Recently, there have been a lot of cultural discussions about issues like oppression and white privilege. This post aims at clarifying some of those key concepts.
Where We Are
In the past few decades, the United States has made excellent strides in promoting civil rights, especially for People of Color and other minority groups.
We had our first African-American president, and we increasingly see People of Color in our government. This is cause for celebration.
Nevertheless, we still have a long way to go to overcome the legacy of past injustices against minorities. We need to create a country where everyone feels safe and is treated with dignity, no matter the color of their skin.
Learning and caring about concepts like oppression and white privilege is one way we make our country great. (Picture by Tandem X Visuals, courtesy of Unsplash.)
In order to create such a country, it is important to understand the oppression that People of Color still face on a daily basis.
What is Oppression?
The word oppression can be confusing because the word often seems vague and hard to define. It is also sometimes hard to understand how oppression differs from other kinds of mistreatment people endure.
Despite these difficulties, it is an important word to understand because it describes a very specific type of mistreatment certain people experience. Namely, it is mistreatment which results from certain political and social situations.
Furthermore, oppression is also directly linked to racism. So, when we understand oppression, we are better able to combat it and racism as well.
Some preliminary Ideas
First, we should note that oppression is not the same as general mistreatment. Sometimes people mistreat other people in ways that are not oppression.
For example, driving with road rage, being rude to someone in the grocery store, ignoring people in distress, or making fun of someone’s clothing are all an example of mistreatment.
They do not, however, necessarily constitute oppression. (This does not diminish their injustice or evil, which I will address later.)
What Constitutes Oppression?
We use the word oppression to describe a very specific type of harm: the harm that occurs because of social and political power imbalances. Oppression almost always refers to power exercised by authorities or dominant groups over people with less power and social status.
It is important that we describe this kind of harm with a specific word—oppression. This harm is different and often more insidious than general everyday mistreatment. To help us understand this, it is important to understand the concept of power imbalances in society.
Thinking about Power Imbalances
A power imbalance is a social and political relationship in which one group of people has significantly more political, legal, and social power than another group.
Sometimes power imbalances are natural and temporary and are for the sake of nurturing, training, and apprenticeship. For example, parents possess more power than children, and teachers have more power than students.
Some Power Imbalances are Natural
These power imbalances exist temporarily so that the parent or the teacher can train the child to become a confident, autonomous adult.
Photos courtesy of Unsplash
Natural power imbalances are not usually oppressive. Problems only arise in these types of relationships when authority figures misuse their power (such as to benefit themselves).
They especially become a problem if the authority figure fails to realize that the imbalance is temporary and for the sake of training the child.
Inherently Oppressive Power Imbalances
There are other power imbalances, however, that are inherently oppressive and always dangerous. These power imbalances develop in a society when one group gains more political, legal, and social power.
They might do this through unjust war, unjust wealth acquisition, and prejudice.
These kinds of power imbalances must be corrected as quickly as possible. If left unchecked, it is very common for the dominant group to use their power consciously or unconsciously to harm people in the oppressed groups.
They might do this by depriving them of rights, dignity, property, and even their very life.
Situations like this always devolve into slavery, abuse, human rights violations, or genocides.
Photo by the British Library, courtesy of Unsplash
Unjust Power Imbalances Encourage Oppression and Racism
One of the insidious things about unjust power imbalances is that they inherently encourage aggression, greed, and prejudice.
People with more power benefit from the imbalance and so, consciously or unconsciously, they do all they can to protect their position of power.
False Narratives
This motivates them to develop elaborate false narratives about why people with less power are weaker, inferior, immoral, lazy, or even dangerous.
It is important to note that even people who are normally very intelligent, moral, and upstanding people can develop these kinds of narratives.
The psychological pull towards maintaining one’s power is very strong. This leads to further problems like oppression and racism.
Unjust Power Imbalances in the U.S.
For instance, people in the U.S. who wanted to perpetuate the institution of slavery developed elaborate narratives about how African-Americans were less intelligent or less capable of leadership.
They made up stories about how God had ordained white people to rule the world—narratives which were all, of course, patently false. One of the greatest tragedies of slavery is that many Christians and other “good folk” believed and perpetuated these myths.[1]
Having made the distinction between oppression[2] and mistreatment, I would like to address several questions about oppression that I often hear people ask.
The United States has ended slavery and made great strides in civil rights. Does oppression still occur here?
We should note that power imbalances still exist in the United States, and so we should still expect to see instances of oppression in the United States, especially when these power imbalances are not corrected.
