Is social justice and civil rights the same thing?
Table of Contents
Civil rights include personal liberty; the rights of citizens to political, legal, and social equality; and fundamental protections of human rights (Bent-Goodley, 2014; Pollard, 2008; Valdez, 2015). Social justice is a foundational term and is extensively used throughout the profession.
The definition of a social justice activist that I believe in is someone who doesn’t place the responsibility of social change all on themselves; they work towards it in accompaniment with others.
Is justice a civil right?
The U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division is the institution within the federal government responsible for enforcing federal statutes prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, sex, disability, religion, and national origin….United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.
Division overview | |
---|---|
Website | www.justice.gov/crt |
What is the difference between an advocate and an ally?
Think of these words not as nouns, but as verbs, and the distinction become clearer: To ally yourself with someone or something is to associate, join, or unite; to advocate is to speak or write in favor of, to support by argument, or to recommend publicly.
What’s the difference between advocate and activists?
To be an advocate is ‘to publicly support or suggest an idea, development, or way of doing something’. Therefore, an advocate can be understood as the one who listens, the one with the specialized knowledge; whereas, activists are the ones who make the noise.
Civil rights tend to be a subset of what people fight for in regard to social justice. Although it is a large subset, it is still a subset. For example people who go out and protest about the environment, tend to get labelled “SJWs” but it is hard to see where fighting to protect the environment fits into civil rights.
What is the difference between civil rights advocacy and social justice advocacy?
Civil Rights Advocacy tends to be based more solidly in legal structures and recognition of formal rights. Social Justice Advocacy is inclusive of advocacy that goes beyond legal structures. As an example, consider Free Speech.
What is a social activist?
A social activist is someone who is trying to help other people by actually helping them. They aren’t concerned with fighting oppression, the status quo, people with opposing views, or really ANYONE for that matter. They just want to help and aren’t making it ANYTHING about themslves.
The difference is who’s talking about them. Usually people who aren’t for actual civil rights and who don’t want to listen to marginalized groups when they talk about something being harmful will dismiss them as “social justice warriors” and use it as some sort of slur against us.