Queering privilege In any groups’ struggle against injustice, a glint of jealousy and bitterness seems to accompany thoughts of the oppressor and those positioned in places of privileged within structures of domination. Generally it is acknowledged that there are no simple scapegoats upon whom to unequivocally level blame for all the world’s maladies, tempting as finding and accosting such a character is. Despite the growing willingness to let go of old myths of directly responsible villains, there remains a not unrelated urge still to describe and intellectually master (exert power over by gaining knowledge of) those who inhabit structural locations of privilege. Taking the case of Patricia Hill Collins’ black feminism, a rather nuanced understanding of such characters is developed to better know their place. However, the accounts of this sort of simplistic anti-domination critique ultimately replicates, in its theorizing, the assimilationist incompleteness of the modes of thought it initially rejects. For people to be ‘structurally positioned’ in ‘relatively privileged ways’ means that they routinely receive benefits and escape discomforts as compared to trends in other people. Usually these trends about what is ‘routine’ and how ‘other people’ live rely on some creation of a category of “normal” from which others are understood as departures. A first issue is to determine what a benefit or discomfort would be. By discomfort, of course, I mean to sarcastically understate the range from daily and ‘accidental’ inconveniences to very intentional brutality that makes up a common experience of grinding oppression that structurally condemns folks as individuals and groups. Similarly, benefits span a sizeable range in their particularity, but compose an overarching preponderance of niceties. However, who gets to decide what is oppressive or beneficent might be the effected person, someone higher up, or impersonal criteria, but this is a question for ethics one is tempted to bracket. Some groups, it then seems, are in better places, but who are “they”? If black women can be defined as a group by first noticing the trends that particular people encounter, such as often being suspected of shoplifting, and then correlating these patterns with their constructed identity (the combination of categories “black” and “woman”) (Collins 25-26), then perhaps groups with structural privilege can be understood similarly. The categories of, say, “man” and “white” do seem to line up with systematic privileges. In Patricia Hill Collins’ black feminism, both the criticisms and alternative methodologies offer some insights into the nature of a position of privilege and what it means to inhabit it.
Today in the United States of America people are both privileged and oppressed based on their diversity markers and social locations. These advantages and disadvantages are put in place by the people whom are in power, or otherwise known as the government and other leading officials. This is a major issue in today’s society that often tends to be masked by the many other issues within the country as well as by the privileged people. Many people who experience privilege tend to believe that privilege and oppression do not exist and that everyone has equal opportunity, but that is not the case privilege and oppression does exist and it can be seen every day in society. After a careful review of Dena Samuel’s “Matrix Model of Oppression and Privilege” I identified myself as rather privileged due to my social and diversity locations on her model.
In “In Living Color: Race and American Culture”, Michael Omi claims that racism still takes place in America’s contemporary society. According to Omi, media and popular culture shape a segregating ideology by giving a stereotypical representation of black people to the public, thus generating discrimination between races (Omi 115:166). In “Bad Feminist: Take One”, Roxane Gay discusses the different roles that feminism plays in our society. She argues that although some feminist authors and groups try to create a specific image of the feminist approach, there is no definition that fully describe feminism and no behaviors that can make someone a good feminist or a bad feminist (Gay 304:306). Both authors argue
Collins, Patricia Hill. "Mammies, Matriarchs, and Other Controlling Images." Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge, 2000. 89. Print.
What I mean by this is that their privilege is dependent on where they are located and are dominant in that area. The example in the essay “The Unexamined” that Ross gives when he was going to Rome illustrates this very clearly. As he says that the white people have the privilege of being unexamined, it depends on how good they fit in with others in the same area. When he was in his city everyone around him had similar features so he would blend in easy. In this case nobody would examine him, or point a finger on him, hence the being in a privileged group opinion he had about himself. But all this would change as soon as he moved to another place, where people have different features then his. He would stand out from the rest, losing his group’s privileges as unexamined. So in order for Ross to maintain his group’s privilege he has to maintain his geographic location. Another example that shows that privileged groups maintain their privilege by staying in the same location is of that of people who are part of a gang. Being in a gang you have the privilege of having power over other people who are not part of your gang. Everyone is afraid of you and nobody would come against you. I’ve seen this in a lot of different movies that I like to watch during my free time. Members of different gangs taunt everyone that come in their territory. They are the ones that make the rules in that area. They have the privilege to rule other people’s lives. But if they move to a different area that’s not part of their gang they lose their privilege. They are not in control anymore. Nobody cares who they are no one is afraid of them. It’s like they don’t even exist anymore. These two examples show that groups can maintain their privilege by staying in the same geographic area, otherwise they would lose it and be no more than a regular group with no power or even a slight importance
“[T]he cage may or may not be specifically developed for the purpose of trapping the bird, yet it still operates (together with the other wires) to restrict its freedom” (Alexander, 184). This metaphor used by Michelle Alexander gives a good basis on the idea of intersectionality within feminist theory. What Alexander has stressed hugely in ‘The New Jim Crow’ is the idea of racial hierarchy, which bell hooks also stresses in her chapter Men: Comrades in Struggle in her book ‘Feminist Theory: from margin to center.’ She discusses the hierarchy of men and women while also discussing race. She claims that the history of the feminist movement has not wanted to “acknowledge that bourgeois white women, though often victimized by sexism, have more
