POWER, PRIVILEGE, & OPPRESSION

facilitated by Antoinette Myers & Yuka Ogino

AGENDA

• Introductions
• Vocabulary Breakthrough:
• Power, Privilege, and Oppression
• BREAK
• Salient Identities/Social Identity Wheels
• Cycle of Oppression
• BREAK
• What Can You Do For Scripps?
• Discussion/Debrief
• Evaluations & Closing
INTRODUCTIONS

• Fill out your name tag. Please

include your pronouns!

• Example:

Jordan Genderbread

(she/her/hers, they/them/theirs)

• Meet Antoinette! Meet each

other!
LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Participants will have had an opportunity to discuss openly topics of race, class, ability,
religious oppression, and power/privilege in a staff-only space.

• Participants will learn specific vocabulary used on campuses and within academia to describe a
multitude of everyday life experiences and perspectives.

• Participants will be educated on microaggressions in order to reduce and attempt to eliminate the
racist, classist, sexist, heterosexist, ableist, and privileged attitudes on our campus (from the
Strategic Plan).

• Participants will be able to engage in meaningful conversations with their colleagues around
multiple topics and learn about multiple perspectives in a brave space.

• Anything else? What are you hoping to do here?

GROUND RULES/BRAVE SPACE
• The Vegas Rule:
• Be the expert of your
• Learning leaves and the experience, use "i" statements
names/stories stay here.
• Be okay with silence
• Share the air
• Leave space for processing and
• Challenge yourself to be after-processing, both inside
respectful of all each other's and outside of the space (aka
feelings, perspectives, take care of yourself)
abilities, and identities (and
your own) • Reserve the right to change
your mind
• Remember it’s not just the
intent that matters, but also • Is there anything you’d like to
the impact add?
PART ONE:
ENHANCING OUR
VOCABULARY
MATCHING GAME

1. Power
a. A social identity used interchangeably with biological sex in a system that
2. Privilege presumes if one has male characteristics, one is male, and if one has female
characteristics, one is female.
b. The system of ordering a society in which people are divided into sets based on
3. Oppression perceived social or economic status.
c. A system that maintains advantage and disadvantage based on social group
memberships and operates, intentionally and unintentionally, on individual,
4. Race institutional, and cultural levels.
d. One’s natural preference in sexual and/or romantic partners.
e. A category that describes membership to a group based on real or presumed
5. Ethnicity common ancestry, shared languages and/or religious beliefs, cultural heritage
and group history.
f. The sense of self, providing sameness and continuity in personality over time;
6. Identity the condition of being oneself and not another.
g. Unearned access to resources only readily available to some people as a result

7. Gender h.
of their advantaged social group membership.
A socio-historical category used to divide people into populations or groups
based on physical appearance, such as skin color, eye color, hair color, etc.

8. Sexual Orientation i. The ability to decide who will access to resources; the capacity to direct or
influence the behavior of others, oneself, and/or the course of events.

9. Class
Group a. A social identity used interchangeably with biological
sex in a system that presumes if one has male
characteristics, one is male, and if one has female
characteristics, one is female.
1. Power b. The system of ordering a society in which people are
divided into sets based on perceived social or
economic status.
2. Privilege c. A system that maintains advantage and
disadvantage based on social group memberships
and operates, intentionally and unintentionally, on
3. Oppression individual, institutional, and cultural levels.
d. One’s natural preference in sexual and/or
romantic partners.
4. Race e. A category that describes membership to a group
based on real or presumed common ancestry,
shared languages and/or religious beliefs, cultural
5. Ethnicity heritage and group history.
f. The sense of self, providing sameness and continuity in
personality over time; the condition of being oneself
6. Identity and not another.
g. Unearned access to resources only readily available to
some people as a result of their advantaged social
7. Gender group membership.
h. A socio-historical category used to divide people into
populations or groups based on physical
8. Sexual Orientation appearance, such as skin color, eye color, hair color,
etc.
i. The ability to decide who will access to resources; the
9. Class capacity to direct or influence the behavior of
others, oneself, and/or the course of events.
just male or female

