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Patricia Hill Collins – Interlocking Structure of Oppression
Patricia Hill Collins is Charles Phelps Taft Professor of Sociology within and she is also a former Chair of the Department of African American Studies at the University of Cincinnati. Professor Patricia Collins received her B.A. and Ph.D. degrees in sociology from Brandeis University, and a degree in M.A.T. from Harvard University. She is a social theorist; her research and scholarship have dealt primarily with issues of gender, race, social class, sexuality and nation specifically relating to African American women. She has published number of articles in professional journals such as Sociological Theory, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Social Problems, Signs, and Black Scholar, as well as in various edited volumes.
In 1993 Patricia Collins wrote a wonderful piece discussing race, class, and gender as categories of analysis and connection in American society. This is very informative and let me take this liberty to summarize what I consider to be important things which we all should know about.
We live in a society which contains many kinds of people living around us. May times we all differ from each other. There are people are people around us from different backgrounds, race, caste, creed etc. With these different people, there are some people who are being oppressed for a long time in our society. These people are the victim of oppression. Due to this oppression and inequality, we have made a generalization that some people are victims and some are an oppressor. But this idea is somewhat flawed. For example, white skin women fight for the right to equality of women but little did they understand that white skin people have been oppressing black people for ages.
We live in a world where a group of people says about the oppression which they have faced at maximum. They talk about extreme oppression case of the people. People should know that these cases and concepts of oppression are full of contradictions and errors. In this world, If we look closely, we will come to know that there are only a few people who are pure victims of this oppression , otherwise, we all have oppressed other people at one point or another.
If we look closely to ourselves then, we’ll come to know that there is a piece of oppressor inside us. And this is the reason that world is having more oppressors and very less pure victims. We should look at our behavior while talking to other people, especially those who are in a minority so that we can take care of the piece of oppressor within us. In order to take care of this inequality, we need to understand new visions of what is oppression. When we’ll look at the terms closely, our ideas and vision can lead to short-term social changes and revolutions.
People talk about inequality and oppression most of the times, but they forget that sometimes, the oppressed people have many privileges based on their care, color, creed, gender etc. These things should be much more talked and taken care of. There are also some people who are oppressor according to some culture and oppressed according to another. Thus, we need some more info and a New vision to look into these flaws of the society. And it is seen many times that these institutions are interlocked.
The society we live in is a complex web of problematic relationship with the people living in it. There is a kind of cobwebs in the society these days. All people are having problems and personal issues living in the society. This is a part where inequality also plays a major role. We genuinely and sincerely need a new vision to fight this inequality.
Re-conceptualizing race, class, gender as a group for analysis
In order to Re-conceptualize this concept of oppressor and victim, we need to understand the fact that we all are oppressed and oppressor at some point in time. We must stop the additive analysis of oppression that is adding race, gender and class oppression will lead to a greater sum. And apart from that, we stand on the pillars of quantification of the oppression. We can’t deny the fact that there are people who are more oppressed than other and also the intensity may vary.
In order to establish new thinking in our society, we need to ask new questions to ourselves, see through the new vision and new perspective in the society. Our task is redefined in order to remove any kind of oppression and inequality in the society.
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