Social Justice for Podunk?

Thinking about our conversation last night in class, something is sticking with me.  This program is asking us to consider what social justice means and one of the chief gifts for me so far has been the opportunity to deeply investigate personal bias. 

I think our conversation about the midwest was a revealingly interesting discussion, and yet if I replay the scene replacing "Indianapolis" with Harlem or Little Village or Compton, it takes on a whole new meaning entirely.  Could we have had the same conversation about certain parts of Rogers Park?  What are the discourses informing the idea that a museum in Indiana is exceeding expectations?  What did I mean when I knocked "the south" for not having any teen programs in a tone that suggested I might have expected such a thing?  When has it ever been true that our birthplace extends us rights to judge the neighborhoods of others?  When we talk about geography we're not talking about land, we're talking about people. 

There's a bigger issue here for me than whether the midwest gets a bad wrap.  Those aren't terms we have the luxury of thinking in anymore as cultural workers.  The issue is when do we right injustice and how?  I posted a few days ago about hearing or being faced with statements at work that I caught as overtly unjust and I let them go.  Do we have the responsibility to shut down thinking that is at best misguided and at worst hateful-- to our personal definition of social justice?  Do we have a right to?  I think we do have a right and a responsibility, but how?