<< Front page News March 12, 2004

Anti-Oppression workshop addresses privilege

Ananti-racism and oppression position may not seem to be a controversial position at Oberlin, but according to organizers Riva Pearson and Kien Chou, who facilitated a workshop Sunday on “Building a Social Justice Movement with Anti-Oppression/Anti-Racist Strategies,” specialized training is needed to take on these problems in the real world.

The workshop dealt with combating personal and cultural prejudice and discrimination, particularly ethnic discrimination. The event was sponsored by OPAL, as well as the MRC, Committee on Privilege and Oppression, the Gender and Women’s Studies Department, Oberlin Young Friends and Amnesty International.

Through small group discussion and brainstorming activities, participants tried to find common
ground and new ways of understanding differences.

The first set of activities was designed to promote an understanding and discussion of class, ethnic and gender bias and the disparity of opportunity associated with them.

In order to help the students to conceptualize the global inequality in the allocation of resources, Pearson and Chou distributed pencils, giving 20 percent of the pencils to 80 percent of the students, and vice versa, and asking everyone to complete a simple timed test under these circumstances.

In the group with 20 percent of the pencils, no one finished the test, because there were not enough pencils to go around.

“The distribution of pencils in these groups is roughly equivalent to the distribution of wealth in the world,” Pearson said.

Participants were urged to see privilege and oppression as “two sides of the same coin.” In the zero-sum game of limited resources, if one person receives an opportunity, another does not.

The group then made a timeline of oppression and of resistance, talking about how and where national, familial and personal events fit in between the Spanish colonization of Hispaniola and now, including events such as Bacon’s Rebellion, Stonewall and 9/11, to reconceive American history.

A dialogue about the role of institutions such as education and housing in the perpetuation of a culture of white supremacy followed, along with an activity of owning and talking about one’s own experiences in consciously or unconsciously upholding this system.

The workshop ended with a discussion of barriers to and strategies for alliance building. This included creating a definition of what it is to be an ally and/or to utilize allies, and emphasized self-education, communication and listening to and integrating constructive criticism.

Sophomore OPAL member Rachel Marcus met the organizers at an activist training program offered by Students Transforming and Resisting Corporations.

“I wanted to bring them here because I want people to think more critically about privilege and oppression and how that plays out in our organizing,” Marcus said.

“Activist groups that I have been involved with often wondered why there haven’t been more people of color involved. I wanted white people especially to look at power dynamics in groups and in society and question why certain activist organizations might not be so ripe yet for this ideal of diversity and multiculturalism. Through this workshop, I hope that people thought more about where they stand in terms of privilege in society and how they can effect change and build community and coalitions for action more successfully.”


 
 
   

The Review News Service: News, weather, sports and more, in your ObieMail every Sunday and Wednesday night. (Click here to subscribe.)