Running head: PHOTO ELICITATION PROJECT II 1

Photo Elicitation Project II

Frank Inglima
Loyola University Chicago
ELPS432
Dr. Bridget Turner Kelly
December 6, 2016
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SOCIAL JUSTICE
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This photo was taken by the upstairs basketball court at Loyola University. It is one of

several “all gender” bathrooms around campus and the first one I have personally seen. I believe

this photo represents the primary concept of social justice because it “contributes to the creation of a

more equitable, respectful, and just society for everyone” (Brennan & Naidoo, 2008, p. 287). The

act of providing facilities that are inclusive to people whose identities are not in line with the gender

binary of society is a step toward being more equitable to more people. The photo is taken

deliberately from the side so as to capture the sun outside of what I interpreted as “light at the end

of the tunnel”, or a step in the right direction for social justice.

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This is a photo of a locker inside a locker room of Halas on Loyola’s Lakeshore Campus.

The locker is closer to ground-level and wider than the rest of the lockers, making it more

accessible for those with physical disabilities. As my grandmother aged, she was forced to move

out of her third-floor apartment because she could not make the climb anymore and there was no

elevator or stair lift in the building. As we learned from Wendell (2013), disability is merely a

social construct that exists because of how our society designs physical spaces around us.

Providing lockers like this ensures that not only temporarily able-bodies individuals can use them,

but people who are not able to use the smaller, higher up ones are included in the use of this facility.
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This is a photo of a medical center that primarily serves those who identify as LGBTQ. This

building also houses the largest collection of LGBTQ literature in the Midwest (Rice, 2015).

Catalano (2015) as well as Dugan, Kusel, and Simounet (2012) demonstrated in their studies how

transgendered students are not only oppressed, but largely ignored in research examining their

inclusion or lack thereof. The same can be said for society as a whole, as we discussed many times

in class how higher education is a microcosm for the greater society. This facility, albeit in a small

way, helps to nudge us toward being more socially just by providing people with oppressed and

ignored identities access to specialized services that many others who have dominant identities take

for granted. For others who do not hold these identities, it gives them an opportunity to understand

and learn more about the experiences of the LGBTQ community.

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This is a photo of a Salvation Army tin (red kettle) which is one of many that are outside of

grocery stores around the holiday season. The Salvation Army and many charitable organizations

like it primarily serve people of lower socioeconomic status. Adams (2013) said that not many

people acknowledge the role of socioeconomic statuses and classism in the U.S.. She also pointed

out that economic mobility is very unlikely for the people that these charities serve because not only

do they not have material wealth, but many lack the social wealth and intellectual capital necessary

to achieve social mobility. Many charities attempt to bridge some of this gap by providing job

training and other services free of charge to encourage upward economic and social mobility for

economically disadvantaged people.

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OPPRESSION
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This is a photo of a Planned Parenthood clinic. These clinics provide many important

health-care services for women. To me, this photo represents oppression because clinics like these

are under constant threat of shut-down and defunding by the government. I believe this threat exists

because we live in what Johnson (2013) called a patriarchal society. According to Johnson (2013),

defining elements of a patriarchal society include being male-dominated, male-identified, and male-

centered. I believe if we did not live in this type of society that oppresses certain identity groups,

clinics like these would receive the proper funding they need.
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This is a photo of the cosmetics section at drug store. The items on the shelves represent

oppression because they can be viewed as part of the social construction of gender (Lorber, 2013).

According to Lorber (2013), the social construct of gender identification starts at birth, based on

genitalia. From there, we are conditioned to act and dress in a certain way. Products like cosmetics

can be oppressive because they propagate the social construction of gender to make many people

feel like they need to fit a normative ideal within the gender binary. For me, I remember growing

up feeling the pressures of gender performativity. Rather than admitting my love for animated

Disney films to my group of male friends, I would mainly discuss sports and Teenage Mutant Ninja

Turtles with them. The feeling that one is “manlier” than the other is what dictated what I chose to

express.
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This is a photo of a greeting card display at a drug store. The display represents religious

oppression because it has way more Christmas cards available for purchase than any other

denominational holiday card. As one can see from the picture, there are only four or five rows of

Hanukkah cards but so many rows of Christmas cards that they could not all fit in the picture. No

other denominations were represented at all. Adams and Joshi (2013) pointed out the many ways

Christian dominance is rampant in the U.S.; from shaping government and legal policy to

influencing major aspects of the economy.

