Matrix Of Oppression Essay

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Everyone in the world is different. All of our different social identities, such as race, class, sexual orientation, and gender, are valuable pieces that create us and give us the ability to shape everything we have to offer, whether it is our attitude, our behavior, or even our views about the world we live in. At first, this seems like a positive thing because it gifts us with great human diversity and variability. Unfortunately, it actually causes many unrecognized problems that are extremely impossible to resolve.
Each of “The Big 8” social identifiers is broken down into three types of social groups as seen on the Matrix of Oppression: privileged, border, and targeted/oppressed. Although it is very rare, there are people that can be considered privileged in all eight social identity categories or targeted/oppressed in in all eight social identity categories. However, most people worldwide fall into a mix of both privileged social groups, border social groups, and targeted social groups. People who are in all, if not, most privileged social groups in “The Big 8” social identity categories, have a very difficult time noticing their superior treatment above the other two social groups. This is because these “superior” people have been receiving this type of treatment throughout their entire lives. Privilege is defined as the, “special right, …show more content…

He labeled himself as an able-bodied, heterosexual, Filipino male who was gender conforming. He also stated that he was of middle class, a Roman Catholic, and a young adult. The only difference between my friend and I was that he was Filipino and I was white. In broader terms, he was Asian. Looking at the Matrix of Oppression, Asians are labeled as part of the targeted social group for race, whereas whites, and only whites, are labeled as part of the privileged social

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