Anti-Oppression

A conversation about building a community arts program that values difference and individuality between Arthi Sundaresh and Tyler Denmead. Arthi is an artist who is currently serving as an artist mentor.

Tyler Denmead (TD), Executive Director
My hope is that in this conversation that we can begin to map out how our learning community can question and understand issues of oppression. And, for me, that means beginning to understand what oppression is, where it is learned, and how it is practiced both globally - and internally.

Arthi Sundaresh (AS)
Oppression= being put down systematically—that is, in a way that is built in to how things work—in personal and discriminatory ways to hold you back.

TD:
How is it built into how things work?

AS:
I'm thinking about Paulo Freire. He's who comes to mind when I think of the word "oppression" and it being built in to how things work. Freire wrote Pedagogy of the Oppressed and talked about a hegemonic sort of oppression, particularly in terms of education. Dictionary.com says, oppress= "1. To keep down by severe and unjust use of force or authority; 2. A people who were oppressed by tyranny." Hegemony is the kind of influence that some predominant force puts over other people. So hegemonic oppression is something that's built in, and intended maybe to be unquestioned. I think oppression definitely has to do with a power play. Power, of course, can be defined and assumed, created or manipulated in many ways.

TD:
To oppress another requires a position of power? Which, then implies that for it to be overcome, there must be a deep line of questioning within that authority or directed toward that authority?

AS:
Overcoming oppression should involve questioning authority. Sometimes the authority is not necessarily the system or people but maybe the ways or habits of the system and people. You have to question the “what's going on” in order to understand it, accept it, and figure out how to change it.

TD:
I am immediately struck by the relevance of the arts and this community - expressing the spirit, having a voice. New Urban Arts has an approach that challenges authority and power, though is more a place of hugs, rather than raised fists. I wonder what that tension means. Yet, I also wonder, how New Urban Arts might be more intentional about building an anti-oppression practice.

AS:
New Urban Arts is most definitely a place of hugs rather than raised fists. It is a place that aims to support personal growth and creative practice. It thrives on self-expression. So it's important, therefore, to try to identify elements that could potentially limit self-expression or limit people's feelings of being worthwhile or creating worthwhile artwork.

TD:
My third grade art teacher told me that my artwork was not worthwhile. I was making a paper mache fish mobile - and I mixed all of the acrylic paint into a nice muddy brown. That shut me up for a good 15 years. It quieted my creative spirit. And, I feel her opinion was rooted in the socially accepted idea that not everyone has the potential to be an artist, which means, the majority of us do not learn to become creative, independent thinkers. If we educated differently, we would have masses of people that questioned and didn't stand still.

Can we identify elements that potentially limit self-expression?

AS:
Yes. Let's step outside of the studio again and think about what are some things that in general could limit one's self-expression? Like "-ism" sort of things.

AS:
Age-ism

TD:
Sex-ism

AS:
disability-ism

TD:
Race-ism

AS:
homophobia, transphobia

TD:
Redstate-ism

AS:
Red state?

TD:
Geo-political class warfare driven by assumptions about others.

AS:
Classism, I think is one of the big ones it stems to a lot of other fears and issues.

TD:
Yet, seems often the most overlooked.

AS:
Absolutely. Maybe because it's one that's so super embedded in the ways of this culture.

TD:
Freedom and the freedom to be rich are intrinsically linked. Isms and phobias are learned, accepted, practiced, and embedded? How does one become a classist?

AS:
I'm not sure. I think isms and phobias are first accepted, then embedded, then learned and then practiced. I think just living in the United States makes you classist to some extent, but maybe that's a cynical outlook. I think most people are classist whether they’re at one end of the economic spectrum or the other - because our dependence on wealth and thus discrimination and assumptions around it has become a cultural thing.

TD:
There is the belief that being poor is an indication of one's personal character. To be poor means that one is not smart, one cannot take care of oneself, one makes poor decisions, etc - A framework established through the upper-middle class needs to justify their position in the world. Their self-constructed narrative is one of earning and boot-strap-pulling, rather than inheritance and stepping on the backs of others. Earning and boot-strap-pulling is an indication of their goodness.

AS:
Interesting that smartness and goodness becomes a part of wealth. We love to make things moral issues. I think that's how most of these phobias and isms become points of oppression—it’s when they become a part of our culture and it doesn't necessarily matter where you are at in the spectrum.

TD:
Very interesting observation! I think about the students here who I have become close friends with over the years, and whose parents have been supportive of our relationship. And, I hear it through their children that the parents are supportive of the relationship because I'm white. “Hanging out with Tyler is a part of personal advancement...” Or in other ways, find a relationship with a boy that has lighter skin and straighter hair.

AS:
That's tough. Racial difference is a moral issue?

TD:
Or, the difference between students at Central and Classical played out in our studio. Class and race warfare playing out between students everyday because of a school system with a practice that must be fundamentally racist and classist if it is disproportionately advancing white, middle class students.

