The Prisoning Affects of Opression

 For decades now, many people of the oppressed or minority always tends to be viewed in a negative and alienating way from the majority of society. Whether based-on race, gender, or religion, for some reason, society views those as detrimental attacks to the well-being and lives of the “normal”. After reading Just Walk On By, I Want a Wife, and The Clan of the One-breasted Women, written by Brent Staples, Judy Brady, and Terry Tempest Williams, respectively; they all touch on the harmful effects of oppression and expose many of the blatantly false stereotypes and expectations unfairly burdened upon them.

In Just Walk On By, Brent Staples writes about his experiences with racial profiling, and in a sarcastic tone, mocks the instances in which he was viewed as a dangerous criminal while walking along the streets of Chicago. His “first victim was a woman”, and he later explains the laughable assumption this “frightened woman” made about him. She had though him to be some ominous thug-like figure following her through the shadows of the dimly lit streets, when in actuality he was an educated man who describes himself as “a softy”. Staples talks about the prominent issue of racial profiling, and as an African American man himself, he describes the unique confrontations and comprises he and many other black men and women have to deal with on a consistent basis. Imagine walking along on streets peacefully, only to have people “cast a worried glance” and “disappear” from your sight just because of the color of your skin. Staples wrote this piece in 1986, showing that we as a society hasn’t changed enough in terms of rectifying the unnecessary mistakes of judging people based of their skin color.

Judy Brady, through her infamous piece I Want a Wife, describes the lofty and nearly impossible standards attributed to being a wife. She humorously catalogs the responsibilities of a wife, and mocks these seemingly unachievable expectations set upon “the classification of people known as wives”. The gender imbalance in her piece is clear, and her effective use of repetition aids in her attempt to showcase this-  “I want a wife who will take care of my physical needs… I want a wife who will take care of the children… I want a wife who will remain faithful to me”. Upon reading this piece, I hadn’t been completely aware of all those responsibilities, and by the end, I realize that there is really nothing left for the “husband” to do. All the chores and cleaning is done, so is taking care of the children, working in a job, and taking car of the social life for the family. Brady exposes the gender discrepancy of what it means to be a wife, especially in a family, and shows the glaring difference in responsibilities when it comes to men and women.

The Clan of the One-breasted Women displays the deception of the trusted American government, the confliction between following religion and following individual beliefs, and also describes the false hysteria many men attribute to women. Tempest describes her personal experience with US bomb testing around Utah, and proceeds to descriptively list the plethora of destructive affects as a result. She mentions that most of the woman in her family contracted breast disease as a result of the radiation set by the various bomb testing in what the government calls “uninhabited” locals. The government advertise that the testing of nuclear weapons were controlled and unharmful to anyone, but Tempest disabuses that notion with the story of her family. Her family were Mormons, but Tempest describes the conflict between Mormonism and her own beliefs. She believed that her family religion was a factor in blindly following and adhering to the US government’s lies, and later describes that she “must question everything, even if it means losing [her] faith”.

What does this all mean? It means that across various distinct and different types of people, for some reason, oppression and negativity seems to linger. There are too instances of tyranny and repression- as described by the authors previously mentioned- that continues to loop in society. We need to learn that we, as a community, are stronger together rather than against each other, and that we shouldn’t be judged or lie to others. The truth is that at the end of the day, no matter race, beliefs, or gender, we are all people, and the sooner we understand that the better.