Class 1:
Awareness of Oppression/Privilege
&
Building Ally Skills
AUGUST 13, 2012
Objectives
 To deepen our understanding of dynamics of oppression




and privilege
Understand insidiousness of such dynamics (through
experiential exercise)
Practice interrupting oppression and privilege when we
encounter it
Make the links of this content to own site of practice
Build core competencies for AOP-informed selfawareness and engagement
Core Competencies
1.
Awareness of context in the following areas:



2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Self-awareness as embodied and socially located
The issues challenging this community today and in history
The larger discourse issues that influence how we understand
people and their difficulties
Practice of deep self-reflection
Building lifelong commitments to unlearning racism &
dominance
Ally skills
Methods to interrupt oppression
Noting impact of this work on your family, social and
work circles
Overview of today
 Pre-session review

Learning the local context



Reading materials











At minimum, review data from Burns Institute on your state’s DMC data, looking at history of
disproportionality in different areas.
 http://www.burnsinstitute.org/state_map.php.
Ideally, review poverty data for region for groups of different race & ethnicities and compare with 5
years ago
Morley – Teaching critical practice: Resisting structural domination through critical reflection
Tatum – The complexity of identity: “Who am I?”
Kirk & Okazawa-Rey – Identities and social locations: Who am I? Who are my people?
Ayvazian – Interrupting the cycle of oppression: The role of allies as agents of change
Review of key elements of AOP webinar
Introduction to the AOP model as applied to Reclaiming Futures
Introduction to the triangle tool – an analysis tool
Presentation on dominant discourse
Presentation on ally skills & interrupting privilege
Activity on interrupting privilege
Assign homework

Complete sensitivity tools where you hold a privileged identity
Review of Webinar
 Conflict perspective – power imbalances at root of




distress
Accounts for distress much better (and in non-blaming
ways) than psychosocial models
Multi-level manifestations and multi-level interventions
Better explain disparities
Counter-cultural lens… this is a hard sell, particularly in
the justice field
AOP as applied to the RF context
 Service fragmentation… who wins & who loses?
 The more money is wasted and the more people are hurt
 More money expended
 Services that are not designed for the people who
are service users

Our services are classed and raced (white, middle/upper
class)
 Avenue of social control rather than social change
 Compliance and silence instead of liberation and increased
entitlement to voice and
Key Elements of Self-Awareness
• Influences our ability to empathize & understand
• We will focus today on privilege (as opposed to oppression)
• We are all socialized to be (dare I say it?) racist, classist,
sexist, homophobic, ageist
– Need to perpetually “unlearn” the isms and know it is a
lifelong task
• We hold positional power (as workers in services) that
reinscribes dominance over clients and communities
– So need to be aware and have practices to moderate our power
• While the behaviors may not be as durable or far-reaching as
systems change work…
• How we treat people matters!
• There is one view (from Foucault) that says we reproduce
or resist domination in every encounter – so every
interaction is an avenue for resistance
Triangle tool
(Focus of
today)
(Focus of other
classes)
(Focus of
today)
Introduction to Dominant Discourse
 Equated with the “powerful ideas” on Triangle Tool
 Synonyms = ideology, socialization, myths
 Definition = set of meanings, images and/or statements that
work together to construct who people are, without saying
much
 Not usually intentional but so “commonsense” that it is not
challenged
 Function



Limits who we are and who we can be
Prescribes being “normal” via defining insiders and outsiders
Serves to reproduce dominance
 Examples
 Femininity constructed via “pink”
 Masculinity constructed by “manly”
Reflections on Dominant Discourse
 What is reproduced in the image?
 How is the colonizer portrayed?
 How are the colonized portrayed?
 How is Christianity portrayed?
 What is portrayed of the relationship between the two?
 Is this image a dominant one?
 What is the impact of images & texts like this?
 That one was easy… let’s take on something
harder…
What dominant discourses are in photo?
 What do you notice about the picture?
 How is motherhood constructed?
 How is female constructed?
 How is it gendered, raced, classed, aged and sexually




oriented?
What norms (or “normativity”) is reproduced here?
What is your experience if you are outside these
norms?
What is the consequence of hanging this photo (or
equivalent image) in a battered women’s shelter?
What happens to the culture of the organization?
What if this impact is not intended? (“it’s just a nice picture!”)
 In the AOP framework, the impact is what matters
 Important because we don’t have to prove motivation in
order to take the issue seriously
 Significance of disproportionality in our systems is what
matters – we don’t have to slide into proving what
someone intended, just that the impact exists
 One benefit is that in interrupting such dominance, we
can presume intention did not exist. We can simply
suggest that the impact exists, and bypass the issue of
intention.

