My first question after reading “The Problem of Speaking For Others” is whether Alcoff becomes a hypocrite by perhaps speaking for other social theorists that may not agree with her. She writes an essay on the problem of speaking for others, yet often refers to “we” as if all social theorists agree with her. I also find myself overwhelmed with her references to philosophers such as Foucault and Hegel that I vaguely remember learning about in 8th grade. Honestly, I believe the majority of Alcoff’s article is too dense and references too many outside texts to be accessible to me. I understand the basic gist of the essay and how it applies to our service learning, though. We will eventually have to compose a project where we speak for others; we will be speaking for the poverty-stricken youth of the Boys and Girls club of North Seattle. By Alcoff’s logic, our claims will be invalidated by the fact that most of us are affluent middle-class college students, not accustomed to living in poverty. Alcoff says, “I agree, then, that we should strive to create wherever possible the conditions for dialogue and the practice of speaking with and to rather than speaking for others.” We can take this advice into our project, by talking with the kids and learning about their lives rather than just speaking for them and making assumptions.