Systematic Oppression in the Digital Age
Privilege is an invisible weightless backpack containing special amenities, guides, visas, clothing, and tools to assist a ‘certain type’ of the individual through life. I believe the existence of this backpack is meant to put certain individuals at an advantage and marginalized individuals at a disadvantage. The backpack serves privileged individuals through systematic oppression.

Systematic oppression is negative prejudice and bias learned through systems, that can be unlearned through systems. If we look at the invisible weightless backpack and analyze how it serves those who can be stronger or weaker based on alliances within the highest levels of society, we can see that there are harmful privilege-enforced policies and practices across educational, health, and economic structures. Systemic oppression manifests within institutions such as education, health, economy and is making its way into technology. Technology is a constant expansive system that isn’t often considered to fit inside the guidelines of oppressive systems. However, the capacity of Algorithms in the age of Neoliberalism reinforces oppressive social relationships and racial inequality.
On the internet, discrimination is deeply embedded in the computer coding of technologies that we are so reliant on. The decision-making tools that algorithms use to broadcast ads for individuals is on the rise for becoming an issue of discrimination and inequality. These algorithms can fit to display certain ads based on race, gender, and class. This use of advertising factors into creating inequal conditions on corporate platforms. Various forms of platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook are utilizing algorithms to shape an advertising experience as part of our ‘free’ everyday use of these platforms. As marketers of the media, these platforms directly shape the way marginalized groups are represented by digital results or search records. The everyday racist and discriminatory commentary of the web drive corporations to profit off the process of algorithmically crafted web searches. Platforms that are advertising companies, not reliable information companies (as they may appear to be) must be questioned. As users, we must ask ourselves when we open Facebook why we see the ads that we see, who these ads are constructed for, and how is the intended audience being manipulated. An evaluation of these platforms can lead us to question the legitimacy of corporate-driven algorithms.
10/10/19
Some may not question why the black woman at the bar had to get IDed a second time when coming back inside from fetching me, her very white friend. Even after she had to grab her ID out of her purse sitting on a barstool to show the bartender. No one questioned why I was not IDed.
Racial privilege is most blatantly evident when looking towards our recent history in America. The civil rights moment of the 1950s and 60s offered the first time in history for African Americans to begin participating in shaping democracy by receiving equal voting rights and no longer being racially segregated in society. If we look at the 100 years of enslavement in America, there were also 100 years of the elevation of white power and the degradation of black rights. It’s hard to believe that just by passing a few laws 55–60 years ago that all that oppression, racial segregation, and inertia would suddenly disappear. The process of desegregation shows that historically, white people have had the invisible weightless backpack to take advantage of power and black people have not. This can be closely tied into systematic oppression and the advantage certain individuals find themselves with when carrying the invisible weightless backpack.
We are taught to see racism only as individual malicious acts of discrimination or opinion. Racism is not only this, but it is also invisible systems deeply entrenched in our society. These systems enforce privilege for a certain type of societal group, specifically the privileged white male. When looking at articles addressing systematic oppression, most written by males favored the thought that it didn’t exist, while other articles written by females favored the thought that systematic oppression existed to benefit the privileged white male. The first article talks about male dominance and denial surround that dominance. “Through work to bring materials from women’s studies into the rest of the curriculum, I have often noticed men’s unwillingness to grant that they are overprivileged, even though they may grant that women are disadvantaged. They may say they will work to women’s statues, in the society, the university, or the curriculum, but they can’t or won’t support the idea of lessening men’s. Denials that amount to taboos surround the subject of advantages that men gain from women’s disadvantages. These denials protect male privilege from being fully acknowledged, lessened, or ended.” (Peggy Mcintosh, White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack)
The second article I want to analyze talks about systematic oppression being a problem of the past and how institutional problems like white privilege, equal rights, genocide do not exist and have not existed for a long time. “The problem is that there is no such thing as systematic oppression in the United States today. There are no laws or widely accepted social practices that deliberately discriminate against people based solely on factors such as race, religion, or gender. Slavery, Jim Crow laws, women not being able to vote, and Japanese internment were all systems of oppression that we all can agree was wrong and clearly discriminatory. However, there is nothing like that in our society today.” (Chandler France, Medium.com) I believe these two contrasting ideas show how informative resources through technology platforms are run by corporate advertising companies. These advertising companies are feeding information that their algorithms tell which you want to read as your perusing Google for help writing a research paper.
10/29/19
Why is it out of the question that the black girl goes to college? I don’t understand why I attended the same schools, took the same classes, got the same grades as her and am the one that went to college. How many narratives tell of the black girl whose peers and mentors didn’t talk to her about college? Why was it expected of me, yet not of her? She said she hated being a bikini barista right now but didn’t know what else to do for money.
Privileged person's beliefs and actions serve to perpetuate oppression. We must admit to ourselves, address, and change who carries the weightless invisible backpack. As a society, we are meant to be constantly questioning our social norms, values, and morals. This discourse is a constant circulation; It is evident that we are ever-changing radically open systems. Psychological frailties can be understood, which means that minds can be exploited with brainwashing techniques. Algorithms hold the ability to easily transform conceptions that can then be positively received. However, it’s a complex concept that allows subtle behavioral modification the ability to manipulate our truths. Psychological manipulation through technology algorithms can be much more powerful when it is subtle; when you hardly know it is happening at all. Systematic oppression is still present within our society, it's just harder to find. I believe racial oppression is seeping its way into our everyday use of technology and driving our decisions through corporate-driven algorithms.
11/03/19
Even as a young female college student who feels liberated by independence in her recent years, I still don’t have any freedom if all the socially constructed systems around me are utilizing their decision-making algorithms to manipulate my experiences.