dominant and subordinate identities #3

What? How are dominant and subordinate identities defined in Tatum’s article? What is the power relationship between the dominant and subordinate groups according to Tatum? (Remember to use textual evidence).

Tatum identifies these identities that people are judged on in the community depending on your background. Many people have been put into categories that they cant change because of who they are. They are separated by gender, race, ethnicity, religion, physical and mental abilities. Now who puts them in these categories? It’s the people who are in the majority group which classify other in other categories for not being in the dominant group. According to Tatum.” People are commonly defined as other on the basis of race or ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, age, and physical or mental ability. Each of these categories has a form of oppression associated with it: racism, sexism, religious oppression/ anti-Semitism, heterosexism, classism, ageism, and ableism, respectively”. I think by having this exist at all there is conflict between who is better and the ones who come out winning in this scenario is the group that is dominican. When people are asked to reflect on who they are the people who are in the dominant groups don’t mention a lot about their identities, like where they come from . But if it was another person who is not in the dominant group they would mention something like where they came from.

So What? How could the unequal relationship between the dominant and subordinate groups change for the better? Based on your reading of his NY Times article, what do you think Abraham Verghese would suggest?

I unequal relationships are believes that people in the dominant group enforce to make them seem higher ranked than others. In the New York times the doctor helped his patients. He did not just identify them as just helping a white man, woman or a person of color. He saw them as patients and I think that by not categorizing the dominant or the subordian group people would treat each other fairly. But in some cases the dominant group is looked as the bad group in other places and the subordian group would be the dominant one or something along those lines. According to Abraham “Doc, they treat refugees in other countries better than they treat us”. I think that this means people from other places are more likely to be helped no matter if they are dominant or subordinate because they are understood in a sense that they need help.

Now What? Referencing Calderon’s article, talk about how the perspective-taking can influence or even change the dominant-subordinate dynamic? And do YOU have anything to suggest from your own life experiences? (Remember to use textual evidence

Taking the perspective of democratic engagement, obama who read the struggles of the civil rights movement and he put himself in that place to get a better understanding of what he could not experience himself. I think that obama who was in power and was well recognized tried to place himself in a subordinate group. I find important that “the ideal that all human beings have equal value, deserve equal respect, and should be given equal opportunity to fully participate in the life and direction of the society”(Calderon). It shows that everyone has an understanding and fair opportunity as equal human beings.