Liberation Psychology: The Psychology Of Oppression

Oppression is a continuous issue in societies globally. In United States history African Americans are a prime example of people that have been oppressed. During the 1800s and 1900s many reforms took place that was to help advance the lives of African Americans. Although the reforms were put into place African Americans continued to live in a society which they were oppressed, degraded, and seen as inferior. From this period of U.S. history many works of literature were created that expressed their views on how to approach and resolve the issue of oppression. In the letters “A Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King Jr. and “My Dungeon Shook: A Letter to my Nephew” by James Baldwin the writers both express their point of view on how African Americans should approach the issue. However, I

Oppression commonly is what prohibits a person from obtaining happiness, showing that in order to find joy in life, a person must possess intellectual freedom. The people who live without the ability to think freely are being stripped of the chance to acquire happiness because unfiltered knowledge is what it takes for a person to better themselves and

Accusations and judgements have always been apart of the world’s culture. Whether people witness it or experience it. Across the span of history, hundreds of groups have been targeted based on race, gender, and beliefs. Liberty and Oppression has adapted from the 1600’s to the 1990’s through the steps taken towards liberation, and how society views them now.

Imagine going through a breaking point in life. A point to where it is so awful and unbearable. Going through life complications will and can affect an individual. Oppression can affect how oppressed people think, including loss of hope, making changes in society, and having acceptance.

Mental Health in the Black community has rapidly grown overtime. According to the Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health, African Americans are 20% more likely to experience serious mental health problems than the general population. (Mental Health American p. 3) Mental health disorder is popular in the Black community. Which can include: depression, ADHD and PTSD, which usually stem from either a violent past or background. (NAMI p. 3) Furthermore, Cultural Trauma probes the internal conflicts over the form and meaning of representation and culture in successive generations of black Americans after slavery. (Washington p.2). Black identity stemmed from cultural trauma during slavery. “African American”

As noted by Malcolm X in his essay Learning to Read, self-education can help bring awareness to the United States’ appalling history of oppression effectuated against African-Americans. In relation to the reading, Malcolm X assimilated prominent examples of oppression through personal anecdotes that descriptively stated what the “evil white men with whips and clubs and chains and guns” did (193). Correspondingly, the negative consequences society has put into place can be stemmed back to the history of European colonization.

Throughout this essay, the ideologies that surrounded the events of the Holocaust, the slavery of black people, the Stanford Prison Experiment, and the Asch Conformity Experiment have been examined with a clear understanding that they all have one thing in common – the choice to conform to the beliefs of the majority have proven detrimental or even fatal to a group of people within the society. It is extremely difficult to question authority figures, especially when many individuals have been brought up to believe that authority figures are the cornerstones of society. It is also extremely difficult to reject the beliefs of the majority of a society or population out of fear of causing unrest or becoming alienated from society itself. The whole concept of believing what others believe simply because they are the majority can be exceptionally dangerous for a society, however, it would also be quite difficult to uproot an entire psychological and political norm throughout the

Self-preservation is defined as the protection of oneself from harm or death, especially regarded as a base instinct in human beings and animals. It drives us to do things we otherwise would not do, to accomplish things we didn’t know were possible. Self-preservation can often be found throughout history and literature, always in the most desperate of times. Nowhere is it more prominent than in the history and literature surrounding the Holocaust, during which over six million Jews, including 1.5 million children, were brutally murdered in what has become known as one of history’s most deadly and widely publicized genocides. For almost 80 years, historians and Jewish survivors have authored and published their firsthand accounts of the pain they were forced to endure. One such piece of literature is Elie Wiesel’s Night, a memoir illustrating his own experiences in German concentration camps, where every day was dominated by the impulse to stay alive. As Wiesel demonstrated repeatedly in his novel, during the Holocaust, self-preservation forced millions of victims to abandon family members and friends; commit desperate, sometimes suicidal, acts; and blinded many victims to the reality of their situations throughout the genocide.

With existing schematization presenting a range of issues in society, Alcoff’s theory of ethnorace provides effective ways to resolve the issues present within it.

Language is the most powerful tool of communication in this world, with language we are able to create change. For instance Martin Luther King Jr is a man who created peace against racial oppression with he delivered his speech because of it he received a Nobel Prize. In his “I have a dream” speech, his words were inspirational when he spoke about equality. He said, “ Now is the time to make real promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice.” (pg 302) This speech was given in 1963 yet today people of color are still being oppressed. The fight for accepting every human being for who they are is an ongoing battle. Language has created stereotypes towards each race that have made them look low. Racial oppression is a social

For Fanon, it is important to recognize that Black people do not indeed feel they are inferior. But, this feeling is created by racism of the superior of the white people. When Black people take on their oppression as a personal failure, this is when an inferiority complex arises. It is also continually boosted in daily life in racist societies, because Black people are constantly reminded they are Black first and people second. In other words, people are reduced to their race, instead of seen as unique human

Anti-oppressive practice focuses on the structural inequalities and places the blame that service users internalize on the structures and systems themselves (Ajandi, 2018). Humanistic and social justice values and ideas shape anti-oppressive practice (Healy, 2015). They address inequalities that affect opportunities of service users, due to the interlocking of social relations and oppression (Burke & Harrison, 2002). AOP aims to identify oppressions and define ways in which social workers can attempt to become anti-oppressive, avoid discomfort, and end oppression to service users (Strega, 2007). It highlights mutual involvement between the social worker and the service user, challenging forms of oppression and inequalities (Burke & Harrison, 2002), and presents the idea that service users do not occupy a “single identity”, but instead have interlocking oppressions that work together to put clients at a social disadvantage (Strega, 2007). According to Ajandi, anti-oppressive practice does not believe in a hierarchy of oppression, where all oppressions are on a “level playing field of discrimination” (2018). AOP produces strategies to be used in social work practice to work alongside service user: critical reflection, critical assessment, empowerment, working in partnership with service users, and minimal

Should people be allowed to immigrate? This multifaceted question exemplifies the contemporary news cycle. Hence, it raises the question regarding the rise of such highly debated and opposing views on such a matter. The theories of Karl Marx and subsequently, Frantz Fanon can be applied to such a perplexing phenomena to gain a more comprehensive understanding. It is empirically provable that people have migrated for thousands of years, however the matter has become immensely contested in the contemporary political and social sphere. Political happening such as Brexit and the immigration ban imposed on religious and ethnic minorities in the United States undoubtedly exemplify the political climate regarding immigrants and immigration. The climate

Since the September 11th, 2001, the nation as well as the world has changed drastically. The curtain blocking the first world from the things going on in the Middle-East has risen. Stereotypes have been created and are often enacted against the innocent and fellow neighbors. But this is not the only instance of labels; labels have been placed on just about everything and often seem hurtful. Of course, these labels have helped in minute ways by preventing a small percentage of attacks and establishing a mental safeguard. But how do labels lead to discrimination? Although labeling appears to help in a post 9/11 America, the Holocaust shows labeling leading to discrimination and ultimately violence, which can be solved by promoting awareness of

Human history is abundant in examples of individuals who have amassed such power with themselves that have allowed them to control entire populations, and often unleash tyranny and oppression upon millions of people. Throughout history there have been individuals who have held an iron grip over entire nations, concentrating totalitarian power with themselves, denying any freedom to people, crushing any form of dissent, and often unleashing mass violence, terror, and in some cases genocide. These people have shaped the future of peoples, regions and continents, starting wars and conflicts, and determining the course of millions of lives. And because of this very fact, that a single person could such a huge impact over the lives of so many people, it is very important to study the very factors that caused these individuals to make the decisions that they did, specifically, the factors and that shaped up the personality of these