People prefer to have the best presumed about them, rather than the
worst.
What about discursive language?
 “The smell of urine was in the hall.”
 “The client was late for 3 sessions in a row.”
 “Amanda denies using cocaine.”
 “This is an at-risk client.”
 “Carlos comes from an intact family.”
 Other examples?
Most insidious impact?
 It plays a significant role in the reproduction of the
status quo and the power held by the privileged
 This is a vehicle for the privileged to justify their power

Because we have dehumanized and rendered the oppressed in a
one-down space as one of inferiority
 Lets the privileged bypass the immorality of their
superiority, letting them ignore cognitive dissonance of
injustice of superior/inferior systems
 Even lets the privileged take on the savior role as one of
civilizing, helping and placating the oppressed
 What is the impact on social services here?
 Discussion: How does dominant discourse
show up in RF sites?
Added features?
 How is the service itself constructed?
 Innocent
 “Helping” in untroubled manner
 Beyond reproach
If clients complain – being “ungrateful” or “oppositional”
 If staff complain – being “duped” or “bleeding heart”

Anti-Oppressive Ally Skills
 Work through resistance (yours and others) that shows up
in many forms
 “That all happened a long time ago – don’t blame me.”
 “I’m not racist (or sexist or classist).”
 “I’m a good person – I’ve never done anything nasty to
someone who is struggling. So don’t blame me.”
 “I have friends who are oppressed.”
 “I don’t see people as black or white; I see them all as
part of the human race.”
Ally practices
 Assume racism (and other forms of oppression) is everywhere,






everyday.
Be a worker in your own liberation struggle. Work to end oppression
when you experience it.
Help members of your own group understand oppression.
Listen and reflect. Listen some more. And then listen deeper. And again.
Recognize that being a member of an oppressor group does not make
you bad.
Remember that being privileged means you can’t know what it is like to
be oppressed. Assume that you don’t understand or don’t understand
enough.
Count your privileges and help others see their privilege too. Break the
invisibility of privilege.

Applies across identities including as person of color who holds privilege of class or
status
 Speak up when you see or hear oppression in action.
More ally skills
 When working in solidarity with the oppressed:
Work in service of their leadership and their empowerment
 Don’t assume that you know what is best for them.
 Never take public credit or attention for their process.
 Don’t expect the group to easily agree – no group does.
 Don’t expect them to reward you for your efforts. They need energy for their
struggle.
Learn everything you can about the oppression. Don’t drain their resources on
your education.
Work with your own privileged group to learn about oppression and support
each other.
It takes hard work to be in sincere relationships with the oppressed. Don’t give
up.
Be yourself. You will carry the burden of your identity. Look for good role
models.
Deal with your emotions. This is difficult work. Be really honest with yourself.
Find someone to work through the hard times.






What people of color say they want from whites
Respect us
Find out about us
Don’t take over
Provide information
Resources
Take risks
Don’t take it personally
Understanding
Teach your children about
racism
 Speak up
 Don’t be scared by my anger
 Listen to us









 Don’t make assumptions
 Stand by my side
 Don’t assume you know what







is best for me
Money
Make mistakes
Honesty
Talk to other white people
Don’t ask me to speak for my
people
Support
Your body on the line
How to interrupt oppression
 Confront the behavior


Not doing so serves to sanction & perpetuate the actions
Silence is complicity
 Methods





Express your disapproval of the behavior… assert yourself
Interrupt and educate, explaining what is oppressive about the behavior
Support the proactive responses of others (that promote understanding
of differences & take action to promote understanding)
Initiate a proactive response that allows you to work for change more
widely & directly
Extending your intervention...
On Graceful Interventions
 Please aspire to the following









To notice and interrupt
To educate as opposed to shame
To believe in the possibility of learning and transformation (or else why are
we doing this?)
To accept apologies
To enter such engagement with grace
To be willing to hold ourselves complicit as well
To bracket self-righteousness
To occupy a stance of humility for all the work we still have to do
To love and to exhibit love, compassion & forgiveness
 And to be gentle & forgiving with yourself, for these are
aspirations that we are rarely likely to attain!
Practicing Interventions
 You listen to a customer give a cashier a hard time – she
says, “I can’t understand you. Why don’t you learn
English?”
 As you walk past an intake room, you hear the worker
utter an “uugh” as she hears the customer confirm he is
in a homosexual relationship.
 Your brother says: “She’s getting pregnant just so she
can get welfare.”
 “Can’t you take a joke? Ever since you took that training
program, you’re no fun to be around.”
Homework and follow-up: Sensitivity Tools
 Race


Video of “A girl like me” can be viewed on your own at the following site:
http://www.mediathatmattersfest.org/watch/6/a_girl_like_me.
Unpacking a lifetime of white privilege (in pre-reading for the course)
 Class

Money & raising children
 Age

Adultism tool
 Gender

Sexism & male dominance
 Positional privilege

On being the boss