In high school, I was part of an
organization called the California Association of Student Leaders. In that
organization I had the ability to meet some of the most incredible people. One
of them is this girl in this picture below. Her name is Keizra Mecklai and I am
lucky to call her a friend. Keizra is currently a sophomore at Duke University
and had the opportunity to be featured in an incredible project called the “What
I Be” project. This project takes everyday people and highlights their
insecurities with the slogan, “Building security through insecurities.” Keizra
is Indian and comes from a family of two immigrant parents. As seen in the
photo, her insecurity is her race. In McIntosh’s article, she talks about the
idea of the invisible knapsack and how it’s “an invisible package of unearned
assets” (McIntosh 11). In her photo, Keizra shows her insecurities with her
race because of this idea that white people are somehow inherently better than
other races. The “What I Be” project features a variety of people with many
different insecurities, lots of which we have discussed in this class.
http://www.whatibeproject.com/portfolio-item/i-am-not-my-race-3/
I really enjoyed looking at this website. I thought it was very moving. Thank you so much for sharing it (and your comments),
ReplyDeleteI think that facing something head on and being proud of it is the best way to deal with an insecurity and this project is so amazing, what a great idea!! This reminds me of the readings from last week in how some people are afraid to "own" their race or class. A project like this is so very empowering because it enables people to truly accept whatever it is that they feel like society views as "different" or "inferior" and become proud of that part of themselves and begin to incorporate it as a normality into our society.
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