We have minority populations in the United which include People of Color, people with disabilities, and the LGTBQ community, among others.
Racism and Stereotypes Still Exist
There are a lot of people who harbor a great deal of racism, stereotypes, ignorance, and misconceptions about these minority groups.
We still frequently see people in power (who harbor ill-will against these groups) actively work to deprive them of fair treatment and basic rights. This is oppression.
Women and Oppression
As another example, women are not usually considered to be a minority group, but many women have historically suffered oppressive situations.
For example, women historically have born the lion’s share of the responsibility for raising children—often an extremely large number of children.
In the past women had less access to modern amenities (i.e. washing machines, refrigerators, etc.). Tending to their very large families (and the related pregnancy, nursing, meal preparation, and laundry) often consumed all of women’s time.
Decreased Social Mobility
This prevented them from pursuing higher education, working outside of the home, and participating in the military, opportunities which built their social mobility and political power.
Women carrying a community latrine in 17th century colonial Virginia. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia
These conditions were not unjust or immoral in themselves. However, they certainly led to a power imbalance between men and women. In some situations, men consciously and unconsciously exploited this power over women.
Some people still do this today.[3] For instance, when men with political power insult women’s appearance or intelligence or natural female bodily processes (like menstruation or nursing), this is an example of men exploiting historical power imbalances.
Here is another example of oppression that still exists in the U.S. today.
Several research studies conducted on views of women in the workplace. They found that when people are given the same resume, one with a man’s name on it and one with a woman’s name on it, people rate the “man” as the most qualified candidate, even though the resumes are the same.
Two: Does oppression occur only within groups, or can it also occur between two people in every day relationships?
The word oppression is most often used to describe situations in which a majority group uses power unjustly to harm a minority group. However, oppression can also exist between individual people.
For example, if a white person uses his or her power to emotionally and psychologically harm a Person of Color, this would be an example of oppression.
For example, a friend of mine, who is an African-American woman, was walking down the street one day, and a guy drove by and called her the N word.
The President
In addition, recently the President Trump told four congress women with whom he disagreed, all Women of Color, that they should “go back to their own country”.
Three out of the four women were born in the U.S. and are U.S. citizens, just like the President. The fourth one, Ilhan Omar, fled with her family from a bloody civil war in Somalia.
Ilhan Omar’s Family were Refugees
They sought refugee status in the U.S. after four years in a refugee camp and were eventually granted asylum and full citizenship to the U.S. Omar became a U.S. citizen in 2000 when she was 17.
You can read more about the incident with the President and these four women here.
Both of these are an example of one person oppressing another person, which reflects larger social patterns of oppression.
Three: Can a person who is a member of a majority group (like a white person in the U.S.) be oppressed?
This is a tricky question to answer because most of us simultaneously belong to multiple social groups, some of which may be minority groups that suffer from political power imbalances and some of which may not.
For instance, let’s consider a white woman living in the U.S. As a white person, she is a part of a majority group with the most power. However, women have historically been an oppressed group because in the past they have been deprived of rights like voting and education.
Women and Oppression
Therefore, she may suffer oppression, not because of being white, but because of being a woman.
Or let’s consider a white man in the U.S. who is from Appalachia. The Appalachian community has suffered from power imbalances because of land exploitation, stereotyping, and other issues.
Therefore, this man could be oppressed, not because he is white, but because he is from Appalachia.
A coal miner in Appalachia in 1946. Photo courtesy of Unsplash.
Groups Within Groups
Thus, a person in a majority group can be oppressed, not because of their membership in the majority group but because of their simultaneous membership in other minority groups.
For oppression to occur, people must have their rights and dignity stolen from them through political power, and it is very hard for minority groups in a society to do this.
(Update: Sometimes minority groups do gain the majority of power. For example, this happened during South African apartheid where European colonialists seized the majority of power while still being a minority racially in South Africa.)
Well done for fighting back, Shelly. I am impressed by how you can generate such quality of writing in response to current events. I find it horrifying that there was not a rush from all political sides to condemn those hateful comments. Integrity is such an important part of collective responsibility.
That’s so kind, Ali! Well, to be honest, most of this was for an essay I wrote for a class I am teaching, and it probably helps that this information is directly connected to what I studied in my graduate program. So, it’s right there at the front of my mind.
I shared your horror at people’s failure to condemn. I think that is part of why I kept writing about it.
You’re back!
Yay! More or less. I’m not going to post a lot until the end of April, but it seemd like a good idea to respot this old post.