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National initiatives to promote anti-discriminatory practice
How national initiatives promote anti discriminatory practice.p4 m2 d1
How national initiatives promote anti discriminatory practice.p4 m2 d1
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The article “The Price of Love,” by Amber Hollibaugh and the book “The Devil Behind the Mirror,” by Steven Gregory, reveal the oppression that some individuals face in their daily life because they are considered distinct to the rest of people.
“The Price of Love,” is about the life of Amber Hollibaugh the author of the article. In this article, Amber Hollibaugh talks about the oppression that she faces as a working-class woman by the people around her by the simple fact that she is a lesbian. Around the age of 20, Amber left home because her family were homophobic and rejected her for her sexuality, “they were ridiculed, harassed, fired from their jobs, routinely beating up by my brothers and cousins and all their male’s friends.” Even though
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Amber family knew the feeling of being oppressed by the society because her father was a black worker and he had been fired from his job many times because of his skin color, they did not have the compassion to support her and accept her for who she is.
In addition, being lesbian, gay, bisexual or queer: LGBTQ, during the 1960’s is view as a crime and a mental illness and totally immoral in the United States. Amber faces oppression at work as well by her union representative. One time her boss was flirting with her and asking her to sleep with him, however, she told him that she was not sexually attracted to men and then she went to the union to let them know that her boss was disrespecting her, but the union representative told her that it was none of his business. The only reason why the union does not care about Amber's complaints is because she is a lesbian. It is an outrage that a human being must resist an inhuman injustice by being attracted to someone of the same sex. Amber got another job where they used to say they did not care about anyone’s sexuality, however, she got fired from that job after she appeared with her girlfriend at a party where her coworkers invited her. Both she and her girlfriend were “beat up, or left with anonymous nasty notes and ugly homophobic pictures in our lockers...” Amber got involved into political to fight against oppression and prejudice for the LGBTQ because “the cost of being both …show more content…
working class and queer is dangerously high.” Amber did not give up because she was tired of people oppressing her. She started to fight for egalitarianism and in her article, she encourages the world to fight “for freedom and for a better world.” “The Devil Behind the Mirror” is an ethnographical study by Steven Gregory that reveals the difficulties that occur in the Dominican Republic, an island located in the Caribbean, considered beautiful and perfect through the eyes of the tourists. People travel to the Dominican Republic to have the vacation of their dreams, but travelers and foreign countries are not aware of the corruption of that country, where politicians and individuals who consider themselves to be superior to others take advantages of the most helpless. Racism and discrimination against Haitians it is unbelievable in this country. Sadly, is like going back to the history of the United States during the XIX and XX centuries. In chapter V the author displays the endeavor that Haitians confront for obtain some minimum rights in the Dominican Republic and in this country Haitians are seen to be “second class citizen” because of their skin color, “the Dominican authorities did not issue birth certificates to children born of Haitians parents.” For Haitian kids to attend to public school in this country their parents must pay for a fake birth certificate, “to resolve this problem Gerard pay a Civil Registry official US $500 for a false birth certificate.” This is an injustice and an oppression to any human being because education in any country is considered fundamental to have a well-developed and educated country, however, it is seen that in the Dominican Republic they do not play out with the perspective of having a country with educated citizens, they just want to take advantage of the Haitians and make them feel inferiors because of their nationality. Haitians Dominican cannot even protest for their basic human rights and they must tolerate the oppression and ignorance of Dominican individuals because if they stand up and protest for their rights they will get deported to Haiti or the police will lock them up in jail. Furthermore, Haitians do not protest about their rights because they do not have the courage to face the authority and the government because they are scared about the actions that they might take against them and basically, they preferred to be quiet and be outcast in a country where they belong and they are citizens and they deserve equity like any other individual born in that country. Both, the article “The Price of Love,” and the book “The Devil Behind the Mirror,” exhibit individuals in different setting and dissimilar circumstance resisting oppression and struggling in their daily life in in a community of ignorant human beings. In the “Price of Love,” Amber is considered being different and is ignored by her family because she is a lesbian and she ran away from home to look for another environment where she felt less rejected. Amber is a woman who stands up for her basic human rights because she considers herself to be a human being like everyone else, who deserves respect and to be free from oppression. She wants the coming generation to do not suffer the cruelty and ignorance that exists in society, and she hopes that they are not treated as “second-class citizen,” like she is treated and viewed in society during that time. In contrast, the “The Devil Behind the Mirror,” Gregory the author of the book, shows the fear that Haitians have towards Dominicans authority. They resist the discrimination from the majority of Dominicans and they do not speak up against the government because they are terrified of the intolerant and discriminatory people of this country. It is seen that Haitians think the only alternative they have for being living in the Dominican Republic is to do not speak up and let Dominicans take away their human rights. The most effective way to resist oppression is to speak up and empower people about their rights because constitutional rights such as the right of expression are supposed to be respected by the government as a way of avoiding oppression of the individuals in the society. Oppressed people have the power to be heard by their government because they need to enjoy their constitutional and basic human rights. Amber in her Article “The price of Love” shows the knowledge that she has about her human rights. However, Haitians in the Dominican Republic does not think that standing up for the rights is a good way to be considered less outcast in their society. But, when people unify and protest together to have power regarding justice and equity, change happens, for example; the Stonewall Riots in the 1960’s were a call for an end to discrimination towards homosexuals, and marked the beginning of gay rights movement, in which the homosexual community was encouraged to “come out,” and claim their rights. Today society has come to accept gays as they are and they have gained equality without exception in many countries around the world. In culmination, the article “The Price of Love,” by Amber Hollibaugh and the book “The Devil Behind The Mirror,” by Steven Gregory shows a different kind of oppression that some people have to resist in order to survive.
