What if milk chocolate had the nutritional benefits of broccoli? What if Harry Potter died as a child instead, and Voldemort took over the world*? Posing such questions can be an amusing pastime, and as you may have guessed by now, purely imaginative. Indeed, I think compulsory attendance at an anti-oppression workshop would prove disastrous. But I think these workshops are worth thinking about, so I’ll share my experience and reflections.
What is it?
This weekend I participated an anti-oppression workshop as part of the Sexual Assault Support Centre’s volunteer training. I’ve actually taken part in two similar ones before, but each one is different. I’m writing here with an after-the-fact, reflective, and detached edge. In other words, a reflective-judgemental one, a viewpoint that I wouldn’t dare bring into the safe space we created in the workshop.
These workshops help us understand particular acts of domination through the broader perspective of oppressive power systems. For instance, it helps us locate particular acts of domination like sexist remarks demeaning the rational capacity of women or ableist architecture designed without adequate support to get around comfortably, under general institutional and societal frameworks of oppression. Not only that, but we often look at the intersectionality of oppressive systems (i.e. where the oppressive systems meet at their joints); how being both white and poor can mean living through different experiences than being white but not poor, or poor but not white.
Of course, in such a short timespan, you can’t exactly go Foucault on the power relations at play, or critique it up Marx-style (that’s what my theoretical philosophy courses are for!) before you dive right into and engage with the manifest realities of dominating power structures. We often participate in components like “Flower Power”: an exercise where you locate yourself in relation to the dominant power structures in areas such as ethnicity, culture, social class, sex, sexuality, etc. You get to know what invisible unearned powers you have (otherwise known as privileges), and what unearned penalties you have. We sometimes participate in components like “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”: an exercise where you step forwards or backwards depending on how much privilege you have. Some examples are:
0“ If you ever attended a private school or summer camp take one step forward.” (Source).
0“If you generally think of the police as people that you can call on for help in times of emergency take one step forward.” (Source).
0″If you were ever embarrassed or ashamed of your clothes, your house or your family car when growing up take one step backward.” (Source).
0“ [If you]…can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of [your] race [take one step forward].” (Source).
0“ [If you] can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having [your] co-workers on the job suspect that [you] got it because of [your] race [take one step forward]. “(Source).
Experience and Reflections
I find that in all of my experiences, I go through similar strains of thoughts–which means I need to get them out of my system so I can stop thinking about them and start thinking fresh ideas!
First and foremost, I find it truly eye-opening (and you can imagine the first time I did this!) how other people suffer the little thing in ways I’ve never even had to think about. For example, never would I have thought that constantly shut down elevators could be more than just a mere ”inconvenience” but an actual roadblock for people who cannot go up stairs. (I remember visiting Paris this summer and lamenting over how there are so few elevators in antique buildings!) If you’re not in that position where you have to think about it, you simply don’t. And that lack of awareness actually reinforces the problems for those who do.
I know a lot of people feel really guilty going through this portion of the experience. I think this is where my optimistic side kicks in, and I start thinking about ways in which I can help make my community more safe, more accessible, less oppressive.
Second, I notice the ways in which I have felt the effects of oppressive systems. I feel somehow…relieved. I know, at least, that it’s okay to be frustrated about the “little things,” and that I shouldn’t blame myself for picking them out previously.
I also think of how awesome the people in the room are, and how safe a space this feels, and “why can’t there be more community spaces where we can feel like this?” Our classrooms would be less tense, our social spaces less hurtful, UBC actually awesome.
Then kick in my detached thoughts.
What does “oppression” mean, then? It’s typically used to describe the dominating force of power on a group’s “negative liberties”/”freedom from external constraints”. Is it fair to apply the term oppression to (some of those experiences) better explained in terms of “positive liberties”/”freedom from internal constraints”? The language of oppression (and of liberty, for that matter) directs our thoughts in certain directions, and if this is “oppression,” then there could be a great deal of implications…
And how do I explain the second thoughts I have after the feeling of being relieved, second thoughts like, “deal with it, it’s not that bad”? Do they have to do with my own internalization of “oppression”? Or are they legitimate critiques of a (and I would never judge others like this, but as master of my own experiences and as a self-critical, maybe even self-blaming, judge)…self-affirming, excuse?
Silly things like that in silly sentences like that, which no one can follow.
As you can tell, I find that anti-oppression workshops are really effective and fascinating exercises and I would recommend anyone who has a genuine interest in caring to check it out.
*By the way, if any Harry Potter fans can explain to me what the whole deal was with “love” saving Harry as a little boy (and how the hell he got a horcrux inside him as opposed to death), I will owe you one. I think I may have figured this out at one point but every time I come up with a theory again, I end up refuting it.
Edit Jan 24th, 2012: Nevermind, I found out the answer. So not satisfying.
miriam