Watching the video and doing the reading helped me define the concepts of privilege and oppression: that privilege is an unearned advantage, right or that is not available to everyone, but only a specific group of people. Oppression is the exercise of authority or power cruelly or unjustly. Human beings can be miserable without being oppressed. One can not judge oppression by looking at one incident. Some way that I feel I experience privilege is I have hard-working parents who work nights or weekends to support the family or even to provide food and other things. I experienced privilege when I was able to go to school when others can not go to school. I experienced oppression when I worked as a cashier at a small store and I have been hearing people who don’t have anything nice to say but like to talk about how the people in my country are disgusting. When my people even the people that my parents have come from, are working hard people. This person doesn’t even know what type of person we are. There is this thing where racism can be an oppression thing for people. 

In the reading “Oppression” by Marilyn Frye, Frye points out very good points and how is discussed how a birdcage symbolizes the systematic oppression of women. I do agree with her point of view that women are oppressed, but also I do not agree that it’s just women who are oppressed. Those men are also oppressed too. But also I think that women are more oppressed than men. “We need to think clearly about oppression, and there is much that mitigates against this. I do not want to undertake to prove that women are oppressed (or that men are not), but I want to make clear what is being said when we say it. We need this word, this concept, and we need it to be sharp and sure.” (Pg11). Frye goes on to point out that the root of the word oppression is an element of the press. As she explains “Something pressed is something caught between or among forces and barriers which are so related to each other that jointly restrain, restrict, or prevent the thing’s motion or mobility. Mold. Immobilize. Reduce…”. Frye also points out how men can’t cry, women can’t take up space. Here she wants to suggest that one restriction is an element of oppression and the other no. 

This week we watched a video titled “What is Privilege?” by the Youtube channel As/Is. I love these kinds of videos and I think they can really teach us a lot. I feel that there are many privileges that I live with, much more than disadvantages. I would like to start with responses to the questions in the video. My dad definitely had to work, but my mom was able to stay home with us as she had some support from my grandfather. I cannot show affection to my partner in public without fear of ridicule or violence. I was not embarrassed by my home as a kid, it was very nice. I have been diagnosed as having a physical or mental illness/disability. I have been bullied and made of fun over something I cannot change. I came from a financially supportive family but was not supported in other ways. I can go to the doctor when I need to. I am not able to move through the world without fear of sexual assault. I have not had to take out loans for school. I really liked these questions and I feel they are great examples of privilege and disadvantages. I feel like for the most part, I am a privileged person. I think that my oppression comes in the form of racism as a Yemeni person and oppression as a nonbinary individual.

Watching this video and doing the readings is a great help in leading me to have a deeper understanding of privilege and oppression, and the different forms that they come in all around the world. I have a much easier time learning and comprehending things when I see examples, and the videos and readings supply a great amount of those. Specifically, I think that the video this week does an incredible job of visualizing the different ways that you can be economically, racially, and sexually oppressed. It’s a great exercise to figure out exactly where you stand and just how privileged or oppressed you are, and in what different ways.

Privilege is an advantage for a person or specific group of people. Privilege in my life is being a first generation hispanic woman in the United States. In Ecuador, I would have lived a life that most girls have over there, I would have been in school then gotten pregnant and have to find a way to support my child over there. The city my family comes from that is the way many of the young girls live and they must cater to their husband. I am very privileged due to the fact I live in New York with amazing opportunities for education and income. My life in the United States is privileged because I have a room over my head, my parents support me, and there is alway food. Oppression is being treated poorly or prevented from have the same opportunities as others. Oppression in my life was portrayed to me at a very early age in my life when I was just 8, I went to a scholarship meeting in the city for colleges and I felt I was not welcomed in like other students being the only hispanic girl in my group. I felt as I was ignored and invisible in a way. This was not my experience but I had a classmate that was told by my catholic all girls school to not wear her headscarf which was part of her religion and they suspended her for a week because she would not go against her religion. This was a huge form of oppression due to the fact they wanted push their beliefs on her or push her away from hers. New York is a “melting pot” for many different races and religions but still so many everyday feel some type of oppression. The video has risen my views for oppression to be for many people not just one group. Many people may feel that they have been oppressed at one point of their lives. After watching the video and reading the articles, oppression and privilege are very much similar just in different point of views. As in when you are privileged you see yourself as above someone due to your circumstances and in oppression you are seen as beneath someone due to what they have that you don’t.

