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Title: Undermining Oppression Author: CrimethInc. Date: August 20th, 2009 Language: en Topics: oppression Source: https://crimethinc.com/2009/08/20/undermining-oppression
Ask an urban bird what a polluted sky is. You’ll get no answer. Even if
birds could tell their tale so you could understand it, they would
likely have no explanation for the pollutants they breathe and fly
through every moment of their lives. Polluted air simply is. Birds take
it for granted.
The first step in combating oppression is learning to recognize it. Many
people in North America seem to think racism, for example, is a thing of
the past, banished now by affirmative action programs and Black History
month. Radicals often have a stronger awareness of how prevalent racism
still is, and may even develop an analysis of how it is only one
manifestation of systematic white supremacy, but many go no further than
this. To undermine and ultimately abolish oppression, it is necessary to
take the step of confronting and undoing it in ourselves and others.
There are almost as many kinds of oppression as there are facets of our
complex identities; some strains are based on visible traits like race
or sex, others are not. Fortunately, there are also tools that can be
used for identifying, resisting, and dismantling all of them.
Throughout this recipe, we focus on white supremacy so as to offer
concrete examples, though it is not necessarily more widespread or
pernicious than patriarchy or any other form of oppression. Oppression
and privilege intertwine in extremely complex ways; racism, classism,
heterosexism, ageism, and others overlap and extend into all spheres of
our lives. Traditional single-issue activism focuses on contesting one
manifestation of these at a time: fighting the prison-industrial
complex, opposing corporate exploitation of low-wage workers,
challenging specific foreign policies. Such activism can benefit greatly
from a holistic understanding of oppression and how it operates—in these
examples, how state repression, capitalism, and imperialism all rest on
oppression and privilege. Whatever one’s chosen focus, it is important
to be aware of diverse forms of oppression and to challenge them on
every level.
Working against both institutional and personal manifestations of
oppression can be emotionally intense and challenging. In the course of
learning to recognize and struggle against oppression, one is likely to
encounter and experience deep resentment, regret, and heartache.
Many people have been deeply hurt and angered in the course of their
experiences of oppression, and these feelings of hurt and anger can be
hard for others to hear. Even when the ways they choose to express these
feelings seem unproductive or antagonizing to those who have not shared
their experience, it is important that they be supported in doing
so—otherwise, how are people to learn from one another and gain
perspective on themselves? If rage and pain are hard to hear about,
imagine how much harder they are to live with and give voice to!
Likewise, fighting racism and white supremacy isn’t a matter of simply
learning not to say the wrong thing. At worst, would-be radicals can
approach these issues in a self-serving manner, focusing on how to avoid
being accused of racism and privilege instead of concentrating on
actually combating them. If we are to effect real change in our society,
we will do better to deal with everything openly, however clumsily, than
to keep silent in fear of ourselves and each other.
Those who set out to contest their own privileges will inevitably
struggle with feelings of guilt. Such feelings can be powerful
resources; they can also paralyze and incapacitate. Guilt can motivate
one to act in accordance with one’s conscience, fostering self-awareness
and courage; it can also trap one in a closed circle of
self-recrimination. When those with privilege make their own guilt the
focus of their thinking about oppression, it can be a way of
re-centralizing their own experiences, turning away from the experiences
of those who bear the brunt of injustices and from the question of what
can be done.
When dealing with guilt, begin by analyzing what it is that makes you
feel guilty, and move swiftly on to the matter of what concrete steps
you can take to redress the situation. Focus on this, rather than on
shame and self-flagellation. However complicit you may be in oppressive
systems, however much more you may benefit from the status quo than
others do, you too are deserving, you too are unique, you too suffer,
just like everyone else—that is never in question. The question is what
you can do to stop being complicit, to stop benefiting at others’
expense.
Oppression is a network of forces and barriers that are not accidental
or occasional and hence avoidable, but systematically related in such a
way as to catch one between and among them, restricting or penalizing
motion in any direction. The experience of being oppressed is similar to
the experience of being caged—all avenues, in every direction, are
blocked.
