Activity 1: Identity Spectrum
Patti, Melissa, and I (Lo) have been exploring the meanings and importance of diversity to people on the Portland State University (PSU) campus--both students and non-students. We sought not so much to define diversity, but to expand our own definitions of diversity and hopefully to encourage others to expand their definitions. The exercise we facilitated, looks at various identities and the systematic oppression associated with each. We all have multiple identities--from the ways we were raised and the paths we have had access to and taken throughout our lives. Some of us may have thought extensively about our relationship to every category we looked at for the activity, and some of us may have only thought much about some of them or even not in-depth about any of them. This is just a sample of the many categories we could look at. One of the ideas in doing this exercise was to dissect and recognize the rich complexities of our own experiences and identities, to better understand ourselves and better be able to understand those around us. To notice that people are conglomerations of a great many identities and experiences and the histories of privilege and oppression that attach to each of them are not easily unpacked. None of it is simple, and we did not seek to actually do that unpacking, although we certainly encourage the unpacking of privilege and oppression. Here we acknowledge that diversity is worth celebrating. It is not diversity that is inherently oppressive, but systems that have built oppression into them.
We asked everyone in the class to be willing to engage in the exercise and then discuss our reactions to it. We explained that resistance may come up and is fine. Since identities exist with complex subtlety, not simply either/or, we use lines to represent the spectrum from an identity or role that has historically been the agent of oppression, placed at the top of the chart and the roles that have historically been the target of oppression at the bottom of the chart.
We each chose a color marker and drew a dot on the line for each identity spectrum. For example, on the first line representing the spectrum of skin color, we drew our dot on the line between "person of color" on the bottom and "white" at the top. There is a line through the center of the chart and for some categories, people place their dot there, representing their identity for that category near the center line, while the same people may place their identity dot at the end of another spectrum and the opposite end of yet another spectrum.
We acknowledged that this simplified exercise hardly shows our true experience and that our identities change over time, within some categories and not within others. It does give us a glimpse and a frame to jump into some great discussion.
We ended up with a map of where we stand as a group, represented by our multitudinous identity lines criss-crossing across the board. This map shows where our lines give us more or less privilege in terms of others, but only through our individual perspectives of our own placements in the world.
We asked everyone in the class to be willing to engage in the exercise and then discuss our reactions to it. We explained that resistance may come up and is fine. Since identities exist with complex subtlety, not simply either/or, we use lines to represent the spectrum from an identity or role that has historically been the agent of oppression, placed at the top of the chart and the roles that have historically been the target of oppression at the bottom of the chart.
We each chose a color marker and drew a dot on the line for each identity spectrum. For example, on the first line representing the spectrum of skin color, we drew our dot on the line between "person of color" on the bottom and "white" at the top. There is a line through the center of the chart and for some categories, people place their dot there, representing their identity for that category near the center line, while the same people may place their identity dot at the end of another spectrum and the opposite end of yet another spectrum.
We acknowledged that this simplified exercise hardly shows our true experience and that our identities change over time, within some categories and not within others. It does give us a glimpse and a frame to jump into some great discussion.
We ended up with a map of where we stand as a group, represented by our multitudinous identity lines criss-crossing across the board. This map shows where our lines give us more or less privilege in terms of others, but only through our individual perspectives of our own placements in the world.
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Exploring D i v e r s i t y on Campus
As we explore why diversity is important and the many meanings of diversity we also wanted to take the opportunity to learn what diversity meant to others in our PSU community and why diversity was important to them.
For this part of the project we armed ourselves with a white board, color markers and a camera, and for two days we asked strangers if they could write down what diversity meant to them and/or why it was important. The variety of answers they gave us was marvelous and we capture their words in a picture. Below is the final result of our project.
For this part of the project we armed ourselves with a white board, color markers and a camera, and for two days we asked strangers if they could write down what diversity meant to them and/or why it was important. The variety of answers they gave us was marvelous and we capture their words in a picture. Below is the final result of our project.