A follow-up to the revolution

A point I don't think I emphasized enough in my previous post:

The poor and the oppressed are not stupid. They are not passive. Many like to think they are and we see these ideas perpetuated in images of stereotypes like the welfare (black/woman of color) mother, the criminalized immigrant, so-called "white trash." Or, more to the point, the poor in general: they're often cast as lazy, as ignorant, as unwilling to "pull themselves up by the bootstraps." In short, the poor are poor by some inherent defect; it is their fault that they're poor. They choose to live off of social services, because they're too lazy to do anything else. And if they're lazy, they're stupid, too. By stereotypes I mean, of course, typically untrue representations of certain groups or communities that are often taken as fact or accurate representations/understandings of them.

This leads to the point of exception that Sparks takes with the theorists of the participatory development communication paradigm. Like the dominant paradigm (and also, most of modern social science or philosophy that stems from the Enlightenment), the first group of participatory theorists sought to empower those on the bottom, to work from the bottom-up for social change. The problem? They failed to address the larger structural issues that hindered such an endeavor.

What this means is, as much as we'd like to think all is equal in the world, it's not. There are reasons, which should be apparent but are not, that a child who grows up in a middle-to-upper income neighborhood, in a steady and stable (not necessarily two-parent) household, will be more likely to go to college, land a steady job, and lead a long and productive life, as compared to the child who grows up in a poor community, surrounded by instability, in, for instance, a poor school with few resources and over-crowded classrooms.

We aren't born knowing our possibilities; the world is not necessarily everyone's oyster. If you're white, and even better, male, you DO NOT confront the same world as some one with brown skin. Certain attributes of our identities, our gender, race, class, and even our sexuality, serve as the cards in the hand that we're dealt; and sorry for all you white males out there that think somehow you got handed a raw deal, but you actually got the royal flush compared to the black man who, unlike you, has to confront the pre-existing and pernicious racism of a system that assumes his criminality and inferiority before his competence and capability.

To be blunt, a white man never has to prove themselves in the ways that everyone else does. A white man will never be told that they got something because they're a man. I, however, have had my accomplishments degraded in such a way because I am a woman.

Essentialism, believing that we are all who we are because it is intrinsic to us and natural, is a tactic of the Enlightenment to categorize and subordinate certain sectors of society based on the belief of their inherent inferiority. With the Enlightenment, men (literally, white, male Europeans) began classifying and contriving pathologies based on those all the new "discoveries" in the world and all those things they realized weren't like them. Who fell into these categories? Africans. Asians. Women (hence, the advent of the Obstetrics/Gynecology profession). These groups were all different, i.e., not like the white European men. Women, unlike men, had menstrual cycles. Africans had dark skin and had lives and societies unlike Europe. This, to these white men, made those other groups bad. Since men didn't have periods, there must be wrong with women because they do. Those of us who are not white men are abberations, deviations from the norm; after all, these men held themselves to be made in the likeness of God Himself. As Benedict Anderson points out, around the Renaissance and easing into the Enlightenment, we begin to see representations of Jesus and the disciples that were decidedly European- not a dark-haired, Jewish-looking one in the bunch.

Since these elements, our "African-ness" or our "woman-ness," were natural or essential, they could not be transcended. They could not be changed. Moreover, the connectivity of women's networks and ways of knowing or in the extended families in non-Western countries, for example, was not to be valued; enter Protestantism and the belief that God helps those who helps themselves- think not of your fellow (hu)mankind. And poof! we have the rampant, deeply entrenched belief in individualism, of which the U.S. is a perfect example. It is the individual's fault that (fill in the blank): that they took out loans they couldn't pay back (rather than anything to do at all with predatory lending, looking for vulnerable people to give too much money to), etc., etc.

So take affirmative action. Those against it see it as reverse racism. This implies that people of color are by necessity not the proper person to hire, that a white male would automatically fill the position better. And if we lived in a world where decisions were made fairly and justly, that the workforce was peopled by skill alone, affirmative action would not be necessary. Unfortunately, and empirical studies show this, employers still reject applicants, for instance, whose names sound "too ethnic." Women still get paid less than their male counterparts- a listing of the top women CEOs and the top male CEOS showed nearly a $50 million discrepancy between the men and women. And, for a glaring example, look at the U.S. Congress and the U.S. presidency. Look at public officials in general. Let's just say, it's not a representative democracy, either racially or gender-wise.

Along that line of thought, look at our public officials, our congressional delegations, in particular. Take the Kennedys. Better yet, take Dan Boren, the U.S. Representative from Oklahoma. Take the Roosevelts, the Rockefellers. These individuals all came from families with legacies in politics. Their fathers, uncles, brothers all served in politics and in high-level offices. Take Chelsea Clinton, even. She's a hedge-fund manager, for crying out loud.

Now, understand that these people did not get there only by virtue of their excellence. Although Bill came from Hope, Arkansas, Chelsea didn't. And the Kennedys are practically U.S. royalty. These people had the stage set for them. They were born with a winning hand that was theirs to screw up. They were told as they went along, maybe explicitly, maybe tacitly by Dad's pennant in his study or the sweat-shirt he wore every fall, that Yale was a possibility. Graduating from high school wasn't a surprise. Getting a car at 16 wasn't, either.

We only know what we're told and what we're taught. Some kids are never told they can go to college. Moreover, some families have other considerations besides helping their child picking their Ivy League. Some have to put food on the table or figure out how they'll pay the bills. And some see a much easier way out. Some, true, are just shits, but that transcends class, race, and gender, and it's lazy to assume that everyone who is not like us is worthless. It's much more challenging to assume the best of people than the worst.

But that guidance counselor in the poor school, or the "diverse" district that reaches out to the struggling students; that one television show that gives some one struggling in Mexico or any other developing country hope, or the idea that they can find a better life- that they can demand a better life from their public officials; that one little thing, that one seed of hope- what Appadurai calls the imaginary- or as Suess would say, the thinks we can think (although he still places the onus on "we")- has to come from somewhere.