The Break Free 2.0 Project:
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The issue of stereotypes and institutionalized norms is a large problem in our society. Whites, blacks, women, men, and people of all religions, ethnicities, and lifestyles are subject to harmful stereotypes. The main danger of stereotypes is a term called 'stereotype threat', which is the threat that although a victim of these stereotypes does not align with them, they may eventually conform to the stereotypes because that is the image given to them.
"Stereotype threat is defined as a situational predicament in which individuals are at risk of confirming negative stereotypes about their group." (Michael Inzlicht and Toni Schmader) Another threat of stereotypes is that people subjected to them often feel forced to act differently in order to be accepted. This was explained to us through a reading called "Whistling Vivaldi" by Claude Steele. In the reading, the author mentions how he was anxious to walk by whites because he was a black male in a neighborhood known for violence. He eventually came to the realization, that when whistling classical music, the people were less afraid of him when he walked by. The Break Free Project was goal was simple, we wanted to create viral videos and personal pieces that could help people realize the threat of stereotypes as well as overcome the ones that they have been subjected to. |
"That" Moment Card:
To break down any walls we had established to hide vulnerabilities, our first assignment for Break Free was a "That" Moment card. On the back of the card, we wrote about a personal experience or issue that relates to discrimination, stereotypes, or the Break Free project as a whole. On the front, student art pieces related to the stories on the back were created.
Here's what I wrote:
I am more than a privileged white kid. I am more than a kid who thinks highly of himself and lowly of others, I’m more than a kid who has had life easy and looks down upon those who haven’t. I am a kid who doesn’t deserve the title of “kid” - I am a kid who has moved many times, who has a past patch-worked like a quilt made from rags and yet I’m privileged by the color of my skin. What a joke! People think they know me? They know nothing about me. My silence is what has always kept me safe… who would believe me if I said I have never had an easy childhood? Certainly not a stranger. They say “it couldn’t have been that bad”- I’m watching the same horror movie in my head every night.
I can remember the cold bang on my face, a burning so hot it was cold. A flash. Yelling. Glass shattering. A series of assaults on my instinctual fear like a blitzkrieg looking to destroy everything. I knew what was happening then. I was still innocent at the time...but I knew enough to know why I didn’t sleep in my room anymore; why the needles on the floor were not to be touched.
I knew why I spent hours waiting to get picked up from school when I was just a little boy. I knew everything that was happening and why it was happening- I knew it all. All but one thing.
“Why can’t I take my teddy bear?” I asked the officers as they handed my badge stickers as some consolation for being awoken by a flash bang.
The worst was yet to come. Some liberation I had; taken to a child protection institution where they treated me as if I was a prisoner.
“Why did you get up to pee in the middle of the night?” “If you’re a good boy, we’ll give you a hot wheel.” “No singing! Stop singing!”
I apparently was too happy of a kid there. They put me down and broke my will; I guess I was already deemed a failure because I was a kid taken from a drug house?
You look at my phone and my nice things- my nice clothes, my clean shoes, my coffee, my lunch, and automatically think I have everything easy. Life is not easy just because you have things to occupy your time. I spent nearly four years depressed to the point where I thought about killing myself every day. I was underperforming, sleeping little, speaking rarely...and I was seen as the kid who just didn’t care about anything. I was the white kid with a ton of privilege to keep my life happy, and yet I had zero friends because I moved away from all of them.
But I hold advantages over you because of my race? To everyone who doesn’t know me, I’m someone who has lived in the same home his whole life, who had money growing on trees as a child and was raised sheltered. The sooner people realize that skin color does not define someone’s experiences and life, the sooner racial tensions will ease.
Here's what I wrote:
I am more than a privileged white kid. I am more than a kid who thinks highly of himself and lowly of others, I’m more than a kid who has had life easy and looks down upon those who haven’t. I am a kid who doesn’t deserve the title of “kid” - I am a kid who has moved many times, who has a past patch-worked like a quilt made from rags and yet I’m privileged by the color of my skin. What a joke! People think they know me? They know nothing about me. My silence is what has always kept me safe… who would believe me if I said I have never had an easy childhood? Certainly not a stranger. They say “it couldn’t have been that bad”- I’m watching the same horror movie in my head every night.
