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Tonight I sent in my application for The Roosevelt Institute Summer Fellowship Academy. 

Here’s what I wrote in response to the prompt in the title.

Essay #1                       

My persistent curiosity and investigative nature has become the subject of many family anecdotes; “She asked questions about everything!” was my mother’s favorite refrain as she rattled on to family friends about my childhood quest to understand and to challenge every bit of knowledge I was presented with. Among my siblings, I became known as the Great Debater. Every conversation became a chance to present an opinion and to support it with logic and reason, a quest to explore each other’s understanding of the world. The older I got, the more pronounced the injustices of the world became; I discovered on a personal level that my identity as a first generation American and as a black woman affected the interactions and the experiences I had with others around me.

                        My investigative nature sent me on a journey to understand why oppression and power disparities exist in the world. As a young person, I had a rare opportunity to investigate these systemic imbalances through the youth led organization, City at Peace DC. There I discovered my agency in affecting social justice through working with other young people to build non-violent relationships—relationships that were forged through deconstructing the root causes of interpersonal oppression. City at Peace gave me the tools to navigate relationships across boundaries of race, gender, sexuality and socioeconomic status through trainings on the root causes of the power dynamics that have constructed those very identities.

                        City at Peace did not spark my passion for social justice, but it gave me the tools to deconstruct problematic systems at the root and replace them with new and healthy constitutions. City at Peace gave me a context for investigating not just the problems, but for building the solutions. As a student of political science, I focus my studies on the very root of how societies are constructed; I study the theories that form the context of our interactions as people and I posit my own theories that can help us reach more fluid, equitable and sustainable contexts for interacting as people. My quest to understand the world has led me to solutions for changing the world. My unending investigation of the social glue that forms political life is what attracts me to progressive politics. I will never stop asking questions.

So after re-reading this, I saw a million things I would edit out/rephrase/reword. A few imprecisions never hurt anyone though, right? (Unless they ruin my chance of being selected!) Also, these postings are also a lesson for me in learning to let go of my obsession with perfection. scary!