Power & Oppression

Chapter 5 “Power” gives us the better understanding and meaning of power. It explains the types and depth of power related terms. Reading chapter 5 and the article “Five faces of oppression” as well as watching the video of “Milgram Experiment” gives me the clear understanding of power and oppression. The video of the experiment relates to the chapter very well. In chapter 5 Bertrand Russell (philosopher & social critic) said “the fundamental concept in social sciences is power, in the same way in which energy is the fundamental concept in physics”. The term “Power” can be used in so many different ways it works from macro level to micro level. In everyday life we are sometimes forced and obliged to follow the rules which are set by the people who are in greater power than us. That goes back to the Milgram experiment the five main points of video in my point of view are:
i) Obedience: teachers obeyed the researcher even though they didn’t really had to.
ii) Authority: teachers had the authority to stop the experiment but they didn’t use it.
iii) Violence: teachers didn’t really felt the violence of experiment and 9 out of 12 went all the      way to the end.                                                                       
iv) Behavior: a lot of teachers didn’t pay attention to the yelling and shouting of learner next door.
v) Significance: a lot of teacher went on to continue the experiment without thinking of consequences.
The experiment showed different aspects of power. In the experiment the learner was in a separate room and he had electrodes attached on to his arms. Other person (teacher) and scientist went into a room that had an electric shock generator with a series of switches from 15v to 450v (extreme shock).   After hearing the voices of the learner next door the teacher kept on asking the researcher if they could stop the experiment. Even though the teacher could stop it anytime he/she wanted it to stop but they looked upon the researcher as a power figure of authority. This experiment also shows the behavior of a normal person how they could easily hurt others the violence in a common person is similar to anyone we label as a violent person. The teacher took the assignment more serious and some of them really gave the importance to the experiment and did not really care about the learner’s shouting and yelling and thought that it was not them who had the authority to stop the experiment they rather focused on the experiment. It shows that they felt they were obliged to obey even though they had the authority to stop the violence or walk away but they didn’t, this was the good example of “culture of silence”. The experiment gives the example of both types of culture of silence. It was shocking for me how 9 out of 12 people went all the way to the end to finish the experiment without even thinking about the learner and consequences. If I was in those teacher’s shoes I wouldn’t have gone that far to hurt anyone because this is like an example of someone giving you poison and telling you to give it to others it is good for them or it is the part of some sort of experiment no one would do it or at least I wouldn’t do it, because you need to think before you act.

the reading “five faces of oppression” gives us a better understanding of oppression we conquer these five types in everyday life:

Violence: violence is most obvious and prominent form of oppression. We see violence everyday all over the world.  Violence takes place when people get xenophobic and hate crimes begin to start.

Exploitation: it is to miss use labor to benefit one’s own self. It is mainly related to the power of economy. Even in United States people get exploited by their employers every day.

Marginalization: is like cornering people when you think they are not as good as you or as compatible as your own race or society. People get marginalized when they are looking for jobs. Even though we say people get jobs on merit but it’s not really true.

Powerlessness: awareness is needed when you have powerlessness. People in power always oppress those who don’t have power. Powerless are always dominated by those who has power.

Cultural imperialism: it is the culture of majority.it could be described as values or rules set by the authority or government. It is the widely accepted culture or language or norms that a society needs to follow.

Culture & Background

My parents are from India but I was born in Pakistan. Since these two countries are neighbors there are not much differences in the culture of these countries its like Canada and USA. the culture of South Asian countries are very much similar to each other. Being part of of two societies gave me the idea to differentiate

South Asian weddings:-
weddings in our south Asian countries are so different from the weddings here in USA.  Indian weddings are so popular because our weddings are humongous. It was a cultural shock for me when I first attended an American wedding of my co-worker 6 years ago. She told me how she planned her wedding and how difficult it was for her to manage the expenses being from a middle class family. It was different for me because weddings in our culture are financed by parents and the brides and grooms do not have to worry about the expenses, the couple only has to worry about their new apartment/house and the wish list. All of the family members and friends pick something from the couple’s wish list and give them that item as a gift in the end whatever is left unpicked bride’s parents provide it to the couple. A lot of people consider it as a dowry but it actually is not because no one forces anyone to provide something very expensive because that's how these societies are shaped. One more thing that you will notice is colors we have so many colors in our weddings specially the red color, red is considered as a color of happiness. Big fat weddings are the popular culture in India and all the south Asian countries. At my sister’s wedding 400 people were invited and this is an average number it could go high up to 700-800. The wedding dinners and functions starts 1 week before the wedding and the expenses are divided between the parents of the couple so the couple does not have to worry about anything. The bride is not allowed to participate in any house chores 2 weeks prior to wedding all she has to do is take care of herself and be ready to her big day. Seeing my co-worker working till the very last day prior to her wedding was something which was really weird for me.

 

 

this is the picture of the Venue of my sister's wedding.

Henna: Henna is the most important symbol of our weddings and culture you will never find an Indian or Paki bride without the henna. girls apply henna on their hands not only on wedding but on religious occasions or holidays as well. When I first moved here in the united states 11 years ago I was new to this country and a bit hesitant towards everything on an occasion my mom put henna on my hands( I love henna by the way) and the next day I went to school I used to live in Connecticut at that time everyone at that school gave me a weird look because they didn’t know what it was on my hands one of my friend actually thought it was a disease than I realized that my behavior was out of the norms of this culture and next day I explained everyone what, how & why I had that on my hands. But as time goes by the knowledge and multiculturalism is spreading more and more know about different cultures and its values, now almost everyone in NY knows about the henna tattoo and people really like it.

The other thing that made me uneasy at the very beginning when I moved here was eye contact. In our culture younger are not supposed to make an eye contact with elderly such as grand parents and other older respected family members, or anyone who you should give extra respect like a preacher or even professor sometimes. This has a strong value in our culture if you gaze at elderly in their eye it means you are not respecting them or this could be used against your parents in the family that it’s your parents who never taught you how respect the elderly, whereas here in united states when you don’t give an eye contact during a conversation you are giving an impression of not paying attention. No eye contact could be considered as a nonmaterial culture in the society where i have come from.

Shisha (hookah) is another famous cultural object that I would like to talk about people from all across the world knows about shisha. I was amazed to see a shisha lounge in NY when I first got here. It is like a subculture here in NYC, I did not expected that people here would know about it but later I found out there are many shisha lounges available here in NYC and it is popular among certain people. It is mostly associated with Middle Eastern culture because shishas is very popular there but it is also a part of my culture usually the sub cultures who are descended from Arabs or Mughal ancestry shisha is a part of their material culture. the difference between middle eastern and my culture in regards to shisha is that in middle eastern countries it is a norm and in my country it is considered almost like a high culture.