éefined by Dody parts

sexual orientation

determined by chromosomes
PART TWO:
BREAKING IT ALL THE WAY
DOWN
ON POWER

Power in defense of freedom is greater than power

in behalf of tyranny and oppression, because
power, real power, comes from our conviction
which produces action, uncompromising action.
–Malcolm X
UNDERSTANDING POWER
• Religion
Social group: • Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist,
• A group of people who share a range of Hindu
physical, cultural, or social characteristics • Age
within one of the social identity categories. • Elders, young people, adults
• Gender
• Examples of social identity categories: • Women, Men, genderqueer,
• Sex: transgender
• Female, male, intersex • Ethnicity
• Class: • Irish, Dominican, German
• Owning class, working class, poor,
middle class
• Sexual orientation
• Lesbian, gay, heterosexual, bisexual
• Physical, developmental,
and psychological ability
• Able-bodied, disabled, mental illness
• Race
• Black, White, Latin@, Native
American, Asian, biracial,
multiracial
FOCUSING INWARDS:
ON SALIENT IDENTITIES
Take a few moments to think about your own identities.
Which social groups do you belong to?

Salient identities are the identities that come into play in different
situations.

Reflect on the following questions to yourself:

Which of your social group memberships were easiest to identify?
Which of your social group memberships were most difficult to
identify?
What questions are raised for your about your social group
memberships?
In your group:
Talk about how this worksheet might have enabled you to think
about yourself in new ways.
DYNAMICS OF SOCIAL GROUPS

• Social statuses:
• Within each social identity category, some people have greater access to social power
and privilege based on membership in their social group.
• Often, this group is called the advantaged group.
• We call group who access to social power is limited or denied, the targeted group.
• When you hear students or colleagues use the following terms in official paperwork
or even in community conversation:
• Advantaged: agent, dominant, oppressor, privileged
• Targeted: target, subordinate, oppressed, disadvantaged

• Social groups are afforded different status in the United States based on multiple
historical, political, and social factors.
• This affects the abilities of people in different groups to access resources
• Most of these differences and identities are socially constructed
Social construction: taken for granted assumptions about the world,
knowledge, and ourselves assumed to be universal rather than
historically and culturally specific ideas created through social
processes and interactions.
TALKING ABOUT POWER AT
SCRIPPS
• What does it mean to have power at Scripps?

• When you hear that others feel as though they

are “second-class citizens”, what do you think that
means?

• If you are feeling unempowered at Scripps,

why might that be? If your colleague feels
unempowered, how can you support them?

• What does a balance of power look like

on campus?
BALANCING POWER

Using racial justice as an

example of balancing power:

Racial Justice ≠ diversity

Diversity = variety

Racial Justice ≠ Equality

Equality = sameness

Racial Justice = equity

Equity = fairness, justice
People get what they need
On Privilege
“Privilege exists when one group has something of
value that is denied to others simply because of the
groups they belong to, rather than because of
anything they’ve done or failed to do. Access to
privilege doesn’t determine one’s outcomes, but it is
definitely an asset that makes it more likely that
whatever talent, ability, and aspirations a person with
privilege has will result in something positive for them.”
–Peggy McIntosh
UNDERSTANDING PRIVILEGE
• What does it mean to have privilege?
• It is defined as “unearned access to resources (social power) only
readily available to some people as a result of their advantaged social
group membership”.
• Determining who has privilege or disadvantage is complex because
cultural, social, and historical changes affect which groups are privileged
and which groups are not.
• Some may pass as members of an advantaged group:
• For example, some people may change their names to
protect themselves from discrimination.
• Some may be given privileged because they are assumed to be
members of an advantaged group.
• For example: a bisexual person in a heterosexual
relationship may be assumed to be heterosexual and thus
treated differently.

• Privilege Article Read + Discuss

TALKING ABOUT PRIVILEGE AT
SCRIPPS
• When talking about privilege, most folks feel uncomfortable. Having privilege is not
inherently a bad thing, but it is how you utilize it and how others are impacted by it, that you
must vigilantly attend to.

• What does privilege look like at Scripps? Can you think of examples of the following types
of privilege?

• Class privilege

• White privilege

• Heterosexual privilege

• Able-bodied privilege

• Religious privilege

• Citizenship privilege

• Name one action that can be done to provide access to those at Scripps who may not
have these privileges.
PART THREE:
DOING THE SELF WORK
“All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that
though the will of the majority is in all cases to
prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable;
that the minority possess their equal rights, which
equal law must protect, and to violate would be
oppression.”
–Thomas Jefferson
UNDERSTANDING OPPRESSION

• A system that maintains advantage and disadvantage based on social

group memberships, and operates, intentionally and unintentionally, on
individual, institutional, and cultural levels.

• Individual: attitudes and actions that reflect prejudice against a social

group (unintentional and intentional).