I can remember the cold bang on my face, a burning so hot it was cold. A flash. Yelling. Glass shattering. A series of assaults on my instinctual fear like a blitzkrieg looking to destroy everything. I knew what was happening then. I was still innocent at the time...but I knew enough to know why I didn’t sleep in my room anymore; why the needles on the floor were not to be touched.
I knew why I spent hours waiting to get picked up from school when I was just a little boy. I knew everything that was happening and why it was happening- I knew it all. All but one thing.
“Why can’t I take my teddy bear?” I asked the officers as they handed my badge stickers as some consolation for being awoken by a flash bang.
The worst was yet to come. Some liberation I had; taken to a child protection institution where they treated me as if I was a prisoner.
“Why did you get up to pee in the middle of the night?” “If you’re a good boy, we’ll give you a hot wheel.” “No singing! Stop singing!”
I apparently was too happy of a kid there. They put me down and broke my will; I guess I was already deemed a failure because I was a kid taken from a drug house?
You look at my phone and my nice things- my nice clothes, my clean shoes, my coffee, my lunch, and automatically think I have everything easy. Life is not easy just because you have things to occupy your time. I spent nearly four years depressed to the point where I thought about killing myself every day. I was underperforming, sleeping little, speaking rarely...and I was seen as the kid who just didn’t care about anything. I was the white kid with a ton of privilege to keep my life happy, and yet I had zero friends because I moved away from all of them.
But I hold advantages over you because of my race? To everyone who doesn’t know me, I’m someone who has lived in the same home his whole life, who had money growing on trees as a child and was raised sheltered. The sooner people realize that skin color does not define someone’s experiences and life, the sooner racial tensions will ease.
Personal Pieces:
For my individual piece, I was inspired by many great writers to create poems about my personal experiences. I've had many hardships in my life than many people notice because they are hidden by the color of my skin. My poetry book was titled 'Privilege?'. The purpose of the personal pieces was for them to be commentary or reflection on either personal experience or secondhand experience.
Since I cannot possibly upload 40 eligible images of my book, I will do my best to cohesively type it out here.
For tidiness purposes, I'm only typing in the final drafts of each poem.
Title: Privilege?
Author's Note: Privilege? is a compilation of three poems I wrote at very different times in my life. One was written just yesterday, one was written several months ago, and another has been with me, though in many forms, since I was very young- never on paper. Each piece means something different to me, each uniquely inspired by personal experience and inspirational artists. I hope you enjoy seeing my revision process, my writings, and the art that is cause for who I am as an author today. There is nothing more that continues to shape me than the insight gained with each syllable uttered, and each turn of a page.
- Mason Lambert
Poem One: Collision
Unify from the divides that
Create gaps between individuals like
Spacial Expansion
The argument solved by childrens' serendipity
The prevention of calamity
The collision of galaxies, cohesion of love
And joy and singularity with no polarities
So strong that even hate cannot escape
My life started then, with the big bang
Not the theory or what you see on TV
But a flash that crashed through
My glass dome of a world
It was that collision- when the canister met
My barrier and liberated me
From the living room floor of
An apartment - scattered with needles
When the police gave me
Little badge stickers like
Consolation prizes and
Spoke to me with pity
My life started then- that night
Not because I was born
But because I learned to fight
My mother's plight turned into
My catalyst
Creating change so strange
Turning my mind so I was inclined to
Stray away from people where no one would find
I'd tell people I was shy
I'd reluctantly recluse and lie
Why? - to say I lived a normal life
I don't know what's worse
Being generalized for the color of my skin
Or being capsized by my thoughts within
And though my past is so far, its bizarre to hear
The word "privilege' because I know they're talking about me
Unify to divide those who
Fill the gaps between individuals like
Virtual nonexistence
The argument caused by our parents' arrogance
The pursuit of amity
The collision of galaxies, the repulsion of hate
And fear and strife with a uni-polarity
So strong that I could not escape.
