This paper discusses two assigned textbooks from Bell Hooks and Paulo Freire and their thoughts on oppression in American culture. I will further explore two additional sources to help in reading this paper. Throughout human history, Oppression has played a big role in how people are perceived and treated. It goes as far as race, gender, ethnicity, sex, financial status, and social class of a person. It is a shame that man has taken power into his own hands to prejudge one another based on their background.
The Bible states that God created man in his likeness, therefore, all men are created equal. No man is superior and obviously, no man is inferior. The American society classifies people into privileged and unprivileged group. Oppression negatively affects our community; the victims of oppression are at the mercy of the oppressors physically, emotionally, and psychologically.
Oppression should be not be tolerated in the community under any circumstance. I believe that the different forms of oppression affecting the society are; classism, sexism, heterosexism, racism, and colonialism. In American Society, People deal with these different forms of oppression in their daily lives. Unfortunately, different groups of people are more oppressed than others. Oppression is the cruel and unjust treatment of a group of people (Collins English dictionary, 2010). I believe, the American government is one of the biggest players in oppression since they are responsible for oppressing most of society.
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The oppressed groups include women, single mothers, students, the working class, immigrants, African Americans, gays and lesbians, and the poor (minorities) in general. This oppression has however negatively affected American society and has been a center of discussion with a different point of views from various scholars and Medias. In my paper, my personal views will be addressed incorporating ideas from two assigned texts from Bell Hooks and Paulo Freire and two additional sources pertaining to oppression in American society.
In the first reading; “where we stand: class matters” (Hooks, 2009), Bell Hooks addresses the theme of classism in American society by addressing issues like racism, gender, sexism, and white supremacist. She introduces the book by discussing her poor upbringing. In the book, her arguments were tied to her personal experience that she developed during her childhood, and throughout her transformation from the working class to the upper class as she succeeded in academic life and writing books (Hooks, 2009). Classism is the dominant theme in the book and is highlighted by racism since racism is used by the privileged group to promote classism/oppression in a society (Hooks, 2009).
Bell Hooks discusses gender role in relation to oppression. Hooks explained the role that gender has played in American society. She used her patriarchal family, her relationship, and the liberation movement of women to explain the role played by gender. She stated that patriarchal power has given superiority to men over women and therefore, leaving wives oppressed by husband “In patriarchal households, dominating males often withhold funds for necessities as a way of maintaining coercive control over wives and children (Hooks, 2009). Usually, patriarchal abuse in relation to finances is talked about publicly only in relation to domestic violence.
Yet there are many homes in this society where physical violence is not present wherein financial withholding by a patriarchal head of household is the accepted norm. These men do not just control the money they make, they often control the spouse’s income as well” (Hooks, 2009), The government is to be blamed. The government has made these men feel superior because they have treated women as less equal to men.
Throughout history, Women have struggled find their voice in the society. The American women in general, labelled as inferior. The government has done so little if any to support their freedom (Hooks, 2009). Hooks also asserted that all American neighborhoods have undergone class and racial segregation. In her book, hooks use her personal experience at college to explain how racism and social class has affected the American society. “Most girls from poor backgrounds tried to blend in or fought back by triumphing over wealth with beauty or style or some combination of the above. Being black made me an automatic outsider.
Holding their world in contempt pushed me further to the edge” (Hooks, 2009). Being a person of color, I can attest that classism is present in American society. I think classism can be found anywhere, even in the taxation system. It is seen in malls, in grocery stores, and even within the government body. For example, if you compare shopping centers frequented by wealthy people to that frequented by poor people, you will notice that the customer services offered are different. The customer service is much friendlier in the shop frequented by wealthy people and very unfriendly at the shop frequented by the poor community.
Overall, the shopping experience is better when shopping at stores like TJ Maxx compared to Dollar General. Classism is practiced by treating someone wealthy better than someone who is poor which is a form of oppression. If I was to pull into a bank in a Mercedes car, then walk into the bank with a designer suit on, do you think they would treat me the same way if I walked in dressed in sandals looking like I was homeless person? Most likely not. In the second reading; “pedagogy of the oppressed” Paulo Freire addresses the issue of oppression in the education system and offered suggestion on how to liberate the oppressed.