Imagine a birdcage. If you look very closely at just one wire of the
cage, you cannot see the other wires. You could examine that wire, up
and down the length of it, and be unable to see why a bird would not
just fly around it any time it desired to. There is no physical property
of any one wire, nothing that the closest scrutiny could discover, that
would reveal how a bird could be inhibited or harmed by it. It is only
when you step back to view the whole cage that you can see why the bird
does not go anywhere. Then it becomes obvious that the bird is
surrounded by a network of systematically related barriers, no one of
which would be the least hindrance to its flight, but which, in
conjunction, are as confining as the solid walls of a dungeon.
Oppression can indeed be hard to see and recognize: one can study the
elements of an oppressive structure with great care without seeing the
structure as a whole, and hence without recognizing that one is looking
at a cage.
With this understanding of oppression, one can distinguish between the
terms oppression and domination. Domination occurs when an individual or
group coerces, controls, or intimidates others. Domination is noxious in
all its forms, but not all domination is oppression. Domination is being
blocked by a single wire of a birdcage. For example, when the one white
boy at an all-black school is taunted and even physically assaulted,
these are acts of domination, not oppression. Some would call this
reverse racism, but that expression is misleading: it suggests that the
boy is experiencing the same thing the black students are by growing up
in a white-dominated society, which is not the case. Oppression is not
merely individual instances of domination, prejudice, or ignorance; it
is the systematic privileging of one group over another. It is not
possible for a more privileged group to be oppressed by a less
privileged group: therefore reverse racism is a contradiction in terms.
In some ways, terms like racism and sexism are also misleading: they
fail to bring to light the fact that in every instance of oppression,
there is a privileged group as well as a targeted one. In using such
language, we can overlook the role we play in these systems of
oppression. Racism sounds like a mere matter of prejudice and ignorance,
but the problem is deeper than this: it is the centrality of whiteness
in our culture, which is better described by a term such as white
supremacy. Modern white supremacy is a long-standing, institutionally
perpetuated system of exploitation and oppression of continents,
nations, and peoples of color. White people and nations tyrannize others
in order to maintain and defend a system of wealth, power, and
privilege. By using language that indicates this, we can identify
clearly where privilege resides and what is actually at stake.
Western culture relies upon binary logic to classify things and people.
From childhood, we learn oppositions like day/night, good/bad, boy/girl,
and understand each word to have meaning only in relation to its
opposite. Good means the complete absence of bad things, boy means the
complete absence of girl things: boys are taught to be boys in large
part by being discouraged from all behaviors deemed girlish. As we grow,
we learn the many dualisms that frame the ways we see ourselves:
feminine/masculine, homosexual/heterosexual, immigrant/native,
children/adults, elderly/youthful, transgender/gender normative,
color/white.
These dualisms contribute to a conception of the world that is
oversimplified, even outright false. Not one of us embodies the extremes
they define. All the same, we attempt to fit into the rigid boxes these
words outline, so we can find words to describe who we are and live up
to the words that describe what is worth being. In the process, we
construct our individual identities, our sense of self, the defining of
which then creates another binary: the I/other dichotomy. In rigidly
defining who we are, we cast everything else as not like us, as other.
Just as each of us has an individual I, our society has a cultural I.
The cultural I purports to represent the most prevalent social
experience, even though the perspective it presents is actually that of
a small minority, if of anyone at all. The cultural I is white, male,
able-bodied, heterosexual, and every other characteristic defined as
“normal,” and is coded into our society through a variety of visual and
linguistic cues: the faces we see overwhelmingly in mass media, the
implicit meanings in words like history and mankind. The cultural I can
be recognized in what is not said, but assumed: philosophy means western
philosophy, history means US history. The assumptions that some people
don’t have accents, that only non-white communities are ethnic groups,
these are both evidence of the cultural I at work; the same goes for the
habit of referring to non-whites, women, and other demographics as
“minorities,” despite the obvious fact that they comprise the majority
of the population. The halves of the binaries which are normalized in
this way come to be taken for granted as standard—even if, like the
blonde actresses in Mexican soap operas, they are extremely uncommon—and
we only specify aspects of people’s identities when they deviate from
the norm.
Whether they wish it or not, members of dominant social groups possess
unfair advantages over members of less privileged groups. Privilege
depends on the existence of hierarchy: an imbalance of power extending
throughout society, providing some demographics with more resources,
leverage, and comfort than others. The workings of hierarchy are
justified by supremacist thinking, such as the idea that some groups are
harder working, better equipped, or more deserving than others; they
also are obscured by the obliviousness that comes of identifying with
the cultural I. Privilege can be practically invisible to those who have
it; it is often painfully obvious to those who do not.
