I am attending the Applied Research Center’s Facing Race 2012 National Conference this weekend in my childhood hometown of Baltimore, MD.
I don’t mean to shut out the possibility of gaining new knowledge or understanding about things I don’t even know about yet, but it’s good to have an idea of motivation and goals going into any learning experience. And I have been meaning to sit down and really think about what my own expectaions are—what skills in particular am I hoping to acquire, what knowledge am I hoping to learn?
These are a few of the things I am looking to my Facing Race experience to help me out with:
- To gain a deeper understanding of the impact of structural racism in East Baltimore communities and to identify causes and methods of resistance.
- To advance my limited understanding and increasing interest in economic development and community infrastructure issues in the conversation about racial justice and sustainability.
- To explore entrepreneurial forms of justice work and think about possibilities to be involved in this work in innovative ways.
- To continue to acquire skills in organizing and sustaining justice programs and initiatives.
- To meet inspiring people doing thoughtful work; to learn from them.
- To continue to discern a more complete, more fulfilling path for myself.
- To gain new skills as an educator and activist that I can bring back with me to the communities in which I live and work.
I guess it’s a pretty extensive list—but I have some pretty high expectations for this weekend. And again, I certainly don’t mean to shirk the possibility of learning things I never even thought of. But in particular, this week, I’m looking to reflect more deeply on the seven specific objectives above.
And if anyone has advice and perspective on any of these, I would love to connect! Get me on Twitter or find me wandering around.
I’m looking forward to reading more about your work in these areas. I’ve lived briefly in Baltimore and very much enjoyed seeing the urban landscape recreated in the HBO drama The Wire, but am not very familiar with the city itself. I am interested in seeing how you tackle the questions you’re raising though.
I’ve just finished a MPH and it rattles me that in public health we cover the “social determinants of health” as issues that purportedly render the health sector itself virtually impotent in the face of major health disparities within the U.S. or globally, but there is no public sector commitment to applied research in aggressively redressing those issues. If anything it looks now as if existing social safety nets are more likely to be scaled back than improved.