Social justice advocate Jessica Pettitt, who is often referred to as the “Margaret Cho of diversity training,” encouraged students to confront the prejudices of their subconscious on Tuesday night through her workshop “Just Rescue.”

The event, held as a part of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History Month, was sponsored by the Center for Women, Office of LGBT Life and the Office of Multicultural Programs and Services.

A self-described lesbian married to a man that used to be a woman named Lauren, Pettitt’s interactive workshop was designed to help students identify assumptions about people’s identities, through unconventional methods.

“I’m not here to tell you not to make judgments, but in order to make change it’s important to be aware of your judgments and what they do. We’re all imperfect,” Pettitt said in her opening statement.

She then grouped off audience members and presented each team with a scenario requiring them to save 10 of 14 storm victims stranded on a rooftop based on descriptive titles of the victims, which included an HIV-positive person, a pregnant black teen, a 330-pound man and a drag queen, among others.

When time was up, she reviewed the answers and assessed the guidelines that each team chose in picking the survivors. She encouraged participants to have a conversation in their heads about how stereotypes played a role in the choices they had made.

“Usually the illegal alien doesn’t make it in. You know why? Because they can swim. The pregnant black woman almost always makes it in, not because of humanity or whatever, but because it’s a two-for-one deal and the drag queen makes it in for entertainment value,” Pettitt said. “I do this act on purpose because it’s important that you understand what’s in your head.”

Pettitt listed some of the strategies commonly used, including the “good-versus-bad list,” the “Titanic approach (women and children first)” and “Armageddon (best people to start a new world),” among others. She pointed out how easily people evaluate the worth of other people’s lives without knowing much about them.

“For me this activity forces me to sit back and humanize folks. The fact that based on the way people appear we can create a story about them within two seconds is very troubling,” said Michael Shutt, director of the Office of LBGT Life.

Pettitt continued: “One time someone asked me why isn’t there anyone normal on the list. When I asked him to give me a normal person, he said a Heisman trophy winner. I said, the one who gets away with murder or the one who dog fights? Whatever your normal is, someone else will find something wrong with it.”

Pettitt pushed the audience to carefully consider which ideas and images we choose to embed in our minds.

“We were all raised by human beings and have watched TV and seen the media. This stuff is fed and conformed and confirmed,” she said. “The question is: What are you going to keep? Or test? Or challenge? You decide that and then you can make more informed decisions.”

Pettitt said that her goal was not to tell people to stop judging, but to point out that social justice comes only after recognizing who you are.

“To me social justice is not disregarding those that are cast aside, typically those of minority groups. Social justice is acknowledging those individuals and to some degree protecting them from exploitation and oppression,” said Joe O’Geen, Emory Pride treasurer.

— Contact Prisca Pointdujour.