Social dynamics are never so simple that people can be divided easily
into oppressors and oppressed, however. Any individual may partake of
privilege in one situation, and suffer its absence in another. It makes
more sense to focus on the ways some benefit and others suffer in regard
to specific criteria, with an eye to following how these shift in
different contexts. A group of people who all identify as women of color
may be composed of different religions, genders, class backgrounds,
native tongues, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and conditions of
mental health and experience subtle power imbalances within their ranks
accordingly. Similarly, it is a mistake to think of different forms of
oppression as existing in a hierarchy of grievousness, or to argue that
some manifestations of oppression are mere subsets of others; to do so
trivializes the unique experiences of human beings, which cannot be
measured or reduced to abstractions.
Many privileged people think of themselves as self-sufficient, assuming
that they live in a meritocracy and that all that they have in life is
the result of their own hard work or that of their families. In doing
so, they overlook the institutional and cultural advantages from which
they benefit. To take stock of what advantages you might have in terms
of racial privileges, consider how many of these statements reflect your
experience:
most of the time.
and see people of my race widely represented.
school that testify to the existence of their race and to the history
and accomplishments of others of their racial background.
my race, into a supermarket and find the staple foods that fit with my
cultural traditions, into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can
work with my hair.
color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.
without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals,
poverty, or illiteracy of my race.
to my race.
policies and behavior without being immediately seen as a cultural
outsider.
will be facing a person of my race.
negative episode or situation whether it has racial overtones.
For more perspective, go over this list again, replacing “race” with
ethnicity, sex, gender, age, shape, and so on. Of course, no two white
people experience white privilege in exactly the same way, just as not
every man feels safer walking alone at night than every woman. Some
people have made life decisions that result in them not experiencing
many of the daily privileges enjoyed by others of their demographic: a
taxi driver may be as likely to refuse to pick up a white man with
facial tattoos as a black man without them. But privilege, on a deeper
level, is not easily shaken off. The white man, in an extreme, can have
his tattoos removed, while the black man knows that the challenges he
faces in a racist society are inescapable. A woman from a middle class
family may choose a life of poverty and even homelessness, but the fact
that she is connected to people who might be able to help her in an
emergency makes her experience very different from that of a homeless
person of a poor background. Similarly, the advantages that come from
having been raised in a privileged setting remain throughout one’s life,
whatever else happens. Those of privileged backgrounds who choose a path
of exile upon which they experience alienation and persecution can draw
on these experiences to imagine what life is like for those who never
had their advantages in the first place.
Rather than denying the privileges one possesses or imagining one could
somehow wash one’s hands of them and thus of complicity in oppression,
it makes more sense to use one’s privileges, whatever they may be, to
undermine privilege in general. One way to do so is to find ways to put
these at the disposal of others who can benefit from them. If nothing
else, one should always attempt to stay aware of the unfair advantages
one has, and to take these into account in interactions with others; but
simply learning to recognize and decry one’s privileges while still
cashing in on them does not constitute an effective struggle against
oppression.
A classic step in self-empowerment has been to reclaim the boxes we’re
forced into, reinterpreting them as politicized identities. By linking
up with others like us, we find validation of our experiences and
perspectives, and companions with whom to struggle against the forces
that oppress us and others.
The matter of identity is indeed complex. A person’s identity is not a
set of fixed essences, but a fluid intersection of social, political,
and psychological processes. Yet though the constructed identities
foisted upon us by this society may not reflect what we consider to be
our true selves, we must engage with them in order to subvert them.
Whether or not we want it to be the case, our experiences are shaped by
the ways we are perceived, and it can be useful to organize with those
who share our experiences.
For instance, even in gatherings of radicals or others thought to be
conscious about racism and white supremacy, people of color can feel
alienated, for example when there is a great disparity in numbers
between those who have white privilege in common and those who do not.
In such situations, one option is to call for a “caucus” or establish a
“safer space” wherein people of color invite others who identify
similarly to gather and interact in an exclusive space, or at least
taking a break from the potentially taxing experience of being in a
minority that must deal with uneven power dynamics. The purpose of this
is not to exclude those who do not identify as people of color. It is,
rather, a way for those who can feel alienated, marginalized, or
victimized in environments in which the tone is set by more privileged
groups to come together, support one another, and organize as they
desire. It can be a relief to take some time off from the challenges of
interacting with others who do not share one’s frame of reference for
oppression, and from feeling the pressure of others’ observation and
expectations. Ultimately, it is in the best interest of everyone in a
group that all individuals within it feel comfortable and empowered.
