Critical Reflection #4: BELIEVE
Prompt for Critical Reflection #4: On the Faces of Oppression and the Importance of Lo Cotidiano
What?
To be oppressed means much more than just being poor or not being treated fairly in comparison to everyone else. It means to be constantly bombarded with feelings of inadequacy. According to Iris Marion Young, oppression is when people make others less human.
… oppression is when people reduce the potential for other people to be fully human. In other words, oppression is when people make other people less human (Young).
In this sense, oppression is dehumanizing and takes away one’s sense of worth. When I look back on history, I can recall the most horrid of times when humans were not treated fairly in relation to their fellow humans (the Holocaust, apartheid in South Africa, slavery in the United States) and I can definitively say that those times were indeed oppression. Another thing to keep in mind, however, is that oppression isn’t some sudden, isolated act of injustice against a person or a group of people.
It’s a long burn; a sustained stigma that usually festers and ferments over decades, if not centuries, of resentment and silent misgivings.
When Ada Isasi-Diaz identifies herself as oppressed and impoverished, she is making the conscious decision to recognize and reflect on her own reality.
… I specify “the impoverished” because I am a middle-class Latina and though I have suffered economic exploitation… being middle class can easily lead me to ignore poverty (Diaz).
She knows that that her situation can lead her to skew her views on other people’s own realities. She identifies herself as oppressed and impoverished as a way of self-assurance of one’s own reality.
And with that in mind, she also takes into account there are people that are and may be far off worse than her, whether it be economically, socially or emotionally.
So What?
Observing the “normal” way of things really opens one’s eyes in finding out what injustices exist. It’s hard to go against the normally accepted, but it’s even harder if no one can see it. This attitude of simply accepting things as “the way they are is” dissuades individuals from actively seeking change. In this sense, lo cotidiano is significant because it forces one to be cognizant of daily reality and how that relates to oneself.
Lo cotidiano refers to the immediate space — time and place — of daily life, the first horizon of our experiences, in which our experiences take place. It is where we first meet and relate to the material world — by which I mean not just physical reality but also the way in which we relate to that reality… (Diaz).
Diaz’s statements on the lo cotidiano suggest that everyone as individuals can have an impact on their world. It can range from being minimal to vast; everyone has a interaction in some capacity, a role that they must play, that is unavoidable.
Understanding this dynamic enables one to see the power structures present in their reality. What they do from the understanding, however, is a different thing altogether.
Now What?
There are multiple ways that I can observe the fluid realities of the people I work with. Working at Kid’s Club at the Canal for Catholic Charities, I find myself in a position that is very uncomfortable because I cannot relate to the kids in every facet that I would like. The emotions I feel sometimes strike me more strongly than I though they would. But I ultimately strive to better understand the realities everyone in that community faces.
- MONEY — The community I work in is not affluent. People are hard-working and provide for themselves and for their families. I have to be mindful of the struggles that community may face when it comes to monetary security.
- SPACE — The community is impacted; multiple full-sized families live in single apartments meant for one family. What is home? Is that stressful? Is there space?
- HOPE — No time to relax; no one cares about us. When will the light of the tunnel stop getting farther away? How can I make sure my children will succeed when they grow older? There has to be something more, other than this…
I do not talk to the adults of that community. But I know what it’s like to be human. I know what it’s like to feel hopeless. I felt that way and I look at what some of those families have to go through, what those kids have to go through, and I feel a deep shame for ever feeling the same way.
Lo cotiadiano has to with our emotional and physical strengths and weaknesses with the work we do, with the frustrations and hopes we have (Diaz).
Diaz says that lo cotidiano should feel something like the way I’m feeling. It’s easy to feel frustrated when the task is too daunting, too vast to defeat or too encompassing to grasp.
Paulo Freire believes that powerlessness is the strongest form of oppression because it allows people to oppress themselves and others (Young).
But Young says you shouldn’t give up. Freire says remaining hopeful is what drives change. Nothing may ever come of my efforts. But I’ll never know if I don’t BELIEVE.