Subtle oppression

[REGINA SEWELL]

Adam, Ann

Hmmmm.... Interesting.  

I tend to look at oppression and privilege as together...as connected dynamics....  you can't have oppression without some other body getting privilege...  even if they don't want that privilege...  Like, I get privilege by dent of being white and middle class even though I spend a lot of energy fighting to redistribute resources in a more egalitarian manner.... So this brings up an interesting group effect....  seeing the collective oppressing the individual.... oppressing individuality.... especially 1 and 3...    sort of like the Borg on Star Trek New Generation....   (they were a culture where conformity was mandatory.. all cogs in the social machine... happy cogs once they lost their individuality....  the words I remember  most... "Resistance [to becoming one of the cogs] is futile... very much like Moreno's ideas of Robotrons....  But who benefits?  The stability of the group... the "borg ness"?
          1. I can't understand what the other person is saying because s/he is speaking too fast, too softly, with too much of an accent or dialect, using too big or unfamiliar terms or vocabulary, and so forth. In trying to bring up the problem of understand-ability, I've at times been met with blame.
           2. Someone takes offense to what I say, which then makes it difficult in that escalated emotional context to seek clarification and make amends. Explanations are often perceived as trying to avoid responsibility when in fact they are seeking to find a way to work out the miscommunication.
           3. Feeling one has a minority opinion when the group is perceived to have a certain bias. (Example: In one group many years ago a protagonist was complaining about a vague memory of possible sexual abuse---this was when this complaint was seen as always to be believed. I asked, "Well, there seems to be some question whether this event actually happened." Caught a lot of flack.)
         
I like Ann's application of the cannon of creativity and impact of sociometry on challenging that  "borgness"  ... it seems to me that this is the heart of social movements....  those lone deviants who first step forward and say, consciously or not, I won't take these social rules and defying them... perhaps paying the price of being shut down or rejected..., perhaps getting social applause..., 

So the trick becomes creating groups or moving towards situations in groups on one hand and on another, finding ways to communicate in a way that others can "hear."

peace,

regina sewell, Ph.D.


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