Stew's blog

Oppression is the act of treating someone cruelly or unjustly that is prolonged. Those who fight oppression do so in two different ways, either through non-violent resistance or violent resistance. Non-violent resistance is enacted by using peaceful means in which people aren’t harmed and their oppressors are shamed into changing their ways, violent resistance is the opposite, using threats of pain or death, in most cases acting on those threats to resist their oppressors. Citizens resist in these two ways for more often than not agency, which is the ability to determine the outcome of one’s own life. In my opinion of these two forms of resistance I believe non-violence should be most often to gain agency.

People should use non – violence to gain agency because while it many years, black people were able to have the rules changed to make things more equal, through non- violence. This document is about the Jim crow laws that were enacted to keep the black population oppressed. he document is an online article created by the staff of the website History.com on 2009. The source can be seen as reliable since it provides evidence through the laws that are in place today and was in place. They also do not favor one side over another since they describe the actions of whites but also the impact of those actions on blacks. The change in laws was caused by non – violent marches in an attempt to gain agency. Despite the absolute brutality the black population didn’t throw not one punch and  if they did then they would justify the white supremacist reasons for invoking interpersonal oppression and hinder the blacks ability to gain agency.

Also in another document, it talks about how a nonviolent approach is better than a violent one. The document itself is about MLK’s perspective on the effectiveness of violence and non-violence. The document is an excerpt of the speech ¨The Other America¨ written by Dr.Martin luther King on March 14, 1968. The document is trustworthy because it was written by a primary source who doesn’t show bias for either side and is a well known civil rights activist known worldwide.

Secondly, the document I chose supports my claim because the author of the document does not seek revenge on her aggressors attack. The document is about Malala Yousafzai choosing to remain peaceful despite the attack enacted by the Taliban. The document is an excerpt of a speech created by Malala Yousafzai on July 12, 2013. The information is trustworthy because it’s not very old, Malala is known for her kind and peace loving nature making it unlikely that she would lie.

 

• What are the different statuses on the posters, and what do each of them mean?

The 3 statuses are open, acknowledged, and closed. Open means it hasn’t been viewed yet, acknowledged means the issue has been noticed and will be worked on and closed either means it was ignored or it’s been dealt with.

• Describe what you did (or what you were supposed to do) to find out if the issue you submitted to SeeClickFix was fixed.

You go to the SeeClickfix website, sign in to your account and click on the person symbol and go to ¨my content¨there you will see the name of the issue and the status of it.

• What changes do you notice from the April 13th posters to the April 27th posters?

They all went from open to acknowledged over the span of 14 days.

• Do you think there are any types of issues SeeClickFix is better at getting fixed than others?  Why do you think that?

I couldn’t say because I haven’t looked on their website enough. But if I had to chose it would be potholes because there are simple to fix and don’t take too long.

• If an issue someone reported did not get fixed, what is something they might try next?

I think they would attempt to report another issue of the same type or a different type.

• Do you think people who report issues to SeeClickFix are able to gain agency?  Explain your answer.

I believe they gain agency because they are able to determine the state of the environment they live in.

 

 

Occupy Oakland:

Occupy Oakland was about a young man being fatally shot by Bay area rapid police in front of Frank H. Ogawa Plaza. This is a interpersonal system of oppression because the people of oakland are behaving a certain way towards the police. This event  took place in front of Frank H. Ogawa Plaza (renamed Oscar Grant plaza) on October 10, 2011.

 

 

 

The Murder of Oscar Grant:

Oscar Grant III was arrested by the BART police, however when he was pinned on the floor officer Johannes Mehserle shot him in the back which caused major social uproar that spanned for 6 months. This is a social system of oppression because those who had a relationship with Oscar grant show there rage for the police. This story happened on New Years Day of 2009 in the Fruitvale bart station.

 

 

 

 

Describe how the 9th grade students are tracking the progress of the issue we reported using sticky notes and posters. What do each posters mean?

They check their profile on seeclickfix to check the status of their reported issues.

What did you learn about the status of the issue you reported to SeeClickFix? Did it change (If so, how)? Did your issue’s status stay the same? Explain your answer.

My status was originally open, now, it’s changed to acknowledge.

Describe the response you got about the issue you reported. What was the message you received? Who sent you that message?

The city of Oakland will be able to do fix the pothole if they find the time and if they have the money to do so. The comment was sent by the city of Oakland call center.

Did any patterns emerge on the poster about which issues are resolved, and which are not? Explain your answer.

Most of the post it´s are on the acknowledge status when some of them were originally on open and closed.

Is the SeeClickFix project an example of Violent or Non-Violent resistance to oppression? Explain your answer.

Its an example of non-violent resistance because it´s fighting against gang influence.

Do you think SeeClickFix can help to solve problems in Oakland? Explain why or why not.

I believe that with time they solve the problems of Oakland because they require funding to fix some of the problems in the city like graffiti and potholes.

In your own words describe what the company called SEECLICKFIX does for people living in Oakland.

Seeclickfix takes a photo of something wrong with Oakland (potholes,unwanted graffiti,broken sidewalks,e.t.c) or by a civilian and continuously sending messages to the company that deals with those problems to fix it.

