The following JFA Certification assignment is REQUIRED for anyone who is actively enrolled in the JFA Certification program and who is currently trusted to MENTOR (or CO-LEAD with a mentor) at JFA seminars and outreaches (meaning, Certification Level 2, MENTOR, or working to achieve that level). The assignment is OPTIONAL for others receiving this email who are regular/irregular JFA volunteers, but who aren't currently actively working on mentoring others. If you don't know which camp you fall in, please reply (to Steve Wagner only) for clarification.
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JFA Certification Weekly Assignment #13: Why Do Some People Act? (An Assignment Using the Original Jet Magazine Articles about Emmett Till)
By Stephen Wagner, Director of Training, Justice For All
Assignment
The following issues of Jet Magazine were recently added to Google Books for free viewing.
To complete the assignment, first read the selected pages from each issue. (To view, click on the cover image.) As a courtesy, I'll give you the warning no reader of Jet received before opening the Sep. 15 issue. Warning: This magazine contains very graphic pictures of the results of racist violence. While you are free to avoid viewing the pictures, we encourage you to proceed and view them, because the pictures clarify the facts about racism and segregation in a way that words never can.
Now, imagine you are reading about this incident in 1955. Maybe you are in Metropolitan Chicago. Maybe you're in Arkansas or New York or Georgia or California. Maybe you're black. Maybe you're white. Surely some readers said: "I've got to go down there and do something to help" and at the first opportunity started participating in the activities of the civil rights movement. Surely others said, "That's too bad" and did nothing for years. Both of these types of readers viewed the same material.
It's the same, of course, with abortion pictures, whether in the JFA Exhibit or Exhibit Brochure or some other medium. Some viewers respond with decisive action to try to help change hearts and minds. Others feel bad but do nothing.
In a paragraph or two, explore your thoughts on this question: When confronted with the graphic reality of injustice, what causes some people to act and others to sit idly by?
This assignment has four purposes: (1) Give you details to enrich your telling of the Emmett Till story, (2) Help you to be accurate when telling the Emmett Till story, (3) Give you familiarity with the resource of Google's online archives of Jet Magazine, and (4) Cause you to reflect on what causes people to act when confronted with graphic illustrations of injustice.
Total Time: 30 minutes. (Reading the relevant pages in both issues should take 5-7 minutes. Responding in writing should take about 20 minutes.)
Links for this assignment:
Send your completed assignment to Steve Wagner.
Originally Assigned: Wednesday, 1/4/2012
Originally Due: Friday, 1/13/2012
[About JFA's Certification Assignments: In the interest of promoting a culture of active intellectual engagement at JFA, Steve Wagner sends an assignment to JFA Certification folks every Friday to be due one week later on the next Friday. The assignments are carefully planned so they should take you 30 minutes or less (sometimes a bit more for slower readers). Want to know what assignment Steve will send you next week? Upcoming Weekly Assignments can be found on the JFA Certification Study List (sort by the Assignment # column to find).]
© 2012 Stephen M. Wagner (This Assignment was written by Stephen M. Wagner. It is provided courtesy of Justice For All, Inc., www.jfaweb.org)