Thursday, April 9, 2015

Homework: No reading from Behind The Beautiful Forevers 1) Keep working on finding your research topic.  2) Read pp 1-7 from the original Iris Marion Young Five Faces of Oppression article available at the link below:
Five Faces of Oppression (full original article)


Paraphrase Assignment
provided by Ms. Gutierrez
AP: Language of Rhetoric and Composition
Social Justice
From Ballenger:  “…paraphrase is the academic equivalent of this therapeutic method for getting people to listen to each other. Try to say in your own words—and in about the same length as the author said it—what you understand the author to mean. This is hard, at first, because instead of just mindlessly quoting—a favorite alternative for many students—you have to think. Paraphrasing demands that you make your own sense of something. The time is well worth it.

Why? Because not only are you lowering the risk of unintentional plagiarism and being fair to the source’s ideas, you are essentially writing a fragment of your draft (125)”.
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Read the excerpt from Young and then rewrite the passage in your own words in roughly the same length—a paraphrase. Try to focus on what Young is saying and then replicate her idea with your own words. Be sure you use correct parenthetical documentation for paraphrase.

“New left social movements of the 1960’s and 1970’s, however, shifted the meaning of oppression.  In this new usage, oppression designates the disadvantage and injustice some people suffer not because a tyrannical power coerces them, but because of the everyday practices of a well-intentioned liberal society. In this new left usage, the tyranny of a ruling group over another, as in South Africa, must certainly be called oppressive. But oppression also refers to systemic constraints on groups that are not necessarily the result of the intentions of a tyrant. Oppression in this sense is structural rather than the result of personal choices of, or policies put forward by, individuals. Its causes are embedded in unquestioned norms, habits, and symbols in the assumptions underlying institutional rules and the collective consequences of following those rules” (Young 2).

Your paraphrase here: (don’t worry, will go over this as a group later)

New social movements of the 1960’s and 1970’s redefined the meaning of the word “oppression”. The new meaning was not limited to practices that were obviously cruel and unfair (e.g., Jim Crow laws), but it was now expanded to include everyday, unintentionally unfair practices that were embedded into the very fabric of generally well-meaning societies. Of course, the term oppression still included obvious examples of one group tyrannically ruling over another, as seen, for example, in the South African system