Mechanics of Oppression and Privilege - For many students, exploring the hows and whys of oppression is important. We may be angry and frustrated with this dynamic, but the students are not to blame for internalizing these messages. Hope is an embedded action as students express their commitments and changed understanding of the world.
It helps to anticipate that there will be attacks (overt or covert) on the legitimacy of the knowledge and the educator. Can you bracket these responses in the interest of the group and the individual learners. At the start of the training, most participants defer to the authority of the educator and tend to reduce the role of the other learners in the program.
This initial investment in the educator's authority can be a headache for the beginning educator. Excessive orientation towards the educator may be a sign of the "dualistic" learning stage.
Overview of the Sessions
Warm-ups
As a way to meet each other and set the political tone for the day, participants are given half of a statement and asked to find their match within the group of participants by conversation and trial and error. Placing them in a hat, the facilitator asks each participant to choose one and find their match within the group. Economic Stimulus” Tax cuts for the wealthy, despite evidence that their assets are sticky and non-flowing.
With a supply of markers, colored pencils and craft supplies (if desired), ask participants to draw their hopes for the future and what they want to create in the world. If they are asked to draw this vision, they are invited to do non-verbal work, thereby decentering the traditional power between the participants. We usually bow to the loudest and most eloquent speakers; allowing participants to draw encourages other leadership to emerge.
Ask participants to share their drawings with the group and post them on the wall for the duration of the program. The teacher can use it effectively to motivate specific students or the group as a whole.
T he Interplay of Oppression and Privilege
Building Empathy for Self and Others
Empathy for others usually develops one person at a time, and we hear stories about other people's experiences and, as Shulman (1987) says, prepare ourselves for their world by imagining what their lives will be like. For anti-oppression training, we can draw on the experiences in the training room, hearing the stories of the lives of the oppressed and privileged. Most often, stories about the lives of the oppressed are provided to educate the privileged.
When telling these stories is difficult and taxing (and we can rarely predict whether storytelling feels liberating or oppressive), the net impact is that the lives of the oppressed have once again been exploited for the benefit of the privileged. This is why some teachers choose not to use the lived experiences of the students in the classroom for such development, but rather use videos and stories from other sources. This is evidence of the generalizable nature of empathy that allows feelings for one whale to be felt across the entire population of whales in captivity.
Small groups are not required to report as this could be seen as exploiting stories shared within the faith of a smaller group. We encourage you not to do this – it serves as a validation of the experiences of everyone in the group and, if overlooked, can have a backlash that will disrupt future activities.
Awareness-Building Activities
Introduction: Included in this manual are the best of the sensitivity enhancement tools discovered over the past 15 years. They must be used to disrupt participants' understanding of the status quo and provide an alternative way of seeing the world. If you would consider it, please send a copy to the author and she will arrange for it to be published on our website.
Three particularly good videos are also suggested that can be shown to the group and then questioned based on the facilitator's objectives. This follows from the principles of small group activities to larger group activities presented in the first chapter. If you use the questionnaires, simply ask the group to choose the best answer and then record the answers to the large group.
You could make it a game and add up the results, giving some advantage to the winners and also some to the losers, like first placement on a video, because they have to listen deeply. If you are using fact sheets, prepare a series of questions that can serve as a basis for the small group discussions and to determine how feedback to the large group should be provided. Alternatively, the fact sheets can be blown up and hung on the wall so that everyone can view them when they come up against the wall.
Included with this guide is a set of 10 awareness-raising tools that can be used effectively to increase participants' ability to understand different forms of oppression and privilege. Peggy McIntosh's Unpacking a Lifetime of White Privilege - can be used as a questionnaire or a discussion paper). Read this story to see the harshness of the secretary's daily life and the unfair and inappropriate advantages given to the boss.
Money and raising children: This checklist was created by the author following a series in the Toronto Star on child poverty. Use of video is particularly good for increasing the variety of educational experiences and for appealing more fully to the hearts and minds of participants. It is powerful in the difficulty of having a cross-racial dialogue on the issue of race.
What percentage of white people live below the poverty line in Toronto?
What percentage of people with African roots live below the poverty line? What percentage of Ghanians? Ethopian? Somalies?
On average across Canada, the poverty rates are how much high- er for racialized communities?
What percentage of employment agencies were willing to accept a discriminatory job order (eg. Someone with “front office appeal”
Is this a problem unique to Toronto or widespread across Canada?
Does racial segregation in communities happens in Toronto?
What is the official motto for the City of Toronto?
How far has women’s liberation taken us?
What is the best predictor of heart disease? Smoking? Obesity?
What is the unemployment rate for women with disabilities?
If the average workweek is 40 hours, how many hours would a disabled woman need to work to earn that of non-disabled workers?
TRUE FALSE Low income people do not pay property tax
TRUE FALSE Income tax cuts are important for low income earners
TRUE FALSE Like any functioning democracy, the size of Canada’s middle class is increasing
TRUE FALSE Canadian society is class based
TRUE FALSE People on welfare pay no tax
What is minimum wage in Ontario?
When was the last time minimum wage was increased?
What does this equal in terms of loss of income (since inflation has occurred)?
Race, Class, Gender and Disability and the Economic Divide
Most of the time, I can go shopping by myself, and I'm pretty sure I won't be followed or harassed. I can turn on the television or open the front page of a newspaper and see that people of my race are widely represented. 4. Is it possible that your heterosexuality stems from a neurotic fear of others of the same sex.
5. If you've never slept with someone of the same sex, you may just need a good gay lover. Instructions: Photocopy any of the images used and decide on an approach to present them to the participants. Choose those that reflect the interests of the group and also encourage them to work on a less familiar issue.
Selection is the choice of the dominant group, depending on its biases, stereotypes and prejudices. 4. Cultural Imperialism – The perspectives and values of dominant groups set the norm, and the perspectives of everyone else become invisible. While not compromising core-edge dynamics, a comprehensive safety net ensures that the quality of life at the edges is acceptable.
We know that the conditions of superiority and privilege at the core depend on maintaining the exploitation and oppression of the margins. Such democracy issues emerge as critical elements of the social justice model. As you are in this dialogue, evaluate how it is going, as well as staying effectively engaged in a specific element of the dialogue.
Avoid provoking conflict – there are ways of discussing issues that polarize and create binary opposite understandings of the issues and a plethora of ways to stay in the mix. It is important to note that there is considerable confusion about political parties and the overall identity of their left and right character. It is appropriate for the group to consider these questions in connection with the role play.
Each of the main characters should have a team of 2-3 cheerleaders sitting directly behind them to encourage them in the roleplay. Use Voter Skills: Poorly matching actions with skills can result in failure. It may be helpful to post the suggested focus of the letter at the front of the room.
It gives you an idea of the taste of the program for the participants.