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This is a photo of a specific set of “beauty” products on a shelf at drug store. These

particular products encourage “skin brightening” and propagate an idea that brighter or lighter your

skin is, the better it will look. I believe this serves as an example of oppression because it

subliminally tells White people and people of color that one identity is better than the other. Society

seems to dictate what we are born with is not good enough, and that there is an ideal to which

everyone should subscribe. I was guilty of this as well when I would visit tanning beds in my

teenage years because I looked to “white” or “pasty”. Even though they are referring to this within

a context of higher education, Cabrera, Watson and Franklin (2016) said that creating these ideal

prototypes is a form of racism and specifically White supremacy when White identities are

portrayed as the ideal. Having products like these creates White ownership of what is beauty. It

also demonstrates how race is not biological, but a sociopolitical construction that creates social

norms (Castaneda & Zuniga, 2013).

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PRIVILEGE
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I feel I would be remiss not to include this photo of Loyola’s campus from the first project

representing privilege as my classmates and I are all benefactors. We have been fortunate enough to

have material, social, and/or intellectual wealth that allows us to attend one of the best universities

in the country (Adams, 2013). Due to some of the material studied in our class, I feel more

conflicted about this dynamic. For example, Lee (2011) said that people can use higher education

for upward social and economic mobility, but at the same time, it “is also a way in to the class of

people whose success is premised on the oppression of the poor” (p. 90). My hope is, as Lee (2011)

said, that “we…carry our roots with us, and not forget or whitewash where we come from” (p. 92).
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This photograph is of an every-day toy aisle at our local Target. This example of privilege is

a result of a lack of what Cabrera and colleagues (2016) called Critical Whiteness Studies;

according to Cabrera et al. (2016), “CWS attempts to unmask the seemingly invisible privileges of

Whites and demonstrate that the privileges are real” (p. 120). Before this class, often times I would

not notice or recognize these kinds of privileges that I or others with White identities have of being

able to easily find representations of our identities in the public market. Aspects of my identity are

more privileged than oppressed which, as Kelly and Gayles (2015) suggested, might make it harder

for me to see power and privilege at work. This is something to which I have become more

sensitive, but continue to work.

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This is a photo of a Catholic church in Rogers Park. It represents privilege because there are

many worship options for people with Christian identities, which is the dominant religious identity

in the U.S.. Larson and Shady (2012) exhibited that many Christians do not recognize their

privileged status and that the many worship options for Christians is a prime example of the

privilege they enjoy. This photo is also an example of temporarily able-bodied privilege. There are

no visible ramps or special access to the church for individuals with disabled identities. We learned

from Pliner and Johnson (2013) that Universal Design should be employed to ensure equitable use

and low physical effort, but this facility is only mainly accessible for temporarily able-bodied

individuals.
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This photo represented privilege for me in a more personal way. As I have mentioned in

class, my wife and I are currently looking for a house. I was complaining to a friend of mine, who

identifies as a person of color, how difficult the process has been for us. I listed the many things we

are looking for in a house in regards to location and physical attributes. My friend, having gone

through the process himself several years ago, mentioned that he also had to worry about those

things as well as how his neighbors might accept him due to his racial identity. This reminded me

how I benefit from a system of advantage based on race, as explained by Tatum (2013). The fact

that I do not have to take into consideration how my neighbors will view or accept me where I am

moving gives me more access because of the system of racism that Tatum (2013) said is not based

on prejudice but advantage and normativity of Whiteness.

References
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Brennan, J., & Naidoo, R. (2008). Higher education and the achievement (and/ or prevention) of

equity and social justice. Higher Education, 56, 287-302.

