Equity and Social Justice Unit 1 Test Flashcards
Diversity is a
fact.
Inclusion is a
choice/action.
We all have complex identities, consisting of visible and
invisible components.
Equity has to do with everyone having
access to fair and equal treatment under the law, regardless of race, social class or gender.
Social Justice extends the concept of equity to include
human rights as part of the social contract.
Dominant Groups =
Privledge
The classic sociological definition of a dominant group is a
group with power, privileges, and social status. Another related definition is a social group that controls the value system and rewards in a particular society. The dominant group is often in the majority but not necessarily
English is a dominant language in the world. You have an immediate advantage if you were born into the English-speaking world. It isn’t the most widely spoken native language - that’s Mandarin and Spanish. English is 3rd.
English speakers are a dominant group
My Life - Dominant or Subordinate
Sexual Orientation -
Gender -
Social Class -
Sexual Orientation - Dominant: As a straight woman.
Gender - Subordinate: As a woman, I am subordinate because men are the dominant group.
Social Class - Dominant: Upper-middle class income has given me privileges.
We all have filters that inform our
worldviews
The cycle of prejudice and discrimination can result from
stereotypes/bias.
An ally is any person who
supports, empowers, or stands up for another person or a group of people.
How do people respond to conflict?
- Avoiding–denying a problem; pretending nothing is wrong
- Accommodating–giving in to another person’s point of view; paying attention to others’ concerns, not your own
- Problem Solving– finding a solution that makes everyone happy; looking closely at the sources of conflict
- Compromising– each person wins some and loses some
- Competing–getting what you want, no matter what; some people win, some lose
As an Ally…
1 Learn about other cultures/histories/ struggles of the group you want to ally with. * Do not solely rely on marginalized groups to educate you on their culture or struggles. They do not have the added responsibility of educating you. Being an ally means taking initiative to do research on your own.
2 Make friends with people from other groups; friendship is a powerful tool. * It enables you to get a firsthand insight into the experiences of diverse people.
3 Take a stand when groups face unjust treatment; remember that choosing to stand up is a privilege. * Those who are oppressed can’t “take a break” from their experiences. Leverage your position to support those whose voices are usually not heard.
4 Help bring isolated or marginalized groups into the centre. * When groups become isolated, they usually need help being connected to the larger community. Build opportunities for these groups to engage with others and offer support when they do.
5 Promote leadership opportunities of people who traditionally don’t occupy leadership roles. * This involves mentoring, encouragement, supporting campaigns, offering resources.
6 Train others to become allies. * Educate others on the importance of allyship by modelling allyship strategies and encouraging others to do the same.
How is equity different from the term “equality”?
- While equality treats everyone exactly the same, equity meets people where they are to make sure they have equal opportunities. For example, meeting someone with bad eyesight where they are and giving them glasses and not giving glasses to someone with perfect eyesight. The person with perfect eyesight didn’t need glasses, hence why they didn’t get them.
- People aren’t treated exactly the same but they are given the resources they need to have equal opportunities.
Liberal View of History
History is a progression from one point to a better point. Rights, technology, democracy education, medicine, etc are all improving over time. The goal is to see past mistakes and make things better
Marxist View of History
History is a class struggle. The names change - king, pope. landowner, noble, capitalist, bourgeoisie, etc.. but one class is always exploiting another. The goal is to end exploitation, and give power to the people.
- Postmodernism:
- 20th century movement, emphasizing skepticism in the arts, philosophy, history, economics, and literature.
- Heidegger, Derrida, Foucault - the actual ‘truth’ is dependent upon perspective = not universal
Modern example = Baudrillard - ‘real’ in a digital internet age is non-existent - Effect is widespread indifference and detachment * possibly.
- Anti-Oppression Theory
- A way to perceive the world to gain a clearer understanding.
- Identifies the experiences of peoples regarding race, gender, sexuality, ability, religion, class.
- Developed as a way of perceiving all factors that may affect a person = not all people face the same issues - not all feminists are white, straight…etc.
- Feminist Theory
- The aim is to understand the nature of gender inequality.
- Discrimination, objectification, oppression, patriarchy, and stereotyping.
- Began in the late 1700s.
- Early focus was primarily based around suffrage.
- Susan B. Anthony is arrested in the US for illegally voting.
- She questioned how she can be arrested under the law, but not given rights or protections under those laws.
- Simone de Beauvoir - women are always seen as ‘other’ = the are not defined as individuals, but by their relationship to the men in their lives
- Critical Race Theory
- Your perspective is defined by your race.
- Examines the intersection of race, law, and power,
- “Colourblindness” is an impossibility.
- Two common themes
– White power is maintained over time and law is the primary way this is done
– Racial emancipation is the main goal - Racism is ingrained in society, and it is pervasive in the dominant culture
- Members of the dominant group can never really understand the oppressed groups problems
- The dominant group (ie. White People) are given a huge number of both large and small advantages that they tend to not perceive.
- The subordinate group is subject to micro-aggressions and systemic racism.
- Post-Colonial Theory
- A method of examining how we view and are viewed in the world.
- Looks at relationships between colonial powers and colonized nations
- Colonialism was presented historically as the ‘spread of civilization’ = the colonized were subjugated, exploited, and abused.
- All colonized peoples were taught that they were inherently inferior and that their culture was without purpose.
- Their wealth was taken and their lands were exploited.
- The Wretched of the Earth - Franz Fanon
- Indigenous Knowledge Approach
- Emphasizes the importance of local knowledge that is specific to a culture within that society
- Knowledge acquired over generations as these communities interacted with the environment
- Usually counter to the accepted knowledge of the ‘dominant group’ and usually ignored by them
- UNESCO has begun documenting these practices because they are disappearing.
