Oppression in America

ABOUT OPPRESSION

It is human nature for us to want to be better than someone else; maybe that's why PRIDE was considered the chief of the seven deadly sins in the medieval Christian church.  But when we use what POWER we have, legally or politically, to push around another group or prevent them from exercising their human rights, then that's oppression.

Notice that OPPRESSION as we study it in literature has to do with one group who is in power over another group who is not in power. Three large groups who experienced this oppression in the late 1800s and early 1900s  were women, Indians, and Blacks. In all three cases, the oppressed people were denied civil rights (not allowed to vote, for example), were denied legal financial rights, and were sometimes physically abused by those in power with no consequences levied on the oppressing group.

This is different from BULLYING where maybe one kid is abusive to another or a woman is abusive to a man or man to a woman. Those are normal in any society--not good, but not a whole group over another big group.

 Oppression is a big theme in American literature from its inception until now. So it's necessary that you notice it and try to understand its impact. In our American history we have had lots of oppression: English/American colonists over the Native Americans (the colonists had JUST escaped the oppression of the English church/government over them); the Puritan church over anyone who disagreed with them (if a woman taught her faith or a man disagreed with the Puritan establishment, she or he could be hanged as a witch); one political group over another, depending on who's in power; white over African American; everybody over the Irish in New York; everybody over the Jews, except in New York; men over women,  etc., etc.

Oppression is about one group with POWER bullying one without or with less power. One that we even fought a war over is white over African American. By, the way, slavery ended in 1863, but oppression continued for another 100 years because of Jim Crow laws, which prevented African Americans from attending white schools and receiving appropriate pay for jobs; worst was that, because of the rigid social structure prior to 1950, whites were rarely punished for crimes against blacks. SO don't say that Oprah grew up in slavery (seriously, many of my students have said that!!). Oprah grew up with me--same era, same town. (Well, I'm older, so I didn't really know her.) Morgan Freeman is older than either of us. He grew up in a Delta town, but he wasn't a share cropper, and he sure as heck wasn't a slave!!

However, my dad WAS a share cropper, and he was white. The thing is that, without a knowledge of history, we get some weird ideas about the oppressors. Dad, like many other people (white, black, Hispanic, Asian) then and now, was a victim of class oppression--the rich over the poor; though he will roll over in his grave if any of y'all tell him I used the word VICTIM to describe him. He overcame the oppression, not to become rich or even barely middle class, but to achieve self-esteem.

Even more prevalent "victims" of oppression were women. And my dad, who had precious little power in the rest of the world, told my mother how to vote--so she really did not have political power at all. She thought that he was a good husband even though he thought that women were inferior to men, well until one of his daughters became a doctor and all of us became more educated than he--ha. (By the way, we all worked our way through college, not because we were oppressed, but because we were determined to get a degree or two). But, legally, women were not allowed to vote until 1929, not allowed on juries until the early 1900s, and in many areas prohibited (legally or not) from making equal money for equal jobs, etc. 

Anyway, you get the idea I hope. In our literature, we see LOTS of oppression, some through unfair laws, some through ethnic prejudice. We did have one writer who was an African American scholar writing to inspire people in his race to demand the rights guaranteed them as citizens of the U.S.. One of the characters studied was surrounded by wealth and position, but virtually imprisoned because of her postpartum depression. Which one? One writer in this module was in a family that had been dislocated to another part of the country and has to decide whether she will be educated by the white people. And others who were seemingly living in an environment of possible oppression fought back by whatever means available and prevailed. Who were they?