Titanic Post

We Americans tend to think of oppression as something external, something that happens to minorities, somewhere far away. The reality is that oppression exists everywhere and in every society. Every human alive today is locked into both oppressed and oppressor roles and this mechanism is implanted in all of us during childhood.

The universal and historical existence of oppression is generally recognized by all except for the American white male who believes that it is something that happens to others because of their laziness, lack of intgelligence, or lifestyle choices. That we could be the oppressor is unthinkable. Yet we are able to accept almost any kind of oppression, because We still think that we are on the same level as the very rich and it is only a matter of time until we are economically independent as well. The American Dream floats on denial.

Out in the world, the realization that everyone in our societies has been forced into operating within both oppressor and oppressed roles is still almost unknown and unfaced. Until we understand the deeper nature of oppression our struggle to end it will be in vain. We will continue looking for “the enemy out there” and thus carry on the long sad history of desperate, bewildered human beings substituting a Czar for a Stalin, a Shah for an Ayatollah.

Our parents gave us our first experience of oppression. Parents must take charge of their relationship with their children. By presenting the world as a dangerous place with murder and hurtful people along with a “That’s the way it is” attitude they instill powerlessness in children. As new forms of oppressions are later introduced, we now accept them without fighting back. Born with an open, zestful and cooperative relationship to everyone, we are hurt very early by this irrational behavior of adults. While we are in emotional distress, our vast human intelligence momentarily seems to shut down and the new information is stored wrongly or “jams up” in a tied-up knot, and we are blocked.

Since we cannot understand or evaluate - such early information from a distress experience, subsequent information tends to get stuck in the same pattern, which over the years becomes chronic - or like a recording which now plays us! Finally we end up with a “distress pattern” of rigid, illogical behavior not unlike that of our parents or other adults. Having gone through such oppression, we then reenact our own experiences on others.