My mother always reminds me of my privileges, ever since I was little she would always say how I was lucky to have a roof over my head, food on the table, be able to go to school, have two loving parents and the list would go on depending on the lecture. She did this ofcourse because she wanted me to be aware and thankful for the things I had in life that I might have not taken a notice to, and remind me that not everyone experiences life the same. I’m privileged to have the level of education I do, to be able to pursue my dream, to live in America, and have a supportive family. I’m privileged to have access to clean water at any time of the day, be able to read, have an on the books job, own stuff I bought with my own earned money.

I experience oppression by being a young black woman in America, it’s dangerous to walk the streets alone at night, my voice isn’t always taken seriously when I express my opinion, I’m expected to take up less space, be polite, classy, never angry, always smile and be friendly, not look tired or annoyed, have the ever-changing trending body type of the year, abide to heteronormative standards that were set in place thousands of years ago. The list goes on and on and on to the point where even when I read articles in this class there are still some things I forget because I’m just so ‘used to.’

I don’t think the video necessarily helped me nearly as much as Frye’s and McIntosh’ amazing explanations on oppression and privilege did. Frye compares oppression with that of a bird who’s trapped in a cage, the restrictions not allowing them to do anything in the confined space. McIntosh on the other hand described privilege (more specifically white) as “an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks” (McIntosh 1). In this sense I can define privilege as a sort of tool that aids a specific person based on aspects they usually have no control over. While I would describe oppression as almost a wall, or blockade, it’s like being fenced in as if you were a zoo animal, but we all have different size cages. But, the video did put into a more visual perspective how everyone has some sort of privileges, we all don’t share the same ones and some we even had to work for, they weren’t just given to us at birth.