I have always thought that privileged was only about people who can afford the expensive stuff. but then I went to Mexico to see my family for the first time. my parents made sure that I didn’t bring any nice things to Mexico. when my parent told me that I was wondering about on my way there on the plane. when I arrive that’s when I started to notice why my parents told me that. my cousin was so happy about my coming to visit them. when I was looking around the house I started to notice things that didn’t have half of the things I had in my house. for instance, they didn’t have a lot of future or even doors for privacy. I also notice my cousin’s clothing. my clothing was from brand and didn’t have rips or dirt on them. my cousins were starting at what I was wearing and they told me that they wish they had nice clothes like mine. I felt like when I was there I notice things that never crossed my mind. there I would be considered privileged and made me think to be more apshiaded of the things I have.

I’ve experienced oppression when it came to sex. my family has this thing that women can’t go anywhere unless a man goes with them in case anything bad happens. well since I have an older brother they make him go with me wherever I go. so when it came to something I wanted to be independent. my parents will tell me I can’t go anywhere unless he goes. I never understood that. why do I as women have to go with a man being either my brother or cousin to every place I go? that whole tradition my family has should be let go. they need to realize that women are capable of taking care of themselves. another thing I experience was when the men of the house expects the women to do the usual womanly stuff. which are cleaning, cooking, and listing to everything that has to say. that’s another tradition men need to let go of.

the reading and the video combined helpt me understand privilege in more depth. anything that considers having something someone else doesn’t have is considered a privilege and we need to understand that we are all privileged in many ways we think we aren’t. reading Marilyn also helps me understand a word that I didn’t know which was oppression. im glad that I had the chance to understand the reading and open my mind to think bigger.

I am an educator, the work I do I think about privilege. Accepting my own privilege hasn’t been easy. I have had many thoughts which help me to understand my own privilege in relation to the children I am working with and the world. My profession puts me in a position to assist children who are in need of resources, and facing educational, and environmental conditions different than my own.

Furthermore, when I am assigned a new student, I immediately hold a degree of authority over the student. Educators are the gatekeepers to resources that children need and are often unable to access without assistance. It does get complicated thinking about privilege is an ongoing exercise. It has become a part of my daily consciousness but is a difficult concept to grasp and one that I didn’t come by easily. Learning to challenge my position in the world and understand the power imbalance that I am a part of, does not mean that I immune to life’s hardships but having an unearned benefit or advantage one receives in society by nature of their identity.

My privilege also stems from being an African American lower middle-class upbringing, education, resources to food, access to health care and family support. This is not to ignore that my gender, femininity and introversion don’t at times put me at a disadvantage, but it doesn’t take away from many unearned benefits I was handed simply from being born with certain traits and resources. On the other hand, I found myself feeling alone and isolated, misunderstood and at times scrutinized. Engaging in behaviors that has turned into internalized oppression, spending money or getting my hair done that did not affirm me, using big words that at times I didn’t know the meaning of, working longer and harder than anyone else with precision. Watching the video and reading the articles helped me understand that privilege benefits people who belong to a specific social group or have certain dimensions to their identity while oppression is an abuse of power preventing a certain class of people opportunities and freedom.

This week’s reading were very insightful and I love how these women were not afraid to express the different ways that they weren’t informed of how privileged and how oppression correlate.

Marilyn Fyre goes into detail about oppression, specifically pointing out the word Press in Oppression meaning there is always applied pressure somehow. Whether the pressure of a society, the pressure women feel after speaking up or defending themselves. The word press relates to being flattened or reduced, which was a remarkably interesting thing to mention. Women are molded and restricted by barriers society has placed. Women in general have truly little to no support. She continues expressing how women at times are considered difficult or unpleasant if they are not smiling in the face of oppression. Women are victim shamed for being sexually active and are consider promiscuous. If a woman says no, she is offend killed or talked down to for saying no. I experienced this when I was a teenaged girl. A guy would try to talk to me, I would ignore him, and he would say you are ugly anyway. Being a woman, we get sticked with a double standard that is so unfair. Oppression has always been a word I have been familiar with, I have experienced oppression walking on a sidewalk when I white person is walking, I would move out the way, and unknowingly for a while I did not realize they expect for me to move, til one day I decided I would not move out the way they had to step aside and let me pass for once! It was the funniest thing they were flustered and did not know which way to go LOL!.  I know this type of oppression is minuscule compared to those of others. Try it when you are walking down the street, white people see right through you like you do not exist. 

