Oppression 101

WHAT IS PRIVILEGE?

If oppression is Sauron, the lord of all evil in the world, then privilege is the Ring of Power, the object which fuels his malevolence.

Crummy Lord of the Rings jokes not working for you? All good, let’s break it down.

Every minute x amount of babies are born, and every minute x amount of assumptions are made about these teeny tiny humans. If they are born with a vulva, the doctor announces “it’s a girl!” and doesn’t consider the chance this person may not identify as female. If they are born with brown skin, their chances of being harassed or assaulted by police rises hundred-fold, even though this newborn baby won’t understand what “crime” is for another few years. Such is the mechanism of society: we are born, and we are assigned certain privileges. The assignments are not based on our lifestyle or career choices, they’re not based on our future autonomous decisions, they’re based on things we have no control over like our genitals, skin colour, or whether we were born in the public or private maternity ward. In other words, they are completely and utterly arbitrary. But in society’s eyes, our privileges are legitimate things that we hold for our entire lives, regardless of whether we deserve them or not. I’ve done nothing to earn my privilege as a white person, and my brother has never earnt his male privilege, we were just really fortunate that way.

Ok, so we blindly draw our privileges from a lucky dip… but what even are they?

Our privileges are things that give us freedom. Freedom to be who we are comfortable with, in the way my privilege as a cisgender person allows me to be while a trans person will struggle, or freedom to do what we want, in the way a man can easily become an engineer, or walk alone at night, or be congratulated for having multiple sexual partners, as I never will. And the fact that some privileges are only available to certain groups of people, even though they are physically applicable to every human being, is inherently oppressive.

Which leads us to…

WHAT IS OPPRESSION?

Let’s introduce the magic equation: Oppression = discrimination + power

We’re all used to understanding discrimination and unfair behaviour towards other people, but what is less commonly understood is that there is a significant difference between discrimination and oppression. In short, oppression can only be perpetuated by people who hold the balance of power. For example, white people both historically and currently hold the majority of power in the world. We see this through workplace discrimination against People of Colour, in over-representation of black people in jail, in racially fuelled police brutality etc. And since society assigns dominance to white people, discrimination from white people unto People of Colour is oppression. Similarly, since women are a power minority (numerical majority/minority doesn’t necessarily coincide with power balances); discrimination by men against women is oppression.

What is hardest for many people to comprehend is that it doesn’t work the other way around. If we accept that you need social dominance behind you for your discrimination to be an oppressive force, power minorities can never in fact be oppressive towards their oppressors. Yep, this article will use the word “oppression” way too many times. What this looks like is that People of Colour can never be “racist” towards white people, and women can never be “sexist” towards men. The terms racism and sexism, as well as homophobia, cissexism and any other oppression terminology applies specifically to the act of oppression. Women have never held social dominance over men, and People of Colour have never held societal power over white people, so these minority groups cannot exercise and “…ism” over their respective majorities. Before people start screaming, I’ll point out that of course women can discriminate against men, gay people can discriminate against straight people etc., and they are equally guilty in the eyes of the law as anyone else. But in order to understand oppression we must accept that it is a one way street.

A common first reaction to this kind of message is “but the dictionary…”, because the dictionary defines racism as “The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races.” This does indeed sound like it could apply to anyone, including white people as potential victims of racism. But the thing to remember is that the dictionary operates outside a social context, and is not the be-all or end-all of socially nuanced definitions. It is also worth noting that the dictionary was and currently still is written by white men… coincidence? Maybe. Maybe not.

A good resource: http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/01/reverse-oppression-cant-exist/

Anyway, why is it so important to correctly understand oppression?

When people insist that “reverse sexism” or “reverse racism” exist, they quickly erase the reality of those words as an inherently oppressive force that historically and currently operates only in a top-down system. Spreading the idea that white people or men are victims of oppression easily silences the struggle of women or POCs, because society gives more attention and airtime to the dominant social majorities. It also allows people in an oppressive group to shuck off their responsibility. Oppression will only end when everyone accepts their position as a cog in an oppressive society, and fixes it within themselves. For example, I am a mixture of perpetrator and victim in oppression, and in the position where I belong to a power majority (white people, hetero-cis people etc.) I accept that my mere existence adds to an oppressive mechanism, and that I have to work twice as hard to take down my conditioned prejudices and create equality in the way I treat the people around me. If I was to believe that white people are also victim to racism, I wouldn’t view it was so important to listen to the experiences of discrimination against black or brown people. I would also feel as entitled to the benefits of the anti-racism movement, which I definitely don’t need, and would just be taking away from those who truly do need that empowerment.

It’s a hard truth to swallow, but probably one of the most important steps in the quest to reshape our inherently screwed up society into a place where everyone has an actual chance of being who they want to be, and doing what they want to do. In summary: we are all Frodo, and must destroy the Ring and return equality to (Middle) Earth. Also in summary: I should stop.

Leave your thoughts, questions, and comments below. This is a very complex and worthy discussion that I am definitely willing to pick up with anyone J

Hannah