The alternative of some oppressed individuals is to speak out for their rights like Amber did, but others are scared to face society and they prefer to be silent like Haitians. Freedom from oppression is a basic human right and human rights mean all human beings are born equal in dignity and rights. These rights are inalienable to all individuals, regardless of their nationality, since they come from nature or from God. Individuals in society tend to oppress other people because they considered themselves to be superior to them. Oppression, such as sexual identity and racism tend to lead people to have low-self-esteem, fear, anxiety, insecurity and get to the point of committing suicide; it is a cruel but a true reality that should never happen in society. it is not easy to resist oppression, but some people resist it and fight to be free from it because they get tired of suffering from the barbarity and injustice of their communities and to be treated outcast. Individuals must stand up for their basic human rights because every human being in this world should have the right to be treated with egalitarianism no matter their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or
identity.
In Vicki L. Eaklor’s Queer America, the experiences of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender people in the years since the 1970s gay liberation movement are described as a time of transformation and growth. The antigay movement, threatened, now more than ever, created numerous challenges and obstacles that are still prevalent today. Many of the important changes made associated with the movement were introduced through queer and queer allied individuals and groups involved in politics. Small victories such as the revision of the anti discrimination statement to include “sexual orientation”, new propositions regarding the Equal Rights Amendment and legalized abortion, were met in turn with growing animosity and resistance from individuals and groups opposed to liberal and
Anita Bryant was an Anti-Gay Activist with no past political history yet, she was still a huge reason a lot of people in the 70’s were anti-gay. “Bryant’s background… hardly gave her credentials as an authority on homosexuality...Unfortunately, gay activists had little knowledge about how the media works. Bryant was pretty… if baited too far, she did marvelously telegenic things… that was all she needed. As far as the media… was concerned, she was an authority on homosexuality”(156). Even though she had little knowledge about what gay people were actually like and gave out untrue statistics multiple times, because she was pretty and famous, it basically gave her a right to talk about subjects she was uneducated on. It just shows how unfair gay people had it because they were in the minority. It also again, shows the demonization of the LGBT
In the United States, the hierarchical system that dominates the social landscape has created a pool of power for those who sit at the top of the social ladder. This system has power trickling down from the top to those at the bottom: those who work hard and get recognized the least. This creates a conflict between the oppressed and the oppressor, and eventually those who are oppressed use those drops of power to fight for their basic human rights. In an excerpt from Gloria Anzaldúa’s book Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, Anzaldúa explains the complications of oppressed people developing counterstances with their oppressors. In Helena Maria Viramontes novel Under the Feet of Jesus, Viramontes develops a female character named Estrella
Steven Gregory’s The Devil behind the Mirror: Globalization and Politics in the Dominican Republic is an eye-opening text on the impacts of globalization on developing countries. Based in the coastal cities of Boca Chica and Andres in the Dominican Republic, Gregory offers an insight to the negativity that globalization has induced rather than the benefits and hopes it promises. He shows us how the country’s shift into the neoliberal tourism industry has changed people’s lives, specifically the poor. His main focuses are centered on class, race, and gender.
Steven Gregory’s book entitled The Devil Behind The Mirror is an ethnographical study of the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is in the Caribbean, it occupies the Western half of an island, while Haiti makes up the Eastern portion. Gregory attempts to study and analyze the political, social and cultural aspects of this nation by interviewing and observing both the tourists and locals of two towns Boca Chica and Andres. Gregory’s research centers on globalization and the transnational processes which affect the political and socio-economics of the Dominican Republic. He focuses on the social culture, gender roles, economy, individual and nation identity, also authority and power relations. Several of the major relevant issues facing Dominican society include racism, sexism, and discrimination, economy of resort tourism, sex tourism and the informal economy. The objective of Gregory’s ethnographic research is to decipher exclusionary practices incorporated by resort tourism, how it has affected locals by division of class, gender, and race, increasing poverty and reliance on an informal economy.
