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February: What Keeps Oppressed Peoples From Fighting Back?
Featured author Sharon Draper asks, "In the time of Copper Sun, Why didn't more slaves rise up and protest or fight back? What social and cultural pieces were in place to prevent it?"
More to think about: Are these or other social and cultural pieces still in place today for any group of people?
7 comments:
I think anywhere where there's a ritualized breaking down of self-esteem and belief in one's value, there is oppression in place.
How can you be free if you've been told all your life that you can't or that you're somehow less than others?
Yes, Melissa. A destroying of self worth. And then fear keeps it all in place. The ones in control are able to reap exactly what they have sewn.
'fear' is the first thing that comes to mind for me...
Change is hard to bring about. It takes cooperation amongst a group of people, and that's hard to achieve. Communicating needs and plans, soliciting support, galvanizing folks into action--it takes serious effort and persistence.
I think people just get tired of working for change. It can feel like a hopeless pursuit.
That certainly exists today in many forms: health care reform and equality and acceptance for gay couples, for instance.
I would add to those: removing (or preventing) the tools people need to communicate, to organize, to seek out others with common goals. Deception. Making a group feel powerless.
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