This also relates to Peggy Melntosh’s article White Privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack,  

She explains how most white people are not taught about their white privilege, especially Men. How they have this unwillingness to acknowledge that they have privileges. White people are taught not to recognize their white privilege and men taught not to acknowledge their male privilege. Honesty passing as a white Latina I did not realize that I had that privilege until I was in my twenty’s when I started to open my eyes outside of my own experiences. I can act as a shield to protect my Brown and Black family members and friends. Then there were things like the disrespect from strange men on the street that other women have experienced that I no longer felt alone. Men have the simple privilege of walking down the street at night with no care in the world and us women walk with precaution and on high alert the whole way home or we do the buddy system to make sure we get home safely.  

I would like to mention how optimistic I am for this generation because people are becoming more self-aware and having these uncomfortable conversations that make people aware of their actions and the ways they can change them for the better. We can all just look out for each other and acknowledge each other’s experiences. 

I feel like privilege is something given to us without having to go through the obstacles and earning actually earning it. It’s something that many people have and don’t deserve and it’s also what many people don’t have and do deserve it. Privilege is a benefit that many people take for granted and some actually take advantage of (if that makes sense). It bizarre that privilege is defined by the color of our skin, when in fact we are human yet unique in our own ways. Peggy went in depth about white privilege as a white women herself with these benefits. She mentioned that white people don’t believe themselves as oppressors. We need to understand our privileges and take advantage of what we do have no matter the color, race, or religion. A privilege i would say I have is definitely having good education. My parents did the best they could to support 4 of us from the roof over my head, clothes on my back, and food on the table, which a lot of people may not have any of these things. Which always reminds me to be grateful for what I do have now and not what I wish I had. 

In the reading “Oppression” by Frye, I feel she made good points. For example, she went and mentioned on how from childhood to men not to cry because it makes them masculine or weak. I understand now that oppression really does exist in our society and being catagorized by who we are and what we choose to be whether that’s by our color, ethnicity, and gender. Oppression is exertion of power and or control by a group or individual of power to those who don’t. 

The readings this week were filled with great examples of privilege and oppression. In Marilyn Frye’s book “Oppression” she breaks down the circumstances that differentiates oppression from what may look oppressive until its viewed in depth. Some people use the word oppression loosely when it really means you’re being hindered simply because you are who you are whether it be gender, and race or etc. She tells us it is okay to acknowledge a person is experiencing an unfortunate situation without it qualifying as oppressive. Someone who is oppressed is caged in to a stigma of what the hierarchy of society expects them to be.  I remember a couple of times (not consecutively) going shopping and being trailed in a hair store, discount store etc. simply because of my skin color likely. That to me is oppressive not just unfortunate. I was likely followed because the notion is black people steal essentially I’m being followed just for being black. This would probably not be the case for a white person they are more likely to follow me. The same clerk following me can then turn around and say they are being oppressed for trying to protect their inventory and make sure no one steals so they are benefiting from making my shopping experience uncomfortable, not me.

            “White Privilege” by Peggy McIntosh speaks on the white privilege and power that white people do not realize they have simply for being white. McIntosh says there is an unearned power in being white and as a result, they should begin to think of ways to utilize that privilege and power in a way that brings equity to all races.   I don’t think I had a childhood where I could honestly point out being under privileged, but that is mainly because I was too young to understand what that even looked like. As an adult I see and recognize it more than I would prefer. Especially in the school I work in certain situations white parents are given the benefit of the doubt but the minority parents are frowned upon in the same situations. I will say it is not at the fault of anyone but society that this is the case. Society created the narrative of superiority in race and while there is no doubt we have progressed there is certainly a long way to go in achieving equality for all and it meaning more than words!!

