinder true justice because they are set in stone. The ideas that the Dalai Lama presents introduces the idea of compassion being the motivator but that doesn’t mean that it doesn't produce results. I find compassion based justice to be much more logical because of its flexibility. The fact that we have brains that can comprehend more then just right and wrong but that's how we decide the fate of many lives in such a black or white way astounds me. My wish is to see justice conducted through empathy and compassion in a way that treats every person like what they are, an individual. Now I don’t want to be ignorant to the fact that some people do commit serious atrocities and in that I believe they should be assessed in a way that truly is in equal standing to the crime. I wish to see others open their minds to new forms of rehabilitation that can hopefully mend our gross reincarceration rates. 76.6% of people arrested will be arrested again in 5 years in the U.S. My hope for the world is that one day we all look beyond our juvenile lens and create a just world through the understanding of each other.
Justice Monologue #2
Project Pictures
Project defense/reflection
Our project has changed a little bit since it was proposed so it is hard so our goals have evolved as the project went on. We originally had decided on a date to order our shirts but before we could do that we ended up merging with other groups doing shirts so our timeline changed. The other part of the project where we plant trees is a little different because we actually need to wait a couple months to do it so we don’t waste the trees but as of now we are on track and have that all planned out. Putting our project in with the other group has changed the dynamics of it because meeting the deadlines isn’t explicitly in our control now but we all seem to be on the same page and the website we are creating for all the designs is coming along well. We probably should have looked into collaboration with other groups earlier with the shirts just because they are very expensive especially when we were looking into them alone.
I am super passionate about climate and environmental justice so this project is really exciting for me. I like to jump on any chance I can get to do something with nature and field work in a project. I was excited to hear how open ended the possibilities for the project were so that was encouraging from the beginning. I like how in this project I feel I have the agency over the impact of my project and it feels very authentic. We are driving what we want to do and we wouldn't be doing what we are if we didn’t want to do it. In our group I feel we all put in a fairshare of work. We all seem to have found our jobs and we are working together well. Our project really isn’t even close to being done and we all seem to be excited for when we actually get to go finish it.
The first lesson I learned that I think will help me in my senior project is how important it is to be passionate about the topic. All of the projects that I have ever done that I have been actually proud of are the ones that I feel like have a piece of me in them. Passion gives the projects something special that you can see. You can feel the authenticity in a project that is only found when you really believe in it. The other lesson I learned is that it helps to have a plan and deadlines. It feels really good to just get things over with and get onto the next part. This was a good prelude to a senior project since I haven't really done a hands on project like this since quite a while ago.
I am super passionate about climate and environmental justice so this project is really exciting for me. I like to jump on any chance I can get to do something with nature and field work in a project. I was excited to hear how open ended the possibilities for the project were so that was encouraging from the beginning. I like how in this project I feel I have the agency over the impact of my project and it feels very authentic. We are driving what we want to do and we wouldn't be doing what we are if we didn’t want to do it. In our group I feel we all put in a fairshare of work. We all seem to have found our jobs and we are working together well. Our project really isn’t even close to being done and we all seem to be excited for when we actually get to go finish it.
The first lesson I learned that I think will help me in my senior project is how important it is to be passionate about the topic. All of the projects that I have ever done that I have been actually proud of are the ones that I feel like have a piece of me in them. Passion gives the projects something special that you can see. You can feel the authenticity in a project that is only found when you really believe in it. The other lesson I learned is that it helps to have a plan and deadlines. It feels really good to just get things over with and get onto the next part. This was a good prelude to a senior project since I haven't really done a hands on project like this since quite a while ago.
For our project Owen, Patrick, and I all decided that we wanted to do something with environmental justice because we all care a great deal about it. We decided that we wanted to plant trees because we felt like that would be a good way to give back to our local community and environment. Our lives are spent in our outdoor spaces so the most just thing we can do is give back to what we appreciate. Since it is becoming winter we decided to postpone our tree planting until the spring because it seems pointless to go through all the effort and work for them to just freeze and die. In the meantime we decided that we are going to make some t-shirts to sell partly to fund the trees and partly to just have something else to add and solidify our project. We made a design for our shirts and we were going to order them but then we kind of merged in with other groups doing shirts and we are currently making a website that will have all of our designs. Throughout this entire project and learning about all the different types of justice and injustice the thing that I always think about is we have all these social issues and they are all very serious and deserve as much attention and help to resolve them as possible but we very soon might not even have a planet to have these disputes on. I feel that the most important thing we can do now is try to save our earth and reverse some of the incredible injustices that we do to it because if we don’t we have no place for any form or justice. We are destroying literally all that we have and we act like it won’t be the demise of all of humanity. I feel extremely passionate about protecting our planet and I figure anything even as simple as planting some trees is a step in the right direction. I’m so appreciative to have the beautiful resources we have. I feel responsible for at least on some level putting in effort to restore and respect the Earth. We didn’t really need to do a whole lot of research for our project other than finding who our suppliers for the trees and shirts would be but we figured that out and I am excited for when we actually get to plant our trees.