Essay On Power And Privilege

Oppression, Power and Privilege There are three types and two modalities of oppression. The types include: primary, secondary and tertiary oppression while the modalities include: oppression by force and by deprivation. Oppression can be viewed as harsh, unjust or cruel exercise of power over other people while oppression by force denotes oppression under duress or through coercion another or others (Hays and Erford, 2014). It involves imposing on others an object, label, rule, experience or set of living conditions that is unwanted, needlessly painful and affects one’s physical and psychological well-being, for example, rape and physical abuse of women (Hays and Erford, 2014). Oppression by deprivation involves depriving others of an …show more content…
An imbalance of power resulting from misuse of power leads to oppression. Privilege is defined as having power, access, advantage and majority, for example, being able to choose where you want to leave (Hays and Erford, 2014). In relation to power and privilege, there are two groups of people, the dominant group and the target group. The dominant group is the majority and it has power and privilege over the target group. A member of a dominant group gains benefits simply because of his or her affiliation with the dominant group while a member of the target group is oppressed simply because of his or her differences as well as the difference of the group. The oppressed individual or group is devalued, stigmatized, discriminated and deprived of privileges by the group or person that has more power, for example, there is no evidence that colored students misbehave more than white students but they are punished more for less serious crimes. However, oppressed people also want power as well as privilege just as it is experienced and used by oppressors as a way of obtaining revenge against the