Sandi L Boucher defines oppression and internalized oppression, where oppressed groups accept limiting stereotypes about themselves. The first natural reaction is acquiescence: Indigenous parents discouraging kids from education, Indigenous professionals losing clients to doubt, an oppressed woman telling sexist jokes first to avoid being targeted.
Chapters
Hello again. Welcome back to our week long discussion of oppression and internalized oppression. What it looks like, why you're seeing the things you see amongst marginalized groups. And I'm going to give you some examples by the end of the week. I'm even going to share with you how I have a man, how I have managed to to overcome my internalized oppression. Let's talk about it. Boju Mishko Dam Hi everybody, it's Andy Boucher here once again. Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan. I'm a proud member of Seine River first nation in Treaty 3 territory in Northern Ontario. And I have a hair in my mouth. That was lovely. We got to talk about oppression and internalized oppression. So let's start with a little review here just to make sure everyone's on the same page. Because we throw around terms and just assume people understand them. That often isn't the case. So let's start with prejudice, preconceived notions or thoughts. What you're thinking about black people, newcomers, indigenous people, women, men, whatever the case may be, Right? It's those thoughts and often those stereotypes that you're thinking even before you interact with those people. Thoughts. Discrimination is the actions or inactions based on those preconceived notions. So you start with prejudice and then when you choose to hire someone or don't hire them because of those stereotypes, it now becomes discrimination. Oppression is discrimination that is either accepted by society as a whole or sanctioned by the government, or both. The fact that Indigenous children in Canada were taken from their families and forced to attend residential school is probably the most common, the most popular form of oppression. It's the one that people think of. But there's so many other examples in modern day. The fact that there are many First Nation communities in Canada that don't have clean drinking water, no municipality would put up with that. The fact that Canada just accepts that this is the way it needs to be and the government's doing nothing about it or trying and having suc haven't succeeded is another form of oppression. The fact that First Nation communities do not get the same level of education funding, they do not have the health services, mental health services, police services that municipalities do. The fact that grade 9 students in remote First Nation communities still have to leave home and board with boarding parents in a city far from home just to get grade nine. These are all examples of, of modern day oppression. So that's the soil that Indigenous people are trying to grow in. What we don't talk about often enough except in my world, because I talk about it all the time, is internalized oppression. Any member of an oppressed group, and that group has been oppressed for a long period of time, suffers from internalized oppression. And they start to believe the stereotypes are true. Now they're putting up barriers even before they run into the actual barriers. These are the why bother people. These are the kids that don't bother going to school because it's not going to change anything. These are the parents that don't bother sending their kids to school because it didn't help me. It's not going to help them. It is so easy to judge these people when we forget that is a condition of internalized oppression. So what I need you to realize is when we're talking about an oppressed group, there are three natural human reactions to oppression. If you're a human being and you belong to an oppressed group, you're going to respond to it in these ways. You may respond in one way more often than another. You may respond in all three ways. But that's what we're going to be talking about this week. So what I wanted to talk about first is the first natural human reaction to oppression or internalized oppression. And that's acquiescence, which is a really fancy way to say giving up. Like I mentioned, these are the parents that don't bother sending their kids to school. They. These are the kids that don't bother going to school. This is the person that never bothers to leave the community because why? There's nothing out there for me. These are the people that have erected such huge walls in their mind and they probably don't even realize it. I had. I consider myself a pretty empowered person now, but I had to break down many, many walls to get there. Now, you know me, I've done a lot of seminars and I like my handouts. I actually have. It's called Breaking the Chains An Internalized Oppression Quiz. And I just wanted to share some examples with you because what I have found is there's a huge difference between knowing the definition and realize what you're looking at when you see it. So, for example, here's an example. Your local grassroots organization. Yeah, we love those. It's constantly fighting with each other. They never seem to agree with whomever the leader is and therefore don't get a lot done. They are constantly saying that the leader forgets who he is. We call that lateral violence. When you're fighting amongst the people at the same level as you, and instead of fighting the oppressor because it's really hard to hit the federal government. We turn on each other. We turn on our partners, our children, our community members, or the people in the nearby municipality. We don't want to accept that someone can be a leader because why are they better than me? It is just an unhealthy reaction to an unhealthy, oppressive environment. Don't judge. These people realize their flowers trying to grow in soil doused in gasoline. So let's see another. I've seen this. I don't know if you've seen this. You can let me know in the comments if you've seen this. The woman working on a local construction group con, you know, on the site, tells the best blonde women jokes. That's because women are an oppressed group. So instead of waiting until they make the jokes, she's going to jump in and do it for them. She knows they're going to do it to her, knows that like that's her barrier, that's her wall. So she jumps in and is oppressing herself. Sad. Another one, last one for today. An indigenous lawyer is having a really hard time finding clients. Finding indigenous clients because we've been taught to believe, well, if they're indigenous, can they really be that good? And if we're believing that, then we've bought the stereotype. So now I want you to think of any marginalized group. You know, do you see acquiescence? Do you see giving up? Do you see people that are not even bothered trying? It's not because they're lazy. It's not because they enjoy being a drain on the public coffers. It's not because they lack ambition. It's internalized oppression. And if we can change the environment in which they're trying to grow, we can actually help them grow. I hope that made sense. Tomorrow I'm going to give you another natural human reaction to either internalized or long term oppression. Until then, take care. I love you. Bye bye.
