Why I Joined the ARCC As a Spring/Summer Intern
It’s no secret that one’s beliefs are heavily influenced by their environment. This can include one’s family, friends, peers at school, and experiences they had growing up in their neighborhood. As much as young children can innocently believe in Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and leprechauns for Saint Patrick’s Day, they can also, just as innocently and easily, believe in more harmful ideas.
People soak in careless remarks about microaggressions, stereotypes, and prejudice without realizing that they are being exposed to negative assumptions. It takes becoming intentionally aware of different communities, different people, and interacting with them to learn of people’s experiences and perspectives to then piece together a more comprehensive picture of how the world can look in other people’s shoes. Oftentimes, this can seem daunting and like a lot of work.
Anti-racism has strong roots in educating oneself to recognize what exists as different forms of racism, discrimination, and prejudice, particularly of silent oppression and systemic bias. It takes intellectual work to put words to what someone is experiencing, then realizing where it all stems from. This is why education is so important—and why intellectual work should never be looked down upon.
This kind of mental fortification often has to work with abstractions, generalizations, and sweeping assumptions at times because everyone’s journey with racism, and anti-racism, are different. This can be a double-edged sword—are we oversimplifying the issue? Or over-complicating it? Because different people can respond differently to the same, deceptively simple question, many choose to look away.
But that’s precisely why I am so interested in ARCC’s work and the avenues used to get the messages across—newsletters, blogs, podcasts—in this digital age, information (and misinformation) is readily available. If you want to be heard, you have to fight for it. When ARCC’s message is about anti-racism and engaging with members of the community to give them a voice, I know that this is where I want to put my skills and knowledge to use.
It may be a challenge to engage everybody who comes across ARCC, but it starts with the members, including but not limited to volunteers, interns, board members, and website visitors. I like to believe that there are people out there who want to learn more about anti-racism, but don’t know how or where to start.
If the ARCC can be that beacon, or starting point, for people who genuinely want to help, it is worth every hour I will be putting into this internship. I look forward to not only my work, but also my journey with ARCC!
