Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jon Heim on August 30, 2010 at 7:04pm

hey, everyone who disagreed with me should include their own list. lets see which groups we have to work with here.

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Permalink Reply by Chelsea Sherman on August 30, 2010 at 7:26pm

I would definitely have blacks at the top of the list.

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Permalink Reply by Jon Heim on August 30, 2010 at 7:33pm

Can you guys imagine what it must have been like for a black women?
It's scary.

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Permalink Reply by Rocio Hernandez on August 30, 2010 at 7:39pm

I was initially confused because the post said that it went from least to most which in my brain would indicate the bottom of the list is least oppressed, but read the comments and realized I was just confused.

I agree mostly with the list. Although I think leaving out Native Americans specifically was a HUGE problem. I mean it says a lot about a country that its very foundation rested upon the genocide of another group.

I understand where Jean Marie is coming from and I think too many White Americans are in denial about how much discrimination there was and is towards African-Americans. But I'm not a big fan of the oppression olympics (basically when you try to rate who is more oppressed), because its important to distinguish individuals and groups. [It often times turns too much into denying the suffering of one group because another suffered objectively more] Which is NOT to say that I don't think one group has not been consistently persecuted more and for longer than another group, its just not very helpful to get into debates like who was more oppressed women or Black Americans? (The main reason being that the question ignores the very existence of Black women, and non-white women and poor white women, and that black men are sometimes oppressors of black women in addition to whites). There's this really useful concept called Intersectionality that progressives use today. [Like you can assume that a Working Class Queer Black Atheist Woman who is a radical gets all sorts of oppression from all sorts of directions]

Also for transparency, I grew up in a mixed black and Latino neighborhood. I didn't have my first white friend until I went to high school and was 14 years old so I actually feel more comfortable around black culture than mainstream white culture. I want to take African-American studies courses sometime in my life because I think that no meaningful American History can take place that doesn't include them in a significant way.

Obviously the working class has it shittier than the middle and upper classes. But I think oppression of women is so ingrained in Western culture and has such a long history. Even rich women don't seem to be exempt from it. 1/6 American women were survivors of rape or attempted rape in their lives. That's over 17 million. That's not 1 out of million thing, its pretty widespread. Recently I found out 6 of my friends had also been raped and I had just never known because we're usually quiet about it and I didn't learn til I started asking/talking about it. Domestic Violence is also extremely pervasive and rich men and middle class men and not just working class men (as I think is a common perception) beat their wives. (And actually a lot of men are raped too, like 1/33 = 3% which is NOT like 1 in million but still way too common).

I don't know that I would rank oppressions. But I would argue that women, working class, ethnic minorities especially the traditionally oppressed ones, religious minorities, LGBT, immigrants, and others I can't think of all still face a lot of discrimination and that society at large really needs to step up and stop the oppressions of those groups.

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Permalink Reply by Jon Heim on August 30, 2010 at 8:06pm

I agree.

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Permalink Reply by Rocio Hernandez on August 31, 2010 at 9:50am

Oh definitely! My next door neighbor was originally from Mississippi and is in his 70s. I can't even imagine what stories he has.

It's definitely important to know things like this. on a different note, I went abroad to Japan, and I had some classmates whose grandparents survived the atomic bomb attacks. It opened up my eyes even more to know that I knew people whose families were actually attacked by nuclear weapons :O

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Permalink Reply by Jon Heim on September 1, 2010 at 2:22am

interesting thought.

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Permalink Reply by Eoganacht on September 1, 2010 at 1:56am

Women should always be at the top in lists like these, they have been suffering, maybe not at the genocide level, but at a sick amount through history. Pagans have been slaughtered for thousands of years and deserve either second or first place (i cannot judge accuately where pagans or woman suffered more).
Comparatively, atheists have had very little prejudice over the years.

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