I know I experience a lot of privilege and I agree with some of the people in this video that you don’t really know what to do with that information once you’ve been made aware of it. I have definitely learned to start by appreciating it working to change my frame of thinking about myself and others in relation to this unearned privileges. There are some reasons I would’ve taken steps back in the exercise, from disabilities and circumstances from time and place. However, I am a heterosexual white female from a middle class family and I can also see that my unearned privileges took care of those things in life that were hindrances to my success. I.e. Health care, supportive family, a safe home to go to, people to fall back on that could support me, etc.

I relate to the general oppressive examples give in the Frye reading. However, I found them very extreme examples, black/ white thinking. it might be that my circumstances of time and place, the way my parents raised me, the political climate I grew up in, and the people I got to be surrounded by made it so the consequences that she spoke of were very rare and for the most part there has always been a way out. Or at least, the cage is a lot more broad and roomie than she makes it out to be, or that other people experience it as. By no means do I mean to say that people don’t experience it that way, in my life I would not say that has been my biggest challenge, the oppression of being a woman. I honestly think the biggest way I experience oppression is probably in such a macro scale I am not even aware of it on a day to day.

I found the part about oppressor being oppressed very interesting. If the oppressor is the one ultimately benefiting than they are not being oppressed. I think this answers a lot to my own response about how I experience oppression in my life. I know I could come up with answers to that questions, but I ultimately know that my privileges outweigh my disadvantages. I am not caught between a rock and a hard place, there has always been a solution for me, and I don’t know that those solutions would’ve been there for anyone/ everyone.

There were a few things that I will hold onto from the readings that have helped me understand oppression. I found the birdcage analogy in Oppression by Marilyn Frye very helpful for thinking about both white privilege and oppression of women. As well as the definition given that, “the experience of oppressed people is living within barriers that are not accidental and are not avoidable. Every direction is blocked or booby trapped.”

When I think of privilege, I realize the advantages I have that my family did not have. Having my own room gives me a sense of privilege. My mother grew up in a room with five other people and only one bed. I also have the luxury of being able to get to school while feeling safe. My grandmother had to walk through farms to get to school. And she and her classmates were always in danger of being killed. My grandmother lived in Kingston during the height of the conflicts between the two major political parties. Due to the threat of one of the parties shooting up the school, the school was eventually closed. While there is a risk of school shootings in America, I feel safe in my school, which I recognize is a huge privilege. Also, many people do not have the opportunity to attend college. I’m the first woman in my family to attend college. And by furthering my education, I’m going to gain access to all sorts of new opportunities. I think the most important privilege I take for granted is the ability to choose to work. My family prefers that I concentrate on my studies, so finding work was not a high priority. I know I’m fortunate to have my family support me while I’m in school. Many of my friends are forced to work in order to make ends meet. When I see my family providing for me, it motivates me to work harder in school so that when I graduate and get a good job, I can start providing for them too.

I’m not sure if this fits as oppression, but it does relate to a lack of privilege, as my family did not own a car. We had to beg other family members for rides after my father left, and we relied heavily on public transportation. Which is unreliable, especially in the winter. My mother had to support us on her own, so we couldn’t afford most things, and as a child, I couldn’t understand why we couldn’t afford most things. Most importantly, I noticed that I was treated differently after my father left. I’d become a statistic all of a sudden. That was the worst nightmare I’d ever had. There were a lot of kids my age who didn’t have a father. But it seemed to me to be a stereotype that was becoming all too real. Something that isn’t discussed is the shaming of black people who don’t behave in a certain way. Growing up, I was frequently ridiculed because I apparently “spoke white.” That has never made sense to me. However, it has had an effect on my relationship with my black identity. It is rarely discussed, but black people frequently oppress one another. On some issues, we disagree. such as skin color, music preference, or hobbies. We try to figure out who isn’t black enough and bully them for being different. The oppression article made me consider how the oppressed can be the oppressors. Like men being oppressed for sharing their emotions, while it may not be the same, I believe they are related because they are both shocking and not widely discussed.