Poem Two: Transparency
It took half my life to realize the propaganda of
Others was a crystal clear sneer
At the transparency of my experiences
And the opaquity of my race
In a country where it's inalienable and
Rightful to take place in the race
For happiness it's a disgrace that
Many will just never reach the finish
They are oppressed by the bending
Of light
The mending of stories and the
Cherry picking of a lemon tree
People speak of brutality and irrationality,
Pains and sores- the world in a race war
But for me? For me what I don't see is
Actually the only thing with visibility
I see the absence of my story
And the uproar of my country
The country I was born in
Over the peril of someone else
The absence of me
Is a crystal clear sneer towards
The transparency of my experiences
And the fantasy of my advantages
The media speaks of brutality and irrationality
Clashes and white trash
But here's a message to Black Lives Matter
The media rarely talks about the stats
In the most populated states
There's no debate-
More white children are poor than black
I'm not talking about percentages here
But I am talking about the sneer
Towards the crystal clear evidence
That no media will speak of
Because numbers like theirs just aren't adding up
Poem Three: Sit in My Shade
When I see the future- I see evolution
Each day the Earth makes a revolution and
The way we live grows more perturbed
But despite this plight we've brought
Upon ourselves- I dwell on the idea that I might
Try to extend so far as to plant the seed
Of belief and inspiration and hope for change
So when I say I want to change the world,
I'm saying I want to grow into a tree that
Your children can sit in the shade of - its branches
Made of proof and creation and change well done
When you tell me I can do it easily
You better not mean because I'm white
Because while my ethnicity provides me the nutrients of privilege,
My roots bear a weak point
Roots are always buried under the dirt
Here's my story- I started growing
Planted 6 feet under, locked in a steel box
I sustained off the dry desert sand
Was stomped down, could've grown awry
Because my roots, they have thorns growing inwards
They're oozing with sadness,
They've been pulled up far too many times
They are few and far between
They have rot and are not able
To hold up their own weight
They are the byproduct of absorbing
Tainted water
What I want to do, I want to grow a tree that
Your children can sit in the shade of- its branches
Created through my dedication an my love
So when you tell me I can do it easy
I scoff
Don't cast your green shadow upon me as
If you just know I"m some rich white prodigy
I am someone who strives to grow and achieve
Nothing has ever been handed to me.
My roots -- they are recovering, expanding
They're healing their own wounds
They've been digging down between the jagged rocks
They are few and far between, but strengthened by solidarity
To you, they are not seen
But who's to judge me by the color of my leaves?
Have you seen my bar bones, have you seen
Me in my harshest winter?
Of course you haven't, I was fickle -- invisible
But no one will judge me when my leaves
Reach from sea to sea, then all will share
My pleasure in our mildest spring.
End Note:
I have, since the second grade, been dedicated to writing stories. It wasn't until reading a larger selection of poetry that I realized I was capable of telling a story too.
Below is one of the poems I put in my book as inspirational pieces:
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Dylan Thomas, 1914 - 1953
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Reflection:
"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Goodnight" has a very special meaning to me. Though it is a rather popular piece, I still feel a personal connection to it. When I was in middle school, I was severely depressed, I was learning to adapt to a new flower pot, new fish pond, new whatever you want to call it- life really sucked. Dylan Thomas rightfully places number one in my heart when it comes to inspirational poets because his piece spoke to me - it said, "no one should ever go down without a fight." I remained depressed until the end of 2015's summer (Which was just the point at which I realized I had motivation to enjoy life again), but it was with the help of Dylan Thomas' and many others' writings that I was able to rage against what to me seemed like the dying of the light.
Video Project:
The video below is my contribution to the Break Free movement. The purpose of the video is to bring the historical use of derogatory labels and words to light in an effort to discourage contemporary, casual use of them.
