CR #5: Our Internalized Fears

In the piece In Search of a Majority: An Address, by James Baldwin he claims that society is based on the “majority will”. But who is considered the majority? What is the difference between the majority and the minority? Baldwin explains to the readers his definition of the majority: “Now, what I have been trying to suggest in all this is that the only useful definition of the word “majority” does not refer to numbers, and it does not refer to power. It refers to influence” (216). He points out that even though the minority group may out number the majority, the will of the majority can still overpower them. For example, apartheid in South Africa. The majority of the population were African natives but they were considered the minority because all the Europeans had all the power within government positions that can influence society. The Europeans were smaller in numbers but were able to be the majority and create society benefiting to them. Baldwin says that the minority do not fall underneath the “universally accepted forms or standards”(217) and therefore must take place as “a minority because their influence was so slight” (217). James Balwin believes that there is a certain “fear”: “This really amounts sometimes to a kind of social paranoia. One cannot afford to lose status on this peculiar ladder” (218). The is a fear of being on the bottom of the social latter and suffer the oppression that minorities face. He demonstrates this fear by using the social hierarchy in America: “In a way, the Negro tells us where the bottom is: because he is there, and where is, beneath us, we know where the limits are and how far we must not fall. We must not fall beneath him”(219).

In Paul Farmer’s novel Pathologies of Power, in the chapter On Suffering and Structural Violence, Farmer tells the two stories of Acéphie and Chouchou. Acéphie died of AIDS and Chouchou died due to political violence. They both suffered those violent deaths because of their status on the societal hierarchy. Farmer states that “What these victims, past and present, share are not personal or psychological attributes. They do not share culture or language or a certain race. What they share, rather, is the experience of occupying the bottom rung of the social ladder in inegalitarian societies” (31).This is tied with Baldwin’s idea of how social class can either save you or put you at risk of death and oppression.One example that is brought up a lot within the public health classes are food deserts. Food deserts are places or communities that do not have accessible grocery stores, farmers markets, and other healthy food resources. People who have a lower social economic status tend to live in poorer areas where facilities are run down and crime rates are higher than wealthier communities. In the poorer areas there is less access to healthy/nutritional foods. Only fast food chains or convenient stores are available to the people were are of lower social economic status.

The 2016 presidential election is an example of the “fear” that Baldwin discusses. A certain population felt that when Obama was president, their status on the social heir achy was threatened. But with the most recent elections there was possibility of change. The population who once felt threatened by the Obama administration’s policies could gain their social status back was to vote for presidential candidate Donald Trump. Once Trump was elected, a new population felt that their values and even safety was at risk by living under this presidency, just like the other population once felt in the previous years. The “fear” was able to change the political and societal climate of America: taking back power/voices from the minority to the majority. This deeply affects the population I’m working with. Most of them come from immigrant families who once had a chance to live safely in America. But now, there are more issues at hand besides moving to a new country. They face more adversity such as fear of deportation, loosing jobs, being separated from families, and even their safety and wellbeing has been compromised.