As is becoming more and more apparent, climate change and social justice are intricately linked. Climate science in the last several years has indicated that low-income, communities of color and citizens of the Global South are being hit hardest by the effects of climate change. ICS student researchers are investigating how the ideologies of economic growth and capitalism have justified the continued burning of fossil fuels and the destruction of low-income, communities of color and the Global South. Moreover, their research is focused on how counterstories can be used by those most impacted by climate change and how those who benefit from the burning of fossil fuels can use counterstory to promote climate justice from within.

America’s emphasis on “law and order” and “crime and punishment” has led to one of the largest carceral systems in the world. Similarly (and as a result), a disproportionate number of Black and Brown youth are caught up in the nation’s juvenile justice system, which itself is justified by narratives of “rehabilitation” and “education.” But as ICS student researchers have found, the mission of the juvenile justice system doesn’t always represent reality. As such, their research is focused on uncovering the ideologies that justify the existence of juvenile halls and how justice-impacted youth can use counterstory to challenge these ideologies and eliminate oppressive carceral systems altogether.

As Penial E. Joseph (2020) notes, Martin Luther King, Jr. is “most comfortably portrayed as the nonviolent insider while Malcolm [X] is characterized as a by-any-means-necessary political renegade” (p. 7). In other words, X is the “sword” and King is the “shield” (Joseph). The dominant narratives about MLK and Malcolm X have, at this point, become lore, and as ICS student researchers are finding, these dueling narratives have very material consequences for modern movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, from how they are perceived by the media to the types of direct actions they organize. ICS student researchers are further looking at how counterstories can challenge both the ideologies of MLK and X as well as modern racial justice movements.

The People’s Stories is a repository of narratives and scholarship that highlight the brilliance and lived realities of community college students. Our mission is to provide a digital platform for community college student-scholars and to promote educational research in the community colleges by community college educator-researchers.

The People’s Stories has two primary purposes:

1) To promote the voices, creativity, and brilliance of community college students; and,

2) To conduct research on critical counterstorytelling and its potential use in liberating marginalized populations within the community college

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