Rice, L. (2015). Howard Brown opening LGBT medical center in Rogers Park. DNA Info. Retrieved

from https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20150929/rogers-park/howard-brown-opening-lgbt-

medical-center-rogers-park
Wendell, S. (2013). The social construction of disability. In M. Adams, W. J. Blumenfeld, R.
Castañeda, H. W. Hackman, M. L. Peters, & X. Zúñiga, X. (Eds.), Readings for diversity
and social justice (3rd ed., pp. 481-485). New York: Routledge.

Catalano, D. C. J. (2015). Beyond virtual equality: Liberatory consciousness as a path to achieve

trans* inclusion in higher education. Equity & Excellence in Education, 48(3), 418-435.
Dugan, J. P., Kusel, M. L., & Simounet, D. M. (2012). Transgender college students: An exploratory

study of perceptions, engagement, and educational outcomes. Journal of College Student

Development, 53(5), 719-736.

Adams, M. (2013). Classism: Introduction. In M. Adams, W. J. Blumenfeld, R. Castañeda, H. W.

Hackman, M. L. Peters, & X. Zúñiga, X. (Eds.), Readings for diversity and social justice
(3rd ed., pp. 141-149). New York: Routledge.
Johnson, A. G.. (2013). Patriarchy, the system. In M. Adams, W. J. Blumenfeld, R. Castañeda, H.
W. Hackman, M. L. Peters, & X. Zúñiga, X. (Eds.), Readings for diversity and social justice
(3rd ed., pp. 334-339). New York: Routledge.
Lorber, J. (2013). Night to his day. In M. Adams, W. J. Blumenfeld, R. Castañeda, H. W. Hackman,
M. L. Peters, & X. Zúñiga, X. (Eds.), Readings for diversity and social justice
(3rd ed., pp. 323-328). New York: Routledge.
Adams, M. & Joshi, K. Y. (2013). Religious oppression: Introduction. In M. Adams, W. J.
Blumenfeld, R. Castañeda, H. W. Hackman, M. L. Peters, & X. Zúñiga, X. (Eds.), Readings
for diversity and social justice (3rd ed., pp. 229-237). New York: Routledge.
Castaneda, R. & Zuniga, X. (2013). Racism: Introduction. In M. Adams, W. J. Blumenfeld, R.

Castañeda, H. W. Hackman, M. L. Peters, & X. Zúñiga, X. (Eds.), Readings for diversity

and social justice (3rd ed., pp. 57-64). New York: Routledge.

Cabrera, N. L. & Watson, J. S. & Franklin, J. D. (2016). Racial arrested development: A critical

whiteness analysis of the campus ecology. Journal of College Student Development 57(2),

119-134.
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Lee, M.E. (2011). Maybe I’m not class-mobile, maybe I am class-queer: Poor kids in college and
survival under hierarchy.
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National

%20Office/2011/02/Maybe%20I'm%20not%20classmobile.pdf. (pp. 85-92).

Kelly, B.T. & Gaston Gayles, J. (2015). Confronting systems of privilege and power in
the classroom. In S. Watt (Ed.), Designing transformative multicultural initiatives:

Theoretical foundations, practical applications, and facilitator considerations (pp. Chapter

11). Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Larson, M.H. & Shady, S. (2012). Confronting the complexities of Christian privilege
through interfaith dialogue. Journal of College & Character, 13(2), 1-8.

Pliner S. M. & Johnson, J. R. (2013). Historical, theoretical and foundational principles of

universal instructional design in higher education. In M. Adams, W. J. Blumenfeld, R.
Castañeda, H. W. Hackman, M. L. Peters, & X. Zúñiga, X. (Eds.), Readings for diversity
and social justice (3rd ed., pp. 478-481). New York: Routledge.
Tatum, B. D. (2013). Can we talk? In M. Adams, W. J. Blumenfeld, R. Castañeda, H. W. Hackman,
M. L. Peters, & X. Zúñiga, X. (Eds.), Readings for diversity and social justice (3rd ed., pp.
65-68). New York: Routledge.