After a lifetime of watching her godsister battle Down syndrome, Kamri Smith took a special interest this year in changing how her peers view those with disabilities.
“Nobody really understands how deep” it runs, said Smith, 16, who assisted junior Carly Gubitz, 17 with one presentation on ableism — or discrimination against folks with disabilities — at Merrillville High School on Monday.
For nearly a decade, the school’s student diversity group STAND has hosted an annual day of workshops on Martin Luther King Day where students across Northwest Indiana discuss how to address modern-day social justice issues.
Each year, STAND members choose, research topics and lead discussions. In the past, that has ranged from interracial dating, racial profiling, bullying, standards of beauty, and transgender issues, said school diversity coordinator Danny Lackey.
This year, 50 students from Merrillville, Crown Point, Chesterton, East Chicago and Andrean joined STAND members to discuss topics facing people with disabilities, and issues surrounding violence, discrimination and standards of beauty.
“I think that our niche is that when we do these workshops, (they) are researched by teenagers for teenagers,” Lackey said. “So, I think they resonate differently.”
A broader range of discussion was meant to emphasize King’s wider activism outside of civil rights, he said. Putting the responsibility to conceive and conduct workshops into their hands would inspire students to think about how they can actively continue his legacy.
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“Young folks have a difficult time relating to that, because they weren’t brought up in that era,” Lackey said. “In order to help make what Dr. King represented relevant to young people, you’ve got to be able to tie it into how what he did impacts who they are today.”
Smith and Gubitz’s presentation included information on multiple forms of disabilities, and an activity on what their audience would do when confronted with uncomfortable classroom situations.
They also played a YouTube video of a TEDtalk with the late Australian activist, journalist and comedian Stella Young who urged her audience to consider folks with disabilities as more than potential inspiration stories.
Part of working toward social change means being mindful of small, everyday interactions — even just watching unintended language like use of the “R-word” toward anyone that might have a disability, Smith told one group.
“It doesn’t make you a bad person, you just don’t know what you’re projecting,” Smith told one group. “I’ve done it before, I’m not going to lie. But now, when I’m thinking about it, I try not to do it.”
Twitter: @meredithcolias