Ryan's Social Justice Blog

  My group did a project about hostile architecture. Within our group, Emily and I tackled the issue of spreading awareness about hostile architecture while Zahraa and Luca wrote a proposal advocating for the installation of five new inclusive benches to go around Uni. To try to help spread awareness, Emily and I made flyers to put around campus on or near hostile architecture, on which are QR codes that link to a Google Doc we made with more information about what hostile architecture is, how it is harmful, and links to the flyers so that others can print them and put them up themselves if they so desire. Our project was initially going to be a proposal to the city of Champaign advocating for us to become part of Built for Zero, but we found that they are currently not taking new members and switched project topics.  I am happy that this project may result in a change being made around Uni in the name of inclusivity that could improve the day-to-day lives of Uni students. I t...

                 Within the United States, indigenous people struggle to acquire adequate housing due to poverty (the result of colonization and sustained oppression of indigenous peoples) and lack of government initiative to improve indigenous peoples’ qualities of living. Indigenous Americans have the lowest labor force rate of any racial group in the U.S. at just 61.1 percent, and the average income of those who do work is only $35,000 per year, compared to the national average of $50,000 per year. In the most impoverished indigenous communities, unemployment rates reach up to 85 percent and only 1 in 3 men have full-time, year-round jobs. Additionally, due to the geographic isolation of indigenous reservations, there are far fewer job opportunities than are available elsewhere. Overall, 1 in 4 single-race indigenous people (meaning those who exclusively racially identify as indigenous) lives in poverty. Homelessness is also a huge pr...