AS:
So, if we all hold these power structures within us that have become a part of our belief-system (whether or not we choose to act upon them or believe them), then how do we start to break them down in a way that doesn't break people down?

TD:
I think it requires the capacity for each one of us to accept our own prejudice. I find this ironic because our society broadly "accepts" the idea that prejudice is not a value that we should aspire for in our children. This, in turn, places such a negative stigma on the process of trying to understand our own prejudice, though we have little control of the prejudices that we develop as children. We learn the language; we are presented the images of prejudgments. This barrier, this stigma, in some ways prevents the process of self-understanding that is a prerequisite.

AS:
You’re not supposed to be prejudiced. So admitting and accepting one’s own prejudice is problematic. But I think admitting and accepting prejudice is a good first step. And also realizing when and where one uses those prejudices to boost himself up or that puts someone down.

TD:
Good distinction. Understanding the moments, the triggers, that we use... So, the question becomes: how do allow each other to accept and acknowledge each other's prejudice without it being the process of standing before an emotional wrecking ball? Is it accurate to suggest, though, that movements toward "tolerance," "understanding difference," "diversity," have been more about trying to create a world where prejudice doesn't exist?

AS:
Sure, but I think we have to realize that creating a world without prejudice is not possible among human beings. No matter the intention. For me, I often feel oppressed by the predominance and prevalence of a straight culture. Both queer people and straight people engage in this because I’m not talking necessarily about a heterosexual culture, but “straight” implying a closed off-ness to difference within the dominant heterosexual culture. I feel alienated when I feel like I'm in an environment that does not acknowledge difference with regard to gender and sexuality. Sometimes that seems like it shouldn't be such a big deal... Why does it matter who you go to bed with? It shouldn't. But there's a culture that surrounds it, particularly around gender stuff that has to do with much more than who you go to bed with. It relates to sexism, actually, and has to do with gender expectations and “norms.” That alienation sometimes becomes oppression when I feel like I'm discriminated against based on these differences. This situation calls to question the difference between alienation and oppression and how they combine.

TD:
To alienate means that authority relegates others to the margins. Oppression means the authority keeps them there?

AS:
I'm understanding alienation to be more emotional and yes, marginalizing, and oppression here to be more getting folks stuck.

TD:
It seems that the relevant goal is creating communities that encourage and foster self-reflection and across-difference understanding - not eliminating prejudice. What does an environment that does not acknowledge difference with regard to gender and sexuality look like?

AS:
Honestly, I've never been in an environment that really acknowledges gender difference. Gender is too much an assumed basic part of people's identity. But, for example, an environment in which you are asked, "what's your pronoun preference?" begins to acknowledge that gender differences exist and that it might not be what you assume from first look... I remember the first time someone asked my pronoun preference. I was actually dumbfounded. "Uh, ‘she,’ I guess," is what I said. I guess in that moment I never really knew to ask that question or what my response could possibly be...

TD:
I think it's important for people who don't identify as trans- to have a more fluid, dynamic understanding of their own gender. We maintain rigid understandings of who we are and what we should be, which limits self-understanding.... and becoming something else.

AS:
… Which leads to having a more fluid, dynamic understanding of gender in general... Which in turn leads to having a more fluid, dynamic understanding of identity in general if we go by the fact that gender is traditionally something people hold as such a fundamental truth.

TD:
What does it mean for gender to be a fundamental truth?

AS:
In most cases, when you're born, you're assigned male or female. "It's a boy!," or "it's a girl!," right? That biological distinction is made for the most part in the first moments of life. From then on, it becomes a fundamental characteristic around which you are raised (going on a western model, at least). So, it becomes a fundamental truth around identity formation. But when people's gender expression or gender identity doesn't fit with their biological assignment, then things tend to get messy. It really freaks people out. So, if we can culturally begin to accept that this "fundamental characteristic" is not necessarily a fundamental truth, then imagine the extent to which we might be able to accept other forms of difference and build understanding!

TD:
A different world. It would be a different world.

AS:
Yes! SO, okay the studio?

TD:
Right... the studio.

AS:
There's a lot going on here. Lots of people, lots of ideas, lots of identity issues and perspectives.

TD:
Lots of opportunity too.

AS:
The question returns to how, as a studio led by mentors, to we aspire to build understanding across differences? Or build respect across differences?

TD:
Yes. Which means that artist mentors must be led through an authentic process in which they confront their own prejudice, and build connections across difference. It requires facilitation.

AS:
Yes. Without the presumption that they have to change their beliefs or whatever, but that they confront, acknowledge, and aim towards understanding.

TD:
It requires "safety" though I'm confused to what extent. It's going to feel completely unsafe for a long time.

AS:
Feeling unsafe is hard. People would have to understand first why breaching a sense of safety is worth it and if it's worth it to them.