Just like Bell Hooks, Freire’s arguments are tied to his personal experience that he developed through years of teaching literacy to Brazilian and Chilean peasants and laborers. His work at reforming the educational and political system in Brazil landed him into trouble with the authority. He served jail time and was exiled from Brazil for over 15 years (Freire, 2000). Freire attacks traditional education and called it oppressive in nature. In this form of education, which he calls the “banking” method, the teacher is the oppressor who enforces his dominance during teaching (Freire, 2000). The student, on the other hand, is expected to obey and follow. Students are passive and their critical thinking abilities are denied (Freire, 2000).
To make his point clearer on how the traditional education is killing our community, Freire uses extremely negative statement such as “education is suffering from narration sickness” and metaphors to compare students to “containers”, “receptacles”, and “slaves” who are allegedly oppressed by the “banking” method of education. (Freire, 2000).
Consequentially, Freire believes that the student’s creativity is denied, and the teacher simply deposit knowledge onto the students who memorizes the given information without understanding what it means (Freire, 2000). To counter the “banking” method of education, Freire suggests the “problem-posing” method as an alternative. Problem-posing education encourages student participation and creativity (Freire, 2000). The students join in a dialogue with the teachers to jointly come to conclusions about problems. The teacher does not individually decide on his own (Freire, 2000).
Before I read this book, I believed that the education system is lecturing versus active learning, but now I can relate it to oppression and liberation thanks to “Pedagogy of the oppressed” by Paulo Freire. (Freire, 2000). One of the parts that compelled me most in this book was the part on the Chilean community discussing the anthropological concept of culture. In the middle of the discussion, an ignorant peasant illustrated to the idea that a not-I cannot exist without a non-I. The peasant made a remark that “Now I see that without man there is no world” (Freire 2000). Here, Freire was demonstrating to the readers how individuals cultivate the banking model into their individual thoughts (Freire, 2000).
In all saying, Freire’s description of education relates to my personal experiences because I have felt limited in a lecture mostly when I was still a student in Uganda. A lot of my teachers never even held on discussion among students. They simply lectured and gave us study materials. Although I believed that my full potential was in critical thinking and active learning, I never questioned the system. Instead I embraced it for the simple fact that I was the student, the teacher. Even though many critical observations have been made about the “banking” and “problem-posing” methods of education, I do not fully agree with Freire’s statements.
I believe that both systems have positive and negative impacts. I do believe that a student should be more creative and active while learning, but I feel like it is very vital to learn the basic ideas first. I agree that the problem-posing concept is better in fostering learning but to some extent, I feel like other subjects of education may be better off with the banking concept. In a recent article titled “Georgia man was stalked by women as he cared for 2 white children” by Melissa Gomez, a black male was victimized by racial profiling (Gomez, 2018).
According to the article, Corey Lewis, 27, a black male resident of Marietta, Georgia was working as a babysitter when he was approached by a white woman who wanted to know if the two white children Corey was taking care of were okay (Gomez, 2018). stunt by the incident, Corey responded bitterly by saying “Why wouldn’t they be okay?” (Gomez, 2018). The women insisted on and tried to talk to one of the children, only to be denied permission by Corey. It propelled the women to call the police on Corey. Corey had this to say, “I didn’t know what was going on, what she wanted to do” (Gomez, 2018), believing that the women had called the police because he was a black man walking around with two white children. “I felt like my character was being criminalized” said Corey (Gomez, 2018).
I believe that this was an instance of a black person suffering oppression in America. She was wrong to assume that Corey kidnapped those kids. Black people are always victims of racial profiling in America. As a person of color, I live every day in fear of racial profiling in this country. This is unfair to me as an African because I find myself categorized in the same group as black Americans and just like them, I am considered violent, dangerous, and ignorant.
Lastly, I believe that immigrants are facing oppression in America. For as long as most immigrants can remember, they have faced oppression in this country. Whether it is denied access to resources, job opportunities, or just everyday life; they are being oppressed. In the article entitled “Racism and other problems that immigrants face in the United States”, (Oluoch, 2018) Oluoch stated that “ethnic, religious discrimination, and racism” are some of the forms of oppression that immigrants face in America (Oluoch, 2018). He also stated that “student immigrants with the F1 visa cannot get employed or work in companies that is not related at all to their course work” (Oluoch, 2018).
As an immigrant in this country, I agree with Oluoch that immigrants face ethnic and religious discriminations. For example, Muslim students are perceived to be terrorists. As a F1 student visa holder, I cannot do any paid job off campus before completion of my program of study and even after completion, I can only work in companies that offer opportunities associated with my area of study. I believe it is unfair especially for some of us who are in this country legally to be denied opportunities with the mindset that we are taking job away from American citizens.