Oppression is a term that has been used throughout history to describe the injustices brought upon minority groups. Feminist writer Marilyn Frye shared the definition of oppression, which essentially means to shape or conform certain groups of people (for this paper women will be used as the primary example) into socially constructed ideals through restrictions that mold and immobilize minority groups or females (Frye 11). According to Marilyn Frye, this term is sometimes loosely thrown around and used out of the term’s true context. The misuse of this term often creates a misconstrued view of what true oppression is and how particular groups of people are able to function within
The invention of ancient Egyptian literature has generally been attributed to the Middle Kingdom and was perceived as the result of the expansion of the intellectual class, the memory of the individuality established in the First Intermediate Period, and the availability of written materials (Parkinson, 2010: 45-46, 49-50, 55-56, 64–66; Morenz, 2003: 102). The production and dissemination of written discourse in the early Middle Kingdom has been associated with the contemporaneous process of state regeneration of the period. Interpretations of the role of Middle Kingdom literature in its respective social and political spheres often adhere to Posener’s (1956) theory, which construes all genres of Middle Kingdom literature as political persuasion created to facilitate the re-centralization of the state after the political fragmentation of the First Intermediate Period. However, the Middle Kingdom's retrospective portrayal of the First Intermediate Period as chaotic in literature to accentuate the legitimacy and virtues of the current regime was also used as a literary device. Thus, although it recognizes the political element of Middle Kingdom literature, the application of this modern label to an ancient construct fails to fully appreciate the value of this intellectual development. Rather, it is more appropriate to perceive the corpus as a mode of communication between and within literate members of the society and a proclamation of the superiority of literacy.
McIntosh, Peggy. White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Backpack. N.p.: Wellesley College Center for Research for Women, 1989. Print.
...sis. At this stage the treatment plant has the wastewater pumped through membranes. This process eliminates viruses, bacteria, and protozoa that are in the wastewater. Advanced Oxidation happens next in the treatment process. UV and or ozone and hydrogen peroxide and used to further disinfect and remove contaminants from the wastewater. The last step is called Fresh Water Blend. As stated in the name of the process Freshwater is now blended with the wastewater. Either the water is blended with surface water reservoirs or added to groundwater, where this water can remain in these reservoirs for an average of 6 months to be further purified by natural processes. Once this water is taken from the groundwater or reservoir is goes through the same standard water purification process all drinking water undergoes to meet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards.
Waste water treatment plants are essential to communities of all sizes and must work efficiently. Waste water treatment plant primary priority and responsibility is the treatment of incoming sewage water by the removal of biological and chemical wastes so it can be treated and recycled for future use. There are many government agencies and standards set forth to govern and observe the successful treatment of sewage such as: the Department of Environmental Quality, the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System and the Clean Water Act of 1972. Compliance and constant monitoring of the treatment plant’s operations are important; as they protect the surrounding community. A spill or backflow of sewage due to a complete system malfunction could potentially be detrimental to the environment and local community. A precise system, of which must be compliant according to government standards, is critical to maintain low levels of wastes that are returned to neighboring water systems after treatment.
Among the many subjects covered in this book are the three classes of oppression: gender, race and class in addition to the ways in which they intersect. As well as the importance of the movement being all-inclusive, advocating the idea that feminism is in fact for everybody. The author also touches upon education, parenting and violence. She begins her book with her key argument, stating that feminist theory and the movement are mainly led by high class white women who disregarded the circumstances of underprivileged non-white women.
Purified water should be prepared using potable water as feed water. Purified water is used as excipients in manufacturing pharmaceuticals and for equipment cleaning, especially product contact surfaces of non-sterile chemicals. Types of purification used to produce this water include Deionisation, Distillation, Ion Exchange, Reverse Osmosis and Filtration. Purified water must meet ionic organic chemical and microbial requirements. The components that produce, store and circulate purified water must be sanitised and monitored frequently to avoid bio films forming.
The techniques and the technology used to remove impurities from waste and supply water have greatly evolved. They have increased in efficiency, precision, and some are less environmentally endangering, but they have also increased in scale and in cost. It is concerning that the need of purification has increased on a large scale, but it is a concept which has been present for centuries and one which is vitally important to our society. If waste and supply water are not properly transported and treated there would be many consequences such as disease outbreaks, harmful pollution, poisoning, etc… Thus it is important that each town or city has a good sewage and/or pipe system as well as a functioning waste and supply water treatment plant.
Improvement and upgrading of wastewater treatment processes and also the need to reduce the environmental factors make the use of tertiary wastewater treatment important.
It was fascinating for me to hear that the founder of the Zulu Nation, Shaka created a militarian society for his people by forming Zulu regiments called the amabutho and teaching young boys how to fight and become warriors. Because of this, the Zulus believed that in order to be a man in life, one needs to be a warrior, and one can start a family when their military services are completed. Seeing the concepts, however, of how the Zulus live reminded me of how the Spartans operated their militaristic ways in Greece. Even though the ...