I carefully looked up the term Oppression in Wikipedia to give myself an actual definition before reading Frye's reading on Oppression. It breaks it down into several different meanings but the one definition I most could identify with is heavily burdened, mentally or physically by troubles,adverse conditions and anxiety. Whew, in reading this definition, it makes me feel like maybe I am an oppressed woman on this very Tuesday in 2009. With every effort it takes me to write this blog I wanted to take a different perspective. Speak from the heart perhaps to understand and compare myself and my surroundings to Frye's ideas of the word. For example she states it is often a requirement upon oppressed people that we smile and be cheerful. If we comply, we signal our docility and our acquiescence in our situation. Anything but the sunniest countenance exposes us to being perceived as mean,bitter,angry or dangerous. This is so true to our mere existence! Sometimes I feel we are caught by forces as she states. All these big issues that make us who we are or who we are not. Are we single,married,on welfare,have children,eat good, exercise daily. I wish we all could just be ourselves and not be labeled as such. These restrictions do make us immobile sometimes. Sometimes I do think that as a United States citizen we do have so many choices. We are lucky to have that but regardless of these choices do any of you feel trapped like you have been caught in this circle. I think sometimes it is luck if you happen to get out of your circle. That circle can also last for years until you break through to the other side..break on through to the other side..sorry had to sing that. How many of you think that in a sense we are oppressed in our life that has been presented to us and we have to figure out where to go from here. Sometimes we are at other people's whims versus our own. The only reason I was blessed to come to VCU was on a mere whim that the federal government would come through for me based on my circumstance. How much life do we actually have control over? Have your barriers ever penalized your motion in any direction?How did you break free from these barriers to move on. Was that challenge enough to take all of your energies away to where when you finally fought for what you wanted but you were too drained to actually start your new lifestyle. Oppression to say the least is exhausting.
Check out what true Oppression means to people in Arabia
http://www.oppression.org/info/
Can you imagine being born into these conditions?Wandering the streets,dodging bullets as hey pick food out of the garbage. Can you imagine if this was your luck of the draw. What if you could never escape from this? At least we as Americans can escape into something. I do feel lucky for that. I do. I read this article after blogging and now feel like our idea of Oppression in America is so minut compared to these men,woman and children. I feel maybe I want to take back my complaints about our barriers and really focus on way worse barriers than we endure. I am not going back to change my writings. I want to share with everyone how I just learned something. Sometimes we have nothing to complain about in retrospect.
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Hana Admassu
ReplyDeleteI really like your response and how you take a stand taking Frye's perspective and stating your own idea's by explaining what oppression is and its effect in our day to day life. I also agree that we are caught by forces that we don't have control with and sometimes things that we can't change regardless of how hard we try. some of us work hard, go to school trying to change our life for better and sometimes to also change our families life, but there ate these invisible forces that we can't control which holds us back even though we try hard. just like you said we also have choices to do what we want, but what we want is not always easy to get because there are always these forces such as oppression caused by the government or people that don't give us enough option to do what we ought to do or to follow the path we want to follow.Especially, coming from a very poor family who are oppressed by institutionalized oppression, such as corrupted government which in a country i used to live and many of my friend still lives, choice is such a huge dilemma and unimaginable. Instead, you just have to do what you do not chose to do, rather do what the government or others who are in power want you to do to keep yourself and your family a live. choice again is a luxury for some people who don't have enough opportunity to go to school, have enough food, shelter, and peace such as the people in Arabia. therefor, just like you mentioned it will be really hard to break out from a circle of oppression, without having enough choice or control over what makes us who we are.