Stand Up & Declare 

Source: https://www.uvm.edu/~dewey/reflection_manual/activities.html

Instructions: 

  • Different identity-based groups are asked to stand in front of the rest of the participants.

    •  For example, all Latino/a/e individuals stand in front of the room. 

  • The group at the center (front) then answers four questions:

    • For example: What is wonderful about being Latino/a/e?

    • What term do you never want to be called again?

    • How can the participants that are listening be helpful to Latino/a/e people?

    • Do you feel heard?

  • After the group in front of the other participants answers the questions, another group is selected to gather together and answer the questions. 

  • Other suggested categories:

    • LGBTQ

    • Latina/o/e

    • Natural

    • Relaxed 

    • Slim

    • Full Figured

    • First Generation 

    • Light Skin

    • Dark Skin 

    • Morehouse Man

    • Spelmanite 

    • Feminist 

    • Physically visible differences/impairments

    • Physical differences/impairments that aren’t visible

    • Depression 

    • Mixed race 

    • Single Parent home

    • Children of working class & below 

Modifications:

On occasions, instead of calling students to the center of the room, students have been invited to stand on their chairs. Towering above the room, students are provided a literal platform to speak their truths–they are “standing up” for themselves as they name their experiences.  

Praxis (why + theory):

This exercise is best executed when the group has some familiarity with each other. I appreciate the exercise most for its ability to foster a sense of community and pride amongst the meta-groups that inhabit the room. 

Participants are literally called to stand up for themselves in front of an entire room of people, affirm the validity of their lived experiences, and share their knowledge in order to enhance the knowing and compassion of the others present in the room.

Participants’ responses to the questions typically reframe the narrative around a specific identity or experience for the rest of the room as we are reminded that their identities are not problems to be addressed–the system targeting and oppressing those identities is the problem.

When I facilitated this exercise for a group of approximately 60 Spelman College students one summer, I intentionally called all those who identify as LGBTQIA–I stood on my chair alongside approximately 7-10 other students. This moment was my first time publicly announcing my queerness in a physical space. 

A few months later I was walking through Piedmont Park on my way to the central PRIDE month activities when I walked past about 5 of the students from the summer program. They excitedly greeted me, and said with glee, “We knew you would be here!” I was honored by their certainty of me, and it felt like a privilege to be a mirror to them.