Hate violence is a predominant issue against transgender women who wish for acceptance from society. Individuals believe they have the right to perform violence against these transgender women because of who they are. For example, in the novel Stone Butch Blues, Jess Goldberg is physically a women but prefers to live life as a male. Since Jess chooses to live life as a male, or butch, she is frequently a target of policeman and other individuals because of her identity. The society views Jess as a criminal because during the 1960’s homosexuality was illegal and it was considered a mental disorder. Apparently, our society has made much more progress today against transgender women, but they still face a multitude of hate violence. A major example
Throughout the history there have been nations that have stood up to this injustice and others who have remained silent, leading to the genocide of a whole nation. If the people in the nation of the oppressed would have stood up to the injustice, it would have encouraged others to do so as well and this could have made the tormentors be brought down thus, bringing peace to the people of the nation. If everyone has this type of attitude that they know their voice counts, then the world would not be a place that tolerates oppression, but a world that welcomes freedom.
In the past decades, the struggle for gay rights in the Unites States has taken many forms. Previously, homosexuality was viewed as immoral. Many people also viewed it as pathologic because the American Psychiatric Association classified it as a psychiatric disorder. As a result, many people remained in ‘the closet’ because they were afraid of losing their jobs or being discriminated against in the society. According to David Allyn, though most gays could pass in the heterosexual world, they tended to live in fear and lies because they could not look towards their families for support. At the same time, openly gay establishments were often shut down to keep openly gay people under close scrutiny (Allyn 146). But since the 1960s, people have dedicated themselves in fighting for
Life for most homosexuals during the first half of the Twentieth century was one of hiding, being ever so careful to not give away their true feelings and predilections. Although the 1920s saw a brief moment of openness in American society, that was quickly destroyed with the progress of the Cold War, and by default, that of McCarthyism. The homosexuals of the 50s “felt the heavy weight of medical prejudice, police harassment and church condemnation … [and] were not able to challenge these authorities.” They were constantly battered, both physically and emotionally, by the society that surrounded them. The very mention or rumor of one’s homosexuality could lead to the loss of their family, their livelihood and, in some cases, their lives. Geanne Harwood, interviewed on an National Public Radio Broadcast commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, said that “being gay before Stonewall was a very difficult proposition … we felt that in order to survive we had to try to look and act as rugged and as manly as possibly to get by in a society that was really very much against us.” The age of communist threats, and of Joseph McCarthy’s insistence that homosexuals were treacherous, gave credence to the feeling of most society members that homosexuality was a perversion, and that one inflicted was one to not be trusted.
Throughout history people who manifested an attraction for others of the same sex usually have gone through a lot of maltreatments, discrimination, and have often been regarded as “sexual deviants.” Relationships between people of the same sex have been present since the beginning of history. Their lives have not always been easy, because they have been persecuted and sometimes even forced to go through a psychiatric evaluation. At the same time, in order to gain their rights and dignity, they had to take their fight to the legal system because as George Chauncey, a professor of history at Yale University mentioned, “although most people recognize that gay life was difficult before growth of the gay movement in the 1970s, they often have only the vaguest sense of why: that gay people were scorned and ridiculed, made to feel ashamed, afraid, and alone” (290). However, discrimination and maltreatment were not the only reasons homosexuals had to take their struggle to the courts. An American professor of history at Yale University, who has testified in a number of gay rights cases, has exposed the ins and outs of the legal system in the second half of the twentieth century. During this time, a great number of states had created laws, which authorized the indefinite detention of homosexuals in mental institutions, and conditioned their release upon proving that they were cured from homosexuality (Chauncey 294). This past history, together with studies conducted by some prestigious institutions have lead society to understand that the right to homosexual marriage is economically, ethically, and morally correct, because it would benefit the economy and society by increasing the federal budget and creating a legal status for homosexual c...
The idea of escaping oppression has existed for as long as societies and cultures have been around. For example, racism, religious intolerance, and cultural diversity have led to
It may seem absurd that gays and lesbians who represent about four per cent of the population should attempt to transform society. Of these only a minority is promoting these goals. But these activists have used specious guilt tactics to capture the moral high ground. With the complicity of the media and politicians, they wield power way out of proportion to their numbers.
... values of empowerment and self-determination as an effective tools to assist the oppressed population to eradicate violence, social injustice and marginalization of their lives. These approaches are not viable unless programs are designed to address the various barriers including social integration, economic security, custody of children, and access to appropriate community resources.
Oppression is not a friend, though it may be disguised as one. It takes what you believe in and makes it nonexistent. Oppression is what makes life hard. It tests you to see if you will make the stand for freedom, or be oppressed. African-Americans were oppressed for hundreds of years, and when it couldn’t get any worse, they found and fought with their leaders for what they believed in, freedom. Both the Egyptians and Hitler oppressed Jews for 5000 years, when he decided to wipe out their entire race. Women were oppressed for many years until they decided to fight for equality.
The oppression and domination is a big issue that we still see today. The oppression is not always easy to spot, nor is it always intended, but it is still there. It is true that enormous progress has been made to end this issue, but there is still work to be done. The domination and oppression of minorities is present in our daily lives through xenophobia, our legal system and the use of different forms of racism. Like in the novel the ''The Color Purple'' the characters do not beat racism but they do understand that the colour of their skin, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation does not affect their worth.