Caucuses and safer spaces need not be limited to people of color, of
course: all who feel they might benefit from this format can employ it.
They need not happen only at short-term gatherings of radicals, either:
it can make sense to have weekly caucuses in a community, or monthly
ones within a collective, or to call for one in the midst of an
organizing effort. Women-only houses can offer round-the-clock safer
space, youth-only radio stations can provide opportunities for
individuals to develop their unique voices, queer-only magazines and
action groups can carry out long-term campaigns. In this way, the
identities that mark targeted groups for oppression can be turned into
sites for organizing resistance to it.
Covering the surface of this society is a complex network of minute
rules and norms through which the most original minds and energetic
characters can barely penetrate. People’s wills are not shattered, but
softened, bent, and guided. We are seldom forced to act, but are
constantly restrained from acting. Such repression does not destroy, but
rather prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but instead
compresses, stifles, and stupefies, so that each individual grows up
into a dutiful lamb that needs no shepherding to stay within the
fence-line. This is not political repression, which necessitates secret
police and prison camps, but cultural repression, in which people police
and imprison themselves.
It is too simplistic to imagine individual social controllers in the
upper echelons of power as the source of all oppression. White
supremacy, for example, is not just the clubs of white policemen, nor
the country clubs of white executives. White power is not just the power
of white people; it is a system of dynamics extending throughout every
level of a society, present in every interaction and within every
individual. This is why there can be white privilege even in nations
where—according to conventional North American standards—no one is,
technically speaking, white. Likewise, there is no external enemy we can
march against to overthrow patriarchy; we are within enemy territory,
and the enemy is within us. At the same time as we fight against
external manifestations of oppression, we must also struggle against
those we have internalized, putting an end to our own oppressive actions
and empowering ourselves to cast off the shackles we have received.
Learning to take criticism constructively—even when it’s hard to feel
that it is intended constructively—is an important part of this. If one
is too defensive to receive perspective on one’s own attitudes and
conduct, one will miss out on countless opportunities to better oneself.
At the same time, one must learn to recognize the voice of the oppressor
in one’s own head, telling one what one can and cannot do, what one
deserves and does not deserve. An encouraging, inspiring circle of peers
can help to counteract this internalized oppression.
To be allies to others in the struggle against racism—to name one
example of oppression—is to recognize that racism exists within us
without resigning ourselves to that fact, and to engage in real
resistance that goes beyond the confession of our personal complicity.
It is to accept that we who have internalized racial dominance will
never fully understand the plight of those who suffer the injustices of
white supremacy more than we do, and yet to do all we can to learn from
their experiences. It is to take an active role in fighting against
racist institutions, without compromising the autonomy of those who have
even more at stake in this struggle than we do.
People sometimes assume that the means for learning about racism are in
scarce supply. This is an absurd, perhaps even subtly racist assumption,
as it ignores the abundance of experience around us. To gain an
understanding of the workings of white supremacy, one need not attend
endless workshops or become involved in an obscure subculture; indeed,
there are reasons to be suspicious of anti-racist organizing in which
white experts take the lead in educating and organizing. There are no
experts on oppression—or rather, all who experience oppression are
experts. Even if you have been so privileged as not to have experienced
it yourself, there are people all around you who know firsthand what it
is to bear the brunt of racist injustice and inequality. You simply must
learn to listen to them, and to conduct yourself such that they will be
willing to share their experiences with you.
At the same time, no person more targeted by the racist system than you
are owes it to you to take the time to educate you about racism. They
have enough to deal with already, without you feeling entitled to make
assumptions about or demands of them. Many people of color are exhausted
from being asked to speak for all members of their race throughout their
lives, or for that matter for all members of all non-white races.
Whenever people less privileged than you are willing to take the time to
share their perspectives, they are giving a generous gift, one greater
than anyone could possibly ask of them and not to be taken for granted.
In the meantime, whenever you need to learn about racism and white
supremacy and don’t know who to approach, you can always consult the
vast bodies of literature, film, music, and history made by those of
less privileged backgrounds than your own. Aspiring anti-racists of all
races, accustomed to listening to popular white views on nearly
everything, would benefit from taking in knowledge of all sorts from
multiple sources. As programmed as we all have been by this racist
society, we owe it to ourselves and each other to begin learning the
rest of our history and culture.
