{"id":965,"date":"2018-03-25T13:25:45","date_gmt":"2018-03-25T13:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/?p=965"},"modified":"2018-07-25T17:12:26","modified_gmt":"2018-07-25T17:12:26","slug":"affinity-groups-an-open-dialogue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/2018\/03\/25\/affinity-groups-an-open-dialogue\/","title":{"rendered":"Affinity Groups: An Open Dialogue"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ketaki Tavan (V)<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The first time I was ever exposed to the concept of affinity groups was during my freshman year at Pingry. These groups were presented as \u201csafe spaces for students to learn more about their various identities and to discuss their questions, comments, and concerns with other students who share that same identity.\u201d My initial reaction was confusion\u2013I couldn\u2019t wrap my head around why we\u2019d want to create spaces that physically separated students of different identities when the ultimate goal of our community should be inclusion and acceptance.<\/p>\n

After this initial introduction, I hadn\u2019t thoroughly revisited the concept of affinity groups until this year, when I was presented with the opportunity to lead the South Asian Affinity Group. With this opportunity came the task of thoughtfully considering the purposes and goals of affinity groups. Through affinity group leader training, I became more familiar with these objectives.<\/p>\n

It became clear to me that affinity groups are a space to process and explore your identity with people who share it. I find this especially valuable as a minority in a community, country, and time. Even though I don\u2019t necessarily feel marginalized or targeted on a regular basis, I also don\u2019t feel like my environment is conducive to a complete freedom to embrace and grapple with my South Asian heritage.<\/p>\n

Although I\u2019ve found the South Asian Affinity Group to be an invaluable space where I can connect with those who can relate to the challenges I face and questions I have regarding my identity, I do understand those who believe that these spaces are divisive.<\/p>\n

In discussing the potentially divisive nature of affinity groups, I think it\u2019s important for people to first and foremost recognize that these groups aren\u2019t meant to end where they start. Rather than creating identifier-specific groups that are separate but equal, affinity groups should and do serve as stimuli for conversations within cultural groups as to how each of us can effectively support productive cross-cultural dialogues as well as consider how we fit into the bigger and more diverse communities of our school and the outside world. However, this purpose is a fragile one that may not always be fully achieved.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy for affinity groups to become the only spaces where honest, identifier-related discussions are held as members return to the larger community and forget about them. This results in limited change; affinity groups are a space for our smaller groups to make progress, but Pingry lacks a structure that allows for inter-group work between each of their attendees to take place.<\/p>\n

Ideally, this structure would be the everyday interactions of our community in its natural state, and oftentimes I find that it is. I\u2019ve had plenty of productive and thought-provoking conversations with students with cultural identifiers different to mine that were inspired by conversations we had in our respective affinity groups. But I do think it\u2019s potentially na\u00efve to assume it unnecessary to have a bigger processing space where the progress made in smaller affinity groups can clearly be seen.<\/p>\n

I also think that this lack of an inter-affinity group structure contributes to people\u2019s fears that affinity groups are divisive. The anxiety and suspicion that can arise from a lack of insight into the work done in other affinity groups has nothing to calm it, resulting in decreased buy-in toward them in our community. Not everyone trusts that the larger processing space necessary as a follow-up to affinity groups will take form naturally in the outside world. Therefore, it would be beneficial for both those who doubt affinity groups\u2019 effectiveness and for the realization of the ultimate goal of affinity groups to create this space at Pingry. There are many forms that this space could take; the two open forums we had this year where all students could attend were great examples.<\/p>\n

I do believe that affinity groups are a step in the right direction on the path to equality and inclusion. I\u2019ve found my participation in them to be an important part of my connection to my South Asian identity. That being said, I do believe there\u2019s more to be done before affinity groups can fully accomplish their ultimate goal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ketaki Tavan (V) The first time I was ever exposed to the concept of affinity groups was during my freshman year at Pingry. These groups were presented as \u201csafe spaces for students to learn more about their various identities and to discuss their questions, comments, and concerns with other students who share that same […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[12,13],"class_list":["post-965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-op-ed","tag-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=965"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":966,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/965\/revisions\/966"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}