The Tunnel Of Oppression

The diversity event I attended this semester was the tunnel of oppression. I selected this event out of all the others because I feel it is very important to experience and be informed of some of the most unfathomable issues we face in today’s society. The event took approximately 20-30 minutes but within that short time frame, I experienced many negative emotions. For example: anger, hopeless, sadness, and fear. There were many scenes we walked through that had to do with the issues we face today. Some of those issues had to do with racism, sexism, body image, homophobia, drug addition, and classism. A lot of the time I feel like we have all these issues in today’s society due to people not being culturally competent. There are hundreds of

different cultures and beliefs out there and when you may not know of or understand one of those cultures it can often turn into a whole misunderstanding. For example, one may not share the same beliefs as you and that can cause either one of you to offend his or her culture in some way. Some of the biggest issues I have come across are racism, homophobia and body image. Growing up as a minority, I have come across many negative scenarios especially with the current election. I have friends who have lived here their whole life and are facing discrimination just because they are not white. During the tunnel of oppression, there was a room that had a lot of negative phrases that were written all over the walls. What was even sadder was the fact that these negative phrases were written by WSU students. We were told to write something negative that had ever been said to us. As I was reading these comments, my eyes began to tear up. I was beyond shocked of the language uses. For example, some of the comments I read had to do with being an immigrant, race, sexuality, and body image and they were everything but positive. There was also another scene that had to do with being homosexual and abuse. These are things that occur in everyday lives and the problem doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Towards the end of the session we had a debriefing session where we got to talk about everything we had just experience. During this debriefing a sense of hopelessness was felt by every single one of us, hopelessness that this was always going to be an issue. This is why it is extremely important to inform yourself of what is going on and want to change how we treat one another.