The Sea of Sorrow: American Structural Oppression

For too long, America’s people have suffered within a system powered by an unseeable force that drives emotionally poisonous ignorance, hate, judgment, and greed instead of fostering intelligence, love, compassion, and plenty. Looking closer at the landscape of American politics and the policies thereof, it seems this “unseeable force” may be structural oppression. Moreover, it seems clear by first glance that the United States government, its elected officials, and the lobbyists who hold power in Washington have been actively engaging in profiteering off of this structural oppression of its people, particularly women, immigrants, and citizens of color. If private companies and their lobbyists own those who legislate policies on the floor in Washington and then are supported by both the executive and judicial branches, one has to wonder if political policy is being created not so much for the goal of progressive change for all people, but rather for structural oppression of women, American citizens of color, and immigrants. One doesn’t have to look far to point to examples of how structural oppression, or resistance thereto, has affected American political policy in its relatively brief history.

For instance, during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention, a Constitutional clause addressing slavery was created; specifically, how the slave population would be counted when apportioning Congressional representatives, as well as for purposes such as Presidential elections and the calculation and payment of taxes. The Three-Fifths Compromise clause (Article I, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution of 1787) was agreed to by representatives from the North and South and it basically meant that every five slaves would be worth the same value as three slave-owning white people. From political or monetary or tax perspectives, this was both practical and an advantage to Southern states because they now received Congressional representatives based on part of population of people who were literally the property of slave-owning voters. However, from a spiritual and humanistic standpoint, the very act of placing monetary value on a human life is the most vile decision one can make. If all humans have equal value under God, the practice of applying materialistic value to ourselves undermines the Golden Rule, our entire world, and the myriad communities that create its great fabric.

The Three-Fifths Compromise is only one example of how subtle power dynamics are used to forge political policy that continues to support structural oppression in America. Another is the Dred Scott v. Sanford Supreme Court decision of 1857, where the Southern delegates’ main goal was to destroy an earlier constitutional compromise so they could take their slaves and use them in free, northern states without losing them to emancipation. In modern society, these power dynamics affect everyone, but no groups are affected more seriously than immigrants, non-white citizens, and women. Using the history of other landmark political and legal decisions affecting these groups, there can be no real question that structural oppression is what drives the American economy. The history of American politics illustrates varying states of deplorable human rights campaigns—the habitual treatment of Native Americans, desecration of cultures we don’t understand, witch-hunts and general oppression and abuse of women and girls, slavery, McCarthyism, and internment camps for Japanese-Americans.

In modern society, we allow our police officers to kill unarmed citizens, we make excuses for white terror and mass shootings, and we look the other way when our President and his Department of Justice and unchecked Homeland Security detain and abuse live humans, including innocent children who are torn from their families to sleep terrified in cages surrounded by people who may not or outwardly do not have their best interests at heart. American citizens like to state these immigrants deserve it, yet also turn a blind eye to the private prison industry which makes millions, if not billions, off the incarceration of non-violent drug offenders and people of color.

Yet, sprinkled throughout these negative states of human rights violations, America has seen incredible levels of growth. It seems the balance between good and evil cannot be transgressed. With examples like the 1965 Civil Rights Act, which legally ended segregation and enabled equal legal voting rights for all (though the aggressive disenfranchisement of African Americans continues) to the 1973 Supreme Court ruling, Roe v. Wade, giving women power over their bodies, which resulted in complicated politics on into the future of now, one can clearly see that examples of progress exist too. After all, where there is oppression, there will be resistance. As The Mage in Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur said to Arthur as she was leading him down his path: “Where there is poison, there is a remedy.” Historical examples to illustrate this might include the protests during the Vietnam War, where people’s protests brought change to how wars were established and fought, to the recent responsive protests and speech when government officials began acts of voter suppression--suppression in the form of gerrymandering of electoral maps and voter roll purges, to cheat an advantage at the polls and get around the Constitutional Rights of us all.

The battle against structural oppression in America has been long, and it has been tough. Indeed, though women were allowed to vote with the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920, it wasn’t until after Roe v. Wade cleared the way for all women to have say in their procreative futures that real change began to occur. The reason behind this is that the passing of Roe v. Wade in 1973 would mark the first time women earned the rights and ability to get healthcare and education about what their life options were outside of having children. Before that, advertisements for drugging a wife into submission were routine. In 1967, an advertisement for the anti-anxiety drug Serax posted in the American Medical Journal stated “You can’t set her free, but you can help her feel less anxious.” (How Vintage Advertisements Got Depression Totally Wrong, Erin Schumaker, Huffington Post, December 2017)

It has been repeatedly proven throughout history the best way to undermine progress is to actively attack and strip away the things that promote personal freedom. When one attacks a woman’s choices over her own body, one is attacking a woman’s right to live freely. When one allows those in positions of power to murder people of color in cold blood, one is actively supporting racism. When one attacks and underfunds public education until it’s a joke, one is actively attacking equal access to knowledge. When one attacks any of the foundations of democracy, one is actively attacking the basic tenets of the American Constitution. When one gives priority to the freedom to practice one’s religion to one group over another, one is using their own beliefs to control the lives of others. When one says nothing while others make these decisions for their benefit, one is participating directly with the continuing practice of structural oppression. When one turns a blind eye to the fact that political policy is allowing private companies to make money on the backs of the incarcerated, one is supporting corporate slavery funded by tax dollars.

We MUST take a look at the reality of life in America, and pay attention to the private companies and citizens--some of whom are members of Congress--and are supposed to be serving the American people. We MUST take a serious look at American policies, decisions, and legal cases to once and for all ask the question: are we creating policy and making decisions for the betterment and posterity of America and her people, or for corporate gain and white male dominated power?

And why don’t women in power like Senator Susan Collins of Maine give a damn?