Oppression, Marginalization And Privilege In Society

Have you ever felt targeted? Have you ever felt like you’re constantly being given the short end of the stick? People, who are discriminated against due to sexism, racism, classism etc., are considered “outsiders” by today’s society due to something they cannot control, such as their skin color or gender preference. Oppression, marginalization and privilege are ways we, individual citizens, discriminate against the minority in our society. Students were asked to integrate two previous societies with very differing value together. By doing this, students were shown different ways to assimilate a society, and give them a direct look at what it feels like to be oppressed and marginalized by those with greater privileges.

Oppression, marginalization and privilege are all examples of how people can be alienated from society. Oppression can be defined as “being disadvantaged or marginalized based on specific aspects of identity” (Stenekes, 2014). The term privilege is very common in today’s vocabulary, but most are familiar with the single term “white privilege”. Privilege can be defined, as “distribution of benefits that are seen as normal therefore not challenged” (Carniol, Ch. 1). In the American, European …show more content…
The first society is kind, flexible, and caring, while the other was mean, strict and cruel. Joining them by assimilation, my group decided to have the cruel society overtake the kind society and force its strict values and beliefs onto the other citizens. The cruel society had morals that were very similar to dictatorship, and used Marshall law on its citizens in order to receive their cooperation. By forcing the societies to merge, the people of the kind society would be discriminated against due to the different beliefs they had prior to the formation. By being discriminated against, the kind society would be looked down upon compared to the original