Remediation
In my repurposing, I struggled with a lot of questions about identity and how my different identities fit on campus. It seems a bit ironic that—in my repurposing—I talk a a lot about campus, diversity, and identity, but all through my own personal perspective, which isn't exactly diverse.
For my remediation, I decided to take the spotlight off me and shine it onto the thousands of other students on Michigan's campus. While I couldn't interview everyone on campus, I tried to interview a diverse, eclectic group of students from different pockets of campus-life. These students differ by race, ethnicities, age, hometown, major, religion and gender. Do thy perfectly represent diversity? No. Rather, these admired individuals portray a "snapshot of difference" on Michigan's campus.
I conducted seven interviews and primarily asked the very questions that I tried to tackle in my repurposing. I was interested to see what other students thought of these questions and how their own stories influenced their answers.
Here is the list of questions:
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What’s your name, what year are you, where are you from?
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What identities do you claim?
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How do they interact?
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What do you think of how Disney portrays gender in this Disney film?
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What was your response or reaction to the 2016 presidential election?
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What emotions came to the surface?
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What was the next day like on campus for you?
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Do you feel like you are or will be personally affected by Donald trump?
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Do you feel like you are a minority? If so, how?
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How do you think the election has affected Michigan’s campus as a whole?
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How would you assess diversity on this campus?
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What, in your opinion, is the responsibility of white, normative, men in contemporary social issues?
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What is your call to action to people that feel upset, emotional, frustrated?
One of the things that I found most interesting was that, in the video, there was a dialogue between individuals. There were disagreements. Different people with different backgrounds experienced events differently. In a unique way, they were responding to each others' comments and, by expressing their own opinions, they were debating with one another.
Also, by asking each person the same set of questions, there was often some repetition. However, even though some people gave similar answers, their genders, races, religions, and diverse background gave their "similar answers" different meanings. For example, a male and female may have given similar answers to a question, but their distinct genders created variation.
When they answered questions about the election, it was so clear that each person viewed the campus dynamics through such differently lenses. Their answers were affected by their identities, which ultimately determine how they see the world.