This guide provides information to assist in learning about and combating oppression of various kinds in our society. If there are resources you would like to recommend, please contact me
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Diversity Mission StatementGuided by Malone University’s Mission Statement and Foundational Principles, we recognize that God has worked throughout history to bless and redeem the world and create a kingdom composed of every nation, tribe, people, and language. Malone University, as a learning community committed to biblical principles, seeks to value and reflect the diversity in God’s Creation. Therefore, we are committed to promoting inclusive excellence and furthering our understanding of diversity as we live out our mission and educational goals. Definition of DiversityWe recognize differences from multiple perspectives and provide opportunities for mutual excellence within the context of our Foundational Principles. Definition of InclusionAs an inclusive university, we will value and respect the diverse talents and ideas of everyone in our Malone University community. |
Oppression = prejudice + power
Systems of oppression run through our language, shape the way we act and do things in our culture, and are built around what are understood to be “norms” in our societies. A norm signifies what is “normal,” acceptable, and desirable and is something that is valued and supported in a society. It is also given a position of dominance, privilege, and power over what is defined as non-dominant, abnormal, and therefore, invaluable or marginal.
Anti-Oppression is the strategies, theories, actions and practices that actively challenge systems of oppression on an ongoing basis in one's daily life and in social justice/change work. Anti-oppression work seeks to recognize the oppression that exists in our society and attempts to mitigate its effects and eventually equalize the power imbalance in our communities. Oppression operates at different levels (from individual to institutional to cultural) and so anti-oppression must as well.
Though they go hand in hand, anti-oppression is not the same as diversity & inclusion. Diversity & Inclusion (which are defined in another tab) have to do with the acknowledgment, valuing, and celebration of difference, whereas Anti-Oppression challenges the systemic biases that devalue and marginalize difference. Diversity & Inclusion and Anti-Oppression are two sides of the same coin--one doesn't work without the other--but they are not interchangeable.
Information from Simmons University guide
Privilege is unearned benefits/entitlements or lack of barriers assigned to an identity that society considers a "norm" and therefore dominant. Privilege and oppression are well-maintained social systems that are reinforced by binarized, normative hierarchies that categorize certain identities as superior (privileged) and their supposed opposites as inferior (oppressed) (e.g. male and female; straight and queer; cisgender and transgender, etc.). There are various forms of privilege, some of them tangible and others less so. One form of privilege, for instance, is the representation of one's identity in mainstream media and books—something intangible but nevertheless valuable in our culture.
More videos on privilege
Intersectionality is a legal and sociological theory that promotes the understanding that individuals have multiple identity factors and are "shaped by the interactions and intersections of these different social [identity factors] (e.g., race, ethnicity, Indigeneity, gender, class, sexuality, geography, age, (dis)ability, migration status, religion, etc.)" [from Intersectionality 101]. This means that inequities do not result from the social devaluing of a single identity factor in isolation, but rather from the intersections of different parts of an individual's identity, power relations, and experience.
Black legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” in her 1989 essay, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics,” which argues that marginalization and discrimination experienced by a black woman cannot be understood in terms of racism or of sexism considered independently, but must include the interactions. Since its coinage, the concept has been expanded to describe experiences outside of black womanhood, and the general concept is that people experience more than one type of oppression because of their intersecting marginalized identities. The concept of intersectionality is not an abstract idea but a description of the way multiple oppressions are experienced by actual people.
Anti-oppression movements and work must acknowledge and account for intersectional experiences of systemic oppression in order to be both fully inclusive and effective in dismantling systemic barriers to equity
Most of the information in this guide was supplied by Simmons University Library. For more information about Anti-oppression for other races/peoples, go to their guide. Thanks Simmons!
