Systems, the ways dominant society organizes life, or “the ways things work” tend to function well for some and oppress others. In 1930s and 40s Mississippi, the sharecropping system provided subsistence-level income for some blacks, while at the same time limiting their upward mobility or empowerment.
“White attitudes made sharecropping a necessity for most blacks. For, as sharecroppers, we lived the proper role and behaved in the accepted manner. Sharecroppers weren’t considered dangerous types who might upset the system. So our family’s status as sharecroppers provided a stability of sorts not always open to independent blacks.
“Trying to be an independent black in the postwar South could be risky. We could have been put out of business if we had tried to go it on our own, totally independent. That would have been ‘uppity’” (34).
“The storekeeper himself would charge about 25 percent interest, and the boss would add his own charges – sometimes another 20 percent. The landowner charged interest even though he was not directly loaning the money out of his pocket, because he was the one being billed. …
“So the sharecropper paid between 35 and 45 percent interest on the crop loan. That interest, plus principal, he had to pay out of his share of the crops. And his share was only half; the other half belonged to the landowner” (40).
“…since land clearing always began in early February, that meant that school for sharecroppers was only about three months a year: November, December and January. With such a short school year, there was no such thing as finishing one grade a year; it was more like one grade level every two years or so” (45).
In Chapter 5 Perkins describes two encounters with the economic system: one in which he feels forced to comply and another in which he is able to exert some small amount of resistance. As you think about your own experience today:
What “systems” do you recognize in our society? Who benefits? Are some individuals or groups marginalized?
Are the problems we see in society the result of an oppressive “system”? Individuals’ choices? Both?
What makes it difficult to restructure these systems? What are steps we might take in that direction?
I think an obvious system that we are all well acquainted with is the economic system known as capitalism. Although capitalism is the world's poster child for freedom and equality among it's citizens, even it cannot escape the role of opressing people based on their class in society. Although it is not blatantly opressive like the Dalit caste system in India or the Maoist communist regime in China it does have it's areas of fault. For example, in our modernist capitalist society education is touted as the main gateway to a person's future success and wealth, but education is not free and it's cost prevents people who do not have the monetary resources to begin with to stay within the same economic bracket their whole lives. In a sense it is like a caste system, because it is empirically proven that whatever circumstances you are born into will eventually determine what type of neighborhood you live in, what level of education you reach, the type of job you take, how big your salary is, and so on. Ultimately the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. All this to say it is possible to move up in our society and overcome negative setbacks that are dealt to us at birth.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I think of "systemic evil", I am reminded of an experience I had in Guatemala two summers ago working with a traveling medical clinic out in the jungle. Working in the clinic, person after person would come in with severe malnutrition. However, as we drove out to the clinics, we saw fields upon fields of corn and beans, as well as plenty of chickens running around that seemed like enough food to meet the needs of the people.
ReplyDeleteI asked the Guatemalan doctor I was with how the people were so malnourished even with all this food, and he told me "Yes, they grow plenty of nutritious food to support their families... However, they see advertisements for coca-cola and frito-lays, and sell what they have in exchange for junk-food. They think 'That's what the Americans eat, so it must be good', or that it will give them energy in the fields"
In this scenario, I can't place the blame on the Guatemalan advertiser that is just doing his job to try and provide for his family, nor do I think their is malevolence in the CEO's actions as they open up a new branch in a foreign country. However, in both of these positions, we see a lack of responsibility or concern to investigate the impacts of the pursuit of profit.
I honestly don't believe that most systems get put in place by people that are intention extortionists, but rather by a series of people making seemingly harmless choices that aren't willing to go the extra mile to consider the consequences of their actions.
I think that it is difficult to restructure systems that we are accustomed to because of the “it works, so why fix it” mentality. It is easy for us to get comfortable with the way things are going until someone is willing to point out what could improve at the risk of being rejected by society.
ReplyDeleteI really don’t know the steps towards bringing about change in society but I know that we’re at the right place as students to learn and be aware of what is going on in our world. Education first, then we are able to speak up with passion and persistence to make a difference in the systems that could be improved.