• Institution: policies, laws, rules, norms, and customs enacted by organizations

and social institutions that disadvantage some social groups and
advantage other social groups (intentional and unintentional).

• Societal/cultural: social norms, roles, rituals, language, music, and art that
reflect and reinforce the belief that one social group is superior to
another (intentional and unintentional).
Matrix
WALKING THROUGH RACISM:
AN EXAMPLE
• What does Interpersonal Racism mean? What are some examples of this type of racism?
• Interpersonal Racism is when an individual shows negative ideas or actions towards
another race or culture not their own. All types of people have these attitudes, but
these attitudes are most obvious in the White dominated society we live in.

• What does Internalized Racism mean? What are some examples of this type of racism?
• Internalized Racism is when, either knowing it or not, someone has negative ideas about
themselves and their race or culture. These negative images come from racist ideas and
images put out in society claiming that White people are superior. Basically, this is
someone who feels that their race or culture is bad or at least not as good as the White
culture and race.

• What do you think Institutional Racism means? What are some examples of this type
of racism?
• Institutional Racism is the laws and practices that institutions create in order to benefit
White people at the expense of people of color. The outcomes of these policies and
practices always have negative effects on people of color. Institutional Racism is
different from interpersonal or internalized racism because it does not just affect one
person; it affects large groups of people at once. The flipside of Institutional Racism is
White Privilege, the fact that White people have social advantages in things like getting
jobs, getting into college, and running government and businesses.
UNDERSTANDING CLASSISM:
AN EXAMPLE
Levels of Classism

Individual Classism:
• A middle-class person calls secondhand clothes “tacky”
• Holds a prejudice that the reason people are poor is because they are lazy or stupid;
• Assumes everyone can either afford or feel comfortable going to an expensive restaurant
• Believes a certain kind of work is beneath him or her.

Institutional Classism:
• A hospital keeps a medicaid patient for fewer days than a privately insured patient with the same
condition because the amount paid to the hospital is less
• Schools in poor neighborhoods have fewer resources and larger student-teacher ratios than more
affluent neighborhoods because money for schools is based on local property taxes
• Colleges give preference to children of alumni, thus making it harder for first-generation college
applicants to get in
• A college reserves the most convenient parking spaces for faculty, even though they usually work
more flexible hours than support staff.

Cultural Classism:
• A newspaper runs pictures and a prominent article on a “highsociety”
wedding while not listing or highlighting a working-class couple’s wedding
• TV shows and movies that portray poor and working-class people as stupid buffoons
(Homer Simpson) or as reactionary bigots (Archie Bunker).
THE CYCLE OF OPPRESSION
“Women are bad at math
and science”
Stereotype: “women are bad at math and science”
Prejudice: dismissing, or “not taking women seriously”
Discrimination: not hiring women for certain jobs
Institutionalization: Women make up 24% of the STEM
workforce, versus men making up 76% - Office of
Science and Technology, White House
Internalization: 66% of 4th grade girls say they like math
and science. But only 18% of all college engineering
majors are female
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP3cyRRAfX0
MICROAGGRESSIONS:
WHAT ARE THEY?

Watch video here

DISCUSS

What are some microaggressions that you may have overheard in

the workplace?

How might you react or intervene when you hear a microaggression

being directed to someone?
break
PART FOUR:
APPLYING KNOWLEDGE
TO OUR LIVED REALITIES
WHAT CAN YOU DO
FOR SCRIPPS?
• Think about your departments and
divisions, and the ways that these may
systems may manifest:

• in the office with colleagues

• with/around students

• Think of some actions:

• Examples:

• Petitions

• New policies

• Updated forms

• Themed staff meetings &

discussion sessions
PART FIVE: RESOURCES
SCORE

- Offers workshops and

trainings on social
justice topics, diversity,
and inclusivity

- Programming

- Network of social
justice educators

[email protected]
CONSORTIUM CENTERS
• OFFICE OF BLACK STUDENT
AFFAIRS

• CHICAN@/LATIN@ STUDENT
AFFAIRS

• ASIAN/ASIAN AMERICAN
RESOURCE CENTER

• QUEER RESOURCE CENTER

• STUDENT DISABILITY
RESOURCES CENTER
EVALUATIONS & CLOSING
Please take a few moments to tell us what you think! Be honest!
THANK YOU!
Without you, this wouldn’t be possible! Thank you for openness, warmth,
enthusiasm, and participation! May we continue to forward in community!