Social justice cannot be done in a day
As a Jesuit institution, we pride ourselves on being “men and women with and for others.”
From the moment we as students begin our journey at Saint Joseph’s University, we are overwhelmed with terms like “social justice,” “charity” and even more catchy Jesuit phrases.
Social justice calls us to deal with the root of issues in society while charity deals with the surface. If these two words can be described in a proverb, it would be “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime,” with giving the fish being representative of charity.
I like how my freshman theology professor, Tomas Sheibley, director of Campus Ministry, describes it. He said that charity addresses the effects of social problems, like treating the symptoms of a wound. Justice addresses the underlying causes of the problem and tries to heal the wound itself.
I have been thinking about social justice a lot more these days, and about the impact that our campus has on the places that we serve and the communities that surround us. On one side of campus is Lower Merion township. On the other side is West Philadelphia. The groups of people, the household incomes and the schools are vastly different, even though these two areas are literally across the street from one another. Then there’s us, right in the middle.
When I walk down the ramp to Bellarmine Hall, I look to my right. I see the students of Samuel Gompers Elementary School looking at us through the fences. It always makes me emotional, because I wonder how it affects them to see the influx of students at St. Joe’s and to see how very few students look like them. It’s no secret that St. Joe’s is mostly white, 83 percent white to be exact. I wonder if we stop to think about how the lack of diversity and inclusion on our campus affects not only the students on our campus but also our neighboring communities, like Gompers.
I know we have many service initiatives on campus that serve communities like Gompers, but I am always baffled by some St. Joe’s students’ perspective when they partake in service. They would say something about how they did social justice today. I laugh at this concept because social justice can’t be done in one or two hours of service for one day a week. These students share their pity for the disadvantages that they see in those communities. In my head, I say, “They don’t need your pity. They need you to work.”
Archbishop Oscar Romero once said, “We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.” Romero was the Archbishop of San Salvador. He was an advocate for social justice so much so he was martyred for advocating for the people of San Salvador against the corrupt people in power. These communities don’t need our saving, nor our pity. They need us to work to abolish systems that kept their communities in their current states for generations.
I recently started mentoring at Gompers. When I go, the students are eager to ask questions about my experiences at St. Joe’s.
“You go to SJU?”
“What’s college like?”
“Do you
like it?”
“Is it hard?
When I answer these questions, I always tell students the truth—that there aren’t many people that look like us here. That it can be hard being the only black woman in my classes. That I feel dumb, sometimes, in comparison to my peers. I don’t go to Gompers to “help them.” I go to be with them. We talk about our dreams, our fears and our hopes. They don’t need my help. They don’t need my pity. They need me to fight and push to make a way for us.
To the students and community of St. Joe’s: know that these children are watching us through these fences. We can’t fix the world, nor our university, in a day. However, St. Joe’s is a lot smaller than the world. After all, we say we are, “men and women with and for others.” So, I hope that we do a better job than the world has been doing these days if we truly hold the values that we say we do.
