Wielding the Stick of Authority
With great power comes great responsibility.
This week in World Politics, we discussed marginalization and, based off of the DuBois reading, suggested that marginalization may have its "benefits." With that conversation, we also discussed hierarchy and systems. While I have always considered myself to be privileged via physical characteristics (white, able-bodied, neuro-typical, etc), there are conflicting aspects behind my era of authority (which lasted only about 30 minutes).
One: from the top. As I have already stated, I am a person of privilege. Therefore, in our conversation on marginalization this week, I saw myself as one of the people at the "center." Today exacerbated that feeling. I volunteered to take the stick of authority because it meant power and hey, who doesn't like power? I remembered the feeling of defending human rights at the Model G20 negotiating table and how it felt to be in a position of authority and meaning. Yet, when I was given free rein to run the classroom, I was terrified. [On a side note, I wonder how that relates to the transfer of power.]
Two: from the bottom. Though I remained quiet on marginalization because I strongly believe that racial and ethnic “double-consciousness” is the most prevalent form of discrimination, I thought of my own marginalized experiences: socioeconomic disparity. Luckily for me, it’s easier to hide my marginalized experience. After all, I went to a college prep school for eight years and I’m now attending a school that charges close to $70k per year in tuition. My lens for class discussion and my previous blog post was this idea of being in the middle. My family lived just above the poverty line, but I went to school with people who lived probably in the top 10%.
So, when the stick of authority was passed into my hands, I panicked. My first thought was “I don’t deserve this.” I was not ready to lead a class discussion on ideas I’m still learning. Also, as someone who understands the cycle of poverty first-hand, I already had a concrete answer in my head without hearing from others: the hierarchy will reinforce marginalization and the center of power, and there is no way to resolve this. But haven’t things gotten better over time? Maybe not within my family, but over centuries? It sucks when you’re living through it to have this realization that things will never change, at least not for me, and that frame of thought helps reinforce the cycle. As suggested in the Enloe reading, when marginalized groups unite and work together, they can surprise the center with how much they can do.
The activity with the stick obviously relates to hierarchy, which was scary for me because even within my privileged community, a hierarchy exists and I lived at the bottom. Does that mean the system of oppression can be resolved? At least on a small-scale level. And it’s done by giving authority to other voices. Even if some of us feel that giving a platform to others is a “white savior complex” (and a lot of times it is), the only way to make the system change is by including other voices, and those in the center have to make that change.
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