Running head:SOCIAL JUSTICE AND INCLUSION REFLECTION 1

Social Justice and Inclusion Reflection

Johnathon Shaw

University of Wisconsin- La Crosse

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SJI Competency Reflection

To me, the Social Justice and Inclusion (SJI) competency is a crucial aspect of our work

as student affairs professionals. It is one area in which I feel that I have grown so much in, and

yet it is one area in which I feel that I am still firmly foundational. Before taking our Social

Justice and Inclusion course, I thought I had a pretty good understanding of my privilege. In our

previous courses, we had discussed how the history of American higher education is steeped in

racism and white supremacy. As I continue my education, the more I learn about privilege and

how it impacts society and higher education today.

I grew up in Mattoon, Illinois. Mattoon is a majority white town and thus my high school

was majority white. Most of the people of color in the town had assimilated to white midwestern

culture, and thus were perceived as “normal.” I was raised to be proud of my ancestry, of my

country, and of my family. I can remember the first time I met a fellow student who had worn a

belt buckle that displayed the Mexican flag, because he was proud of his heritage, just like I was.

I recall feeling confused, because displaying the flag of another country was not a standard

practice of white, midwestern culture. I bring up this anecdote because it was only recently this

expectation of assimilation was a facet of racism that I had been conditioned to support. Most of

the folx in Mattoon would have said they were not racist, because they were completely unaware

of systematic white supremacy that causes them to expect people of color to conform to the

white ideal of normal.

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It was in class discussions that this came up and caused me to reflect. At first I felt

defensive. I am your average midwestern man and I would not consider myself racist. How can

my culture itself be racist. Afterall, in Illinois we worship Abraham Lincoln and he freed the

slaves. How could the culture that adores Lincoln be inherently racist itself? As our discussions

progressed, I was able to analyze what was really going on. The midwestern culture, specifically

the rural Illinois culture in which I was raised, considered whiteness as normal and anything else

as “other.” To be “normal” one had to act “white.” Until that changes, white culture will be

synonymous with systematic racism.

This brings me to my role in the Leadership and Involvement Center, and my artifact, the

conceptual map. One of my tasks is to manage the university food pantry. Relaunching our

pantry was a success and we saw a huge increase in student awareness of it and a large increase

in student usage. However, students with marginalized identities, and specifically students of

color and international students, did not utilize the pantry to the same extent as their white

counterparts. When I saw this data, I first thought it was because UWL is a primarily white

institution and I assumed that the data I was seeing was simply proportional to the student

demographics. However, our wonderful colleagues from the Office of Multicultural Student

Services reached out and informed us that many of their students expressed the need to use the

food pantry, but felt like the COVE was not welcoming to them. The students felt they would be

stigmatized for being a student of color and having the need to use the food pantry.

This shook me to my core at first. The COVE was built to be used for all students, and

we have a dedicated space for the Pride Center. However, upon reflection we noticed that most

of the students in the COVE were white, and in midwestern white culture, there is a perception
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that being a person of color is synonymous with being poor. UWL, being a PWI in the midwest,

still shows evidence of the systematic racism in this country because of the social stigma of

being a person of color and facing food insecurity. In order to address this problem in the

short-term, we created a satellite pantry in OMSS for their students, so that they can feel less

stigmatized by using a food pantry in a space they feel safe in.