Do you think SEECLICKFIX helps people in Oakland to resist oppression? Explain why, or why not.

I don’t think so because they only give the option to send photos of any environmental damage to Oakland.

Explain the story of how you took your picture for the SEECLICKFIX project (Describe what you took a picture of, when you took it, where you were, how, and why).

My mom drops me off a certain route and somewhere along the route she went over a speed bump that had a pothole to side of it.

What did you do in class to join SEECLICKFIX on their website? Describe the steps you took.

We went to the seeclickfix site, went to the top right where it said sign up and made a civilian account.

What did you do in class to report an issue to SEECLICKFIX? DON’T FORGET TO SHARE YOUR ISSUE ID NUMBER! Describe the steps you took.

I went to where it said report a issue, then I had to locate where the pothole was,then describe the issue in detail and then submit the picture and issue.

Do you predict that the City of Oakland will fix the problem you reported? Explain why, or why not.

I don’t think it´ll get fixed because the city most likely receives reports like this all the time.

Oppressed people are Individuals who are affected by the levels & systems of oppression. Systems of oppression is when political, economic, or/and social systems are used to abuse people. The levels of oppression are interpersonal, institutional, and internalized which we face everyday. Oppressed people experience systems of oppression because they have lower paying jobs and they experience levels of oppression through the institutional systems those with power and authority set in place.

Also, oppressed people experience social systems of oppression when they receive a lower wage than their co-workers and they experience internalized levels of oppression when they are told by others they won’t make it anywhere. Document #9 talks about how women from different ethnicities make less money than men. A quote from the document states ¨Hispanic or Latino women make $509 a week. Making them the lowest earning ethnic group in America¨ The document itself is a graph created by the United States department of labor in 2009, its writers unknown. Women throughout all ethnic groups in the U.S make less than men in the same ethnic group. It’s not a coincidence that women make less than men, this was done on purpose through internalized and social systems because social systems involve some form of relationship with someone else like a boss and their employee, internalized oppression involves believing the negative things said by anyone,including yourself.

To add onto the first supporting paragraph people also experience oppression because of extremely strict rules caused by institutional oppression. Document #10 talks about the school to prison pipeline and the rules in place to get kids there. The document is a article created by Nicki Lisa Cole on April 25, 2017. A quote from the document says ¨two key forces that produced and now maintain the school-to-prison pipeline are the use of zero tolerance policies that mandate exclusionary punishments and the presence of SROs on campuses.¨ This proves my claim since those in power deliberately use institutional systems to oppress, of all people, children and they don’t care how old they are they’ll send you to prison to make money.

During the start of unit 2 we learned three words that involve the manipulation and oppression people. Marginalize, which means to make someone feel less important or put off to the side. Power which means to have control over the events & behaviors over people. Exploit which means to take unfair advantage of someone for your own benefit. People with power due to stronger weaponry are able to conquer others. The oppressed people are forced to slave away and build their homes and work their farms for a pay of a few cents that is simply taken away due to the taxes set by their master’s.

 

To start off, people with power marginalize and exploit others because they use the wealth and authority they accumulated to force them into labor.To support  my claim i’ll summarize document 3, it was about how even though the spanish technically considered them free citizens and paid the natives to work in there fields, they were still enslaved. The document is a quote from a book titled “Colonial America” written by Jerome R. Reich in 1994. To prove my claim correct i’ll provide a quote from document 3, “Although the Spanish government always insisted that Native Americans were free citizens who must be treated humanely, in practice they were bought and sold, worked (literally) to death, and forced into virtual slavery.”. Isn’t it odd that even though the Natives were “free citizens” and yet, they was treated and worked as they were still slaves? The Natives were still taken advantage of and exploited despite being “free citizens” and since they were bought and sold, the Spanish obviously didn’t think they were too important to them, or in other words the Spanish marginalized the Natives.

 

Additionally, slaves were forced to change religions, exploiting the slaves weak minds. The document I used to write/type my answer was document #4 which went over a couple of rules that was made to punish slaves for different reasons. Document #4 is a few rules from the “code noir”, a collective of rules made to keep slaves in check, it was written by the king of France on March, 1685. A quote from document #4 states “the slave who will have struck his master or the wife of his master, his mistress or their children to bring blood, or in the face, will be punished with death.”. This demonstrates how people with power marginalize and exploit people of different identities because these rules were made to instill fear into the minds of slaves exploiting the slaves weak minds, and to create and instill laws where the punishment is death, shows how slave masters marginalized there slaves lives. In conclusion people with power are able to marginalize and exploit people with different identities because the French instilled fear and treated their lives like they weren’t worth more then the crops they tended to.

 

To add on to, a 7th document states that the Aztecs performed a traditional ritual that involves sacrificing the man they chose to represent the god Tezcatlipoca. There’s not a lot of information on this document but what I do know is that it was a article made sometime from the 1490’s – 1500’s, the name of the Aztec scribe is unknown however. Those with power in the document are the Aztec people turning a man into a human god, to represent Tezcatlipoca. Aztecs also marginalized and exploit people through power lavishing there chosen human with gifts and women,only to kill him in the end but in order to do so they’d need to exploit his ignorance,ego and greed. This is an example of a social system due to the fact that people who grew close to him manipulated him.