Video Proposal:
Before creating the video, we wanted to make sure our plan was well thought out and ready to be successfully implemented. To ensure this, we created a thorough video proposal and pitched the idea to our teacher.
Exhibition Day:
This exhibition was genuinely the best exhibition I've ever been part of, it was set in Queen Bee's Arts and Cultural Center in North Park, San Diego. Every student's personal piece was on display, our videos were displayed for everyone to see, and students performed spoken word pieces on a stage. Our "That" cards were even on display, it was the first time my work has ever been displayed to such a large audience. One of the most incredible parts was seeing the diversity of the attendees and how they all managed to take something from our commentary on -very- touchy subjects. I thought the atmosphere was going to be a dull, heavy one. I thought people would be mad, but it was the opposite. The atmosphere of Queen Bee's was... *buzzing*.
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Reflection:
The Break Free project was not easy for me at first, it took me a while to get used to the idea of being vulnerable. Now that the project is over, I realize that the vulnerability I experienced is what allowed me to contribute so much to change. The most challenging part of the project for me was balancing my work load between all of my classes, including full honors and a college course, and the work load of this project. There were definitely a few moments I felt like I was going to shatter under the weight of my stress.
Stress is not a usual problem I encounter, but I overcame it by communicating with my group mates for the video and explaining the situation to them. I didn't want to put in less effort to our video than the others did, so I took on an equal amount of work in the beginning despite my stress. I think taking on the challenge really helped me grow as a student. Being able to communicate is of high importance in the 'real world', and I'm glad I was able to do so efficiently with my professor in Global Politics and my groups in two different classes.
There was also some difficulty with the creation of our video because we were the 'outlier' group. My partners and I shared nothing in common when it came to interests. I wanted to advocate for homeless veterans, the others wanted to advocate for LGBT+, mental illness, and one wanted to advocate against catcalling. It was a big mess of ideas, and in the end we decided that the best course of action was to discuss derogatory labels. And honestly? It couldn't have turned out any better. Of course, there was a lot of footage that had to be discarded, a lot of interviews that did nothing to aid us and everything to make us mad, and a lot of stressful moments, but the final product was so rewarding that I would do it again.
Something the Break Free Project helped me realize is that though I am not enforcing stereotypes, there are many people who aid in the stigmatization of those who are different than them. It gave me a bit of a negative outlook on the world, in a sense. There's a lot of work to be done when it comes to societal expectations and self-imposed limitations as a result of stereotype threat. I just hope that all of the effort we put into this project will spread awareness for the many issues at hand.
Stress is not a usual problem I encounter, but I overcame it by communicating with my group mates for the video and explaining the situation to them. I didn't want to put in less effort to our video than the others did, so I took on an equal amount of work in the beginning despite my stress. I think taking on the challenge really helped me grow as a student. Being able to communicate is of high importance in the 'real world', and I'm glad I was able to do so efficiently with my professor in Global Politics and my groups in two different classes.
There was also some difficulty with the creation of our video because we were the 'outlier' group. My partners and I shared nothing in common when it came to interests. I wanted to advocate for homeless veterans, the others wanted to advocate for LGBT+, mental illness, and one wanted to advocate against catcalling. It was a big mess of ideas, and in the end we decided that the best course of action was to discuss derogatory labels. And honestly? It couldn't have turned out any better. Of course, there was a lot of footage that had to be discarded, a lot of interviews that did nothing to aid us and everything to make us mad, and a lot of stressful moments, but the final product was so rewarding that I would do it again.
Something the Break Free Project helped me realize is that though I am not enforcing stereotypes, there are many people who aid in the stigmatization of those who are different than them. It gave me a bit of a negative outlook on the world, in a sense. There's a lot of work to be done when it comes to societal expectations and self-imposed limitations as a result of stereotype threat. I just hope that all of the effort we put into this project will spread awareness for the many issues at hand.