½ the world’s languages will be dead by 2100 (that is 3500 languages) - As these languages and practices die out, so do different ways of being human.
Mechanisms of Oppression
(1) violence and the threat of violence,
(2) rendering the oppressed group or their existence as an oppressed group as invisible, so that their status is taken for granted and not questioned,
(3) ensuring that the group is ghettoized so as to be out of sight, out of mind,
(4) Engaging in cultural oppression by treating the group as inferior,
(5) When oppressed groups are easily visible, they argue that the oppression can be rationalized or excused or
(6) keeping oppressed groups divided within themselves or from other oppressed groups.
Exploitation
- Those who begin with a $ advantage will have a competitive advantage in economic exchanges.
- The result is still greater inequality of income and assets, via accumulation. Exploitation is simply based upon unfair advantage.
- What is one of the most important concepts which can help understand the outcome of such unfair exchanges?
Cumulative disadvantage:
Cumulative disadvantage refers to the manner in which over the life course of individuals and of entire groups and communities of people, such unfair exchanges can become institutionalized into a system of economic exploitation.
Unjust outcomes follow from transactions between unequal parties within an institutionalized environment. The outcome is a result of
exploitation.
Oppression
(1) Harm
Harm is a much-theorized concept in moral philosophy. However, the harm must be performed in an organized, institutionalized manner. It doesn’t necessarily mean a punch in the face.
(2) Inflicted on a group,
(3) by a more privileged group,
(4) using unjust forms of coercion.
Oppression is
a harm perpetuated on a social group - usually as a result of an institutional practice.
Material oppression
takes place when one social group uses violence or economic domination to reduce the access of persons of another social group to material resources such as income, wealth, health care, the use of space, etc.
Ie - a landlord prefers to rent to white married couples, over people of colour or people on government disability.
Psychological oppression is both direct and indirect. Direct psychological forces produce inequality through
the purposeful actions of members of the dominant group on people in a subordinate group (including the use of terror, degradation and humiliation, and objectification).
Ie - Police stop an Audi full of young people of colour and ask about car theft. Same car full of white kids doesn’t get stopped.
Subjective oppression
as the conscious awareness that one is in fact oppressed.
- In other words, a person realizes they are being unjustly and systematically harmed by virtue of their membership in a social group.
- The group is treated differently than others.
Recent theoretical and empirical work on the question of dehumanization has distinguished between two forms of dehumanization:
animalistic dehumanization and mechanistic dehumanization
Animalistic dehumanization
takes place primarily in an intergroup context, in interethnic relations and towards groups of persons with disabilities. It is accompanied by emotions such as disgust and contempt for the members of the other social group.
Mechanistic dehumanization
involves the treatment of others as not possessing the core features of human nature. Dehumanized individuals or groups are seen as automata (not animals). It is called mechanistic because it is involves “standardization, instrumental efficiency, impersonal technique, causal determinism, and enforced passivity”
Dominant vs. subordinate:
Dominant is the oppressor because while they have access to power, economic control, set the “norms,” and privilege, subordinate groups are disadvantaged, categorized & labelled, receive differential treatment, and lack of power and influence.
Stereotypes are
mental ideas/images that are overly simplistic and exaggerated generalizations about social groups. They are used to spread misinformation and stigmatize a subordinate group.
Prejudice is different because
it involves having conscious arbitrary attitudes or beliefs and unfair bias towards or against a person/group. This is based on little or no experience and projected onto an entire group.
Discrimination takes this to a higher level because
it is an action based on prejudice. For example, excluding, ignoring, avoiding, threatening, ridiculing, jokes, slurs, violence, and unfair treatment towards a specific group. Discrimination is an individual’s external behavior
What are the 5 faces of oppression and how do they affect people?
1) Exploitation
2) Marginalization
3) Powerlessness
4) Cultural Imperialism
5) Violence
Exploitation
- treats someone unfairly in order to benefit from their work
Marginalization
- treating a person, a group, or a concept as insignificant or peripheral
Powerlessness
- someone having a lack of ability, influence, or power and a lack of access to the people who have them.
Cultural Imperialism
- creating and maintaining unequal relationships between civilizations, in order to favour the more powerful civilization.
Violence
- using behaviours involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.
What is internalized oppression? Can you give any examples?
Internalized oppression is the incorporation and acceptance by people within a target group of the prejudices against them. For example, as a woman, we often deal with “internalized misogyny,” sometimes we want to look or act a certain way that is inauthentic to ourselves but attracts men. It is one of our ways of being affected by the patriarchy so much that it is in our own heads.
What is assimilation and what groups have challenged the idea in the past?
Assimilation is the elimination of group-based differences and essentially treats everyone according to the same principles, rules and standards. Black Power, Idle No More, the Women’s movement, and LBGTQ Liberation have challenged the idea of assimilation in the past.
Social Oppression:
1, Dominant group defines what is normal,
2. Differential treatment,
3. Internalized oppression,
4. Target group’s culture is discounted and dominant group’s culture imposed.
Systemic Oppression:
- Embedded in institutions such as: media, family, religion, education, language, economics, criminal justice and in cultural definitions of what is normal, real, correct, beautiful and valuable.
- Socially sanctioned and maintains an imbalance of power
Cultural Competence:
A set of behaviours, attitudes and policies that come together in a system, agency or among professionals and enables that system, agency or professionals to work effectively in cross-cultural situations.
Assimilation’s Ideals:
- Elimination of group-based difference; treat everyone according to the same principles, rules and standards.
- The belief that it maximizes “choice”. People can develop themselves as “individuals”, unconstrained by group norms or expectations
- Assimilation implies coming into the game after it has already begun –
= Blindness to difference perpetuates cultural imperialism - Aspirations to assimilate can produce self-loathing if unable to “fit in”
