- published: 17 Oct 2013
- views: 107692
Oppression is the exercise of authority or power in a burdensome, cruel, or unjust manner.
Social oppression is the socially supported mistreatment and exploitation of a group, category, or team of people or individuals.
"Institutional Oppression occurs when established laws, customs, and practices systemically reflect and produce inequities based on one’s membership in targeted social identity groups. If oppressive consequences accrue to institutional laws, customs, or Practices, the institution is oppressive whether or not the individuals maintaining those practices have oppressive intentions."
Several movements have arisen that specifically aim to oppose, analyze and counter oppression in general; examples include Liberation Theology in the Christian world, and Re-evaluation Counselling in psychotherapy.
Black people is a term used in certain countries, often in socially based systems of racial classification or of ethnicity, to describe persons who are perceived to be dark-skinned compared to other given populations. As such, the meaning of the expression varies widely both between and within societies, and depends significantly on context. For many other individuals, communities and countries, "black" is also perceived as a derogatory, outdated, reductive or otherwise unrepresentative label, and as a result is neither used nor defined.
Different societies apply differing criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and these social constructs have also changed over time. In a number of countries, societal variables affect classification as much as skin color, and the social criteria for "blackness" vary. For example, in North America the term black people is not necessarily an indicator of skin color or majority ethnic ancestry, but it is instead a socially based racial classification related to being African American, with a family history associated with institutionalized slavery. In South Africa and Latin America, for instance, mixed-race people are generally not classified as "black." In South Pacific regions such as Australia and Melanesia, European colonists applied the term "black" or it was used by populations with different histories and ethnic origin.
In the turbulent Sixties
One was free to make a choice
If he chose to use dope
He could shout and raise his voice
As the eighties took its toll
Everyone was soon to know
Frozen lost society
Bent on war and poverty
The right of privacy, has been denied
They just can't see, the pressure caused politically
They just can't feel, the way we feel oppression
Subliminal messages on the tube
Devised to help you make a choice
Is this still a free country
Or just a political voice
Many contradictory statements
Regarded often far and few
The kind and thoughtful smiling preacher
Busted finally, child abuse
As we finally reach the nineties
Diurnal freedom is a joke
The strong arm of the law
Holds us all by our chain
Injustice in the system
Money still will speak
Doctors and the lawyers
Regulate the weak
The right hypocrisy has been supplied