"Can't we all just get along?"

     The author Alan Johnson argues that everyone is a part of the problem that creates privilege and oppression. It is not who we are but rather what we have inherited from society that causes us to be part of the problem. Furthermore, if you chose to ignore what we have inherited from society then it does become a problem of who we are. "If we dispense with the words we make it impossible to talk about what's really going on and what it has to do with us" (Johnson, Chapter 1). Ignoring the problem because it makes us uncomfortable and because we did not directly cause the problem, turns us into more of a problem.

    One of my biggest takeaways from this reading was the idea that society does not have to be this way and it is not in our nature. Now this may seem like the most basic takeaway one can have but in all honesty I would be lying if I said that I have never thought that society has these flaws because there has to be a natural order of ranking for a lack of better terms. Similar to how there is a food chain for animals, I have always assumed that maybe that is the problem, that even though as humans we have evolved we are animals by nature. Maybe, to our fault, we have this born perception of order in our species. To clarify, this does not mean I have ever used this logic to justify any actions that have caused privilege or oppression but I rather sought out this thought as a possible reason for why. Johnson states "as popular and powerful as such arguments are, the only way to hold on to them is to ignore most of what history, psychology, anthropology, sociology, biology, and, if people look closely, their own experience reveal about human beings and how they live. We are not prisoners to some natural order that pits us hopelessly and endlessly against one another." This was thought provoking for me because it made me realize that this logic does go against specifically my own experience as I do not view the world as having a natural hierarchy of people and I have always seen that as flawed so clearly it is not human nature. 

    

    Another point that was eye opening was the diversity wheel and how the unique makeup of characteristics from this wheel can determine how privileged and oppressed you are but yet it does not show the uniques that makes you up as a person. I am a 22 year old white straight woman, I come from English, Norwegian, Italian, and Irish heritage, and I am very able at this time. I am college educated, working towards achieving my masters, I am not married, I am democratic, not religious, and I am a teacher. What does that tell you about me? To me it says that I am privileged more than I am oppressed. I come from a middle class family so I never had to worry about housing or food insecurities. I am white so every time I have been pulled over for speeding (three times unfortunately) I have gotten off on a warning most likely in part due to my race. I was given the privilege of having access to a high school that offered many AP classes which in turn gave me the privilege of attending college. I am privileged to not live in fear of holding hands with my boyfriend in public. But yet I also experience oppression in some ways. I worry about every interaction with a man. If I am too nice I am leading him on but if I shut him down immediately out of fear for my safety I am a bitch. I have been groped without ever approaching a man. Even as a musician, assumptions are made about what I am capable of musically because of my gender. I can't be a composer because I am a woman, I have the same degree as some of my male alumni yet they are probably band directors while I am most likely seen to teach children's music. And don't get me started on how brass instruments are for men. The point is that each persons individual diversity wheel kind of determines what cards you are dealt in life and how privileged and oppressed you are.

    My final takeaway is that while I have always recognized that I experience more privilege than oppression, I am not lucky to be privileged. Obviously I do not wish to be more oppressed but I wish to exist in a word where my privilege does not thrive off of someone else's oppression. However, as Johnson points out, one cannot exist without the other so in order to get rid of oppression we must eliminate privilege. Which means when I get pulled over for speeding I should only be let off with a warning based on my driving record and not on my skin color and the same would have to go for any person of color. The point is, this reading has made me realize I do not want any part in benefitting from the oppression of others and the first step is recognizing the privilege we receive. 

    At this point I would like to make a connection to my current teaching position as we have not read any other articles thus far into the semester. I teach in Providence where the minority of my students are white but the majority of the teachers are white. What does this tell you about privilege and oppression? To me it says that not enough inner city students, whether that means students of lower economic status, black students, or ethnically diverse students, have access to higher education in order to become teachers. And even though all of the teachers at my school love the students as if they are their own children, what kind of message does it send to the students when they cannot see themselves in their education? It subconsciously, and maybe even sometimes consciously, tells students that they cannot achieve what we have achieved and ends up contributing to repeating the cycle. Like Johnson points out it is not our fault for being white and having this effect but it is our job to do everything we can to change this for the future. This does not just stand true for my school, this is accurate on a national level. I would like to cite data from an article by Katherine Schaeffer that states "In schools where students come from households with lower incomes, greater shares of teachers are Black or Hispanic than at schools where students are wealthier. One measure of this is the share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a proxy measure for students in lower-income households. In schools where more than 75% of students qualify for the program, 17% of teachers are Hispanic, 14% are Black and 63% are White. At schools where 25% or fewer students qualify, 4% of teachers are Hispanic, 2% are Black and nine-in-ten are White." This is something that I try to be mindful of every day when I teach and I am always trying to put my best foot forward in order to make a change in the future. But like Johnson said, we are all a part of the problem, therefore we must all be a part of the change.