Educating oneself is a critical starting place, but this is not
sufficient to make one a good ally: one must make use of this education
in practice. Learning the ways that privileged groups dominate others,
one must then take steps to cease all such activities. This can be as
simple as a man learning not to interrupt women in conversation, or as
complex as a household of white tenants joining in a struggle against
the gentrification of their predominantly black neighborhood.
To be an ally, one ultimately must provide concrete support to those on
the front lines of the struggle against oppression. In doing so, a
person from a privileged background should be careful not to attempt to
assume control, as he or she has been conditioned to feel entitled to
do, but rather endeavor to provide support to others according to their
express wishes. Above all, would-be allies must stay sensitive, both to
the needs of others and to the tragedies in the world around them, and
put their outrage at the disposal of those who suffer these tragedies.
Oppression is not an individual problem, but a social phenomenon;
accordingly, while individuals can work on deconstructing it within
themselves and supporting others who are struggling against it, the most
important work against oppressive dynamics takes place in social groups.
Hierarchical power dynamics are common even in affinity groups,
collectives, and other groups that aspire to radical activity. Many
communities include aggressive or dominating individuals who, in
speaking or acting, hinder others from doing so. They offer their
opinions on every topic, take over the organizing of every project,
seize every opportunity to speak on behalf of others. Such dominating
individuals may believe that they are doing the majority of the work
because no one else would do it if they did not; but it can also be the
case that they are creating an environment in which others become
unwilling to fight for space in which to act. Taken by itself, this
behavior is only domination; but when one factors in the privileges many
domineering individuals abuse and perpetuate, it can be recognized as
yet another manifestation of oppression.
Individuals must develop the self-awareness to resist dominating social
situations and prevent others from dominating them. There are tools
groups can use collectively to this end, as well. Simple matters, such
as how accessible gathering times and locations are to different
demographics and whether childcare is available, can determine who is
and is not able to participate in specific projects and social circles.
In meetings, a group can give speaking priority to those who have been
speaking less, or to those who are more directly affected by the issue
in question. Discussions can be set up in a format that encourages the
equal participation of different groups: for example, women and men can
alternate speaking, so there will be equal proportions of male and
female voices heard. No structure can be counted on to be better than
the people who make use of it—there’s no substitute for self-awareness
and sensitivity—but such conventions can be a stepping stone to more
naturally egalitarian dynamics.
Another format useful for resolving conflicts or giving a group
perspective on its inner dynamics is sometimes called a “fishbowl.” This
exercise is like safer spaces and caucuses in that a space and time is
set aside for one demographic within the group to speak, but in this
case the rest of the group is present, listening to but not
participating in the discussion. This can be a tremendously instructive
opportunity for those with privilege to learn about others’ experiences,
and for those who experience challenges in working with privileged
individuals to address them; at the same time, this practice must be
applied with care, as it can make people feel singled out.
No one appreciates feeling used or put on display because of the color
of their skin or any other such characteristic. This is sometimes called
tokenization, and it is a blunder many commit in attempts to make their
communities more welcoming to “others.” Recruiting people of color,
women, or other less privileged demographics to prove one’s dedication
to anti-oppression work, or asking them to speak as “the minority” in
meetings or conversations, can itself be oppressive behavior.
Developing relationships with those who experience less privilege is no
guarantee that we will deal openly and consistently with race or any
other such issue. Too often, people claim to understand the experiences
of another group because of a high degree of exposure to them: “But my
best friend is black!” “But my stepfather wasn’t born here!” A white
person’s relationship with a person of color can never be a proof or a
credential of anti-racist consciousness.
All the same, working to dismantle the institutional, cultural, and
personal barriers that keep us alienated from one another is a
fundamental part of undermining white supremacy and other forms of
oppression. We may have to accept that there will always be more
barriers to remove, but in removing those we are able to we learn and
grow in revolutionary ways. Meaningful relationships that transcend
boundaries and constructs can offer a taste of the world oppression
otherwise denies us. Building friendships and alliances with people
whose experience of oppression is different from our own is much more
than a strategy for working towards specific political ends; it is also
a way to live life more fully and do our part to make it possible for
others do the same.