“Which opportunity?” I was reminded of these data charts a few days ago when I read a post about summer knowledge loss and unequal summer opportunities for students of color and students facing poverty. I have met very few people - if any, since I can’t think of any names - that given an opportunity fail to take it. The dominant race/culture are quick to point out how much better things are today than, say, 75 years ago. Some sort of statement commending the additional opportunities afforded historically oppressed subgroups usually follows this. At the highest levels of our power system, congress (house and senate), I look for evidence of equality. I also look to the most shameful of the system, prisons, for that same evidence. The congress and the prison demographics should match the demographics of the country if equal opportunities were available to all assuming that everyone capitalizes on authentic opportunity. The disparities displayed from this 2010 US Census and 2010 US Department of Corrections data are glaring. So how can the message from the dominant power base (from this data, white males) about significant improvement be so obviously wrong? The answer lies in the definition of an opportunity and the definition of success since they go hand-in-hand. These definitions are created through the narrow lens of privilege and power, and support the very narrow band of people that have true access to these definitions. These definitions also, however, support what we have been led to believe are the only definitions. They have been created by the dominant race, gender, and culture to maintain the devaluing of deviation and the funding of assimilation. But what happens if I am not a white, affluent, male? The answer is very simple: you can be successful if you assimilate. Granted you will never be white or male – and that will ultimately prevent complete success – but, if you really want this, all of these opportunities are open to everyone. Listen carefully to the rhetoric about diversified successes and the way this is measured. It could easily be termed, “the statistics on how many non-white males have assimilated.” As the data in this post shows, at the levels on high and low, the actual success is elusive because people cannot change their race or gender, and current systems make it very difficult to get out of poverty. What about schoolteachers, auto mechanics, ministers, purchasing agents, on and on? They hardly fit the success definition. The widely publicized caste system that self-sustains the 1% maintains this success definition as an attainable goal, however, we all know that caste systems fundamentally forbid vertical movement. In this country anything overtly resembling oppression is publicly denied but when opportunities are narrowly defined to mean that you will be successful when you become affluent, white, and male, the system’s continuance is assured. Opportunities to be successful that force people to lose themselves are not opportunities at all. But, failure to conform to the expectations and seize these great opportunities are condemned by their creators as justification of the continuing perception of laziness and entitlement. As I think about these opportunities and the data in these charts, they lead me to believe that for people of color, women, and often people captured by poverty, that capitalizing on these opportunities leads to an unequal distribution of power and punishment. So, even assimilation does not lead to success. At what point can we truly embrace diversity rather than view it as a threat, honor people for what they are instead of trying to give them opportunities to be the same, and to truly allow important decision-making to be informed by the currently voice-less? I sense a “disturbance in the force” (for Star Wars fans) that gives me a great deal of hope that the oppressive stronghold is weakening because the self-sustaining 1% is nothing without the passive support of the 99%. Enough is enough. Again, the data doesn’t lie. We are a long way from equality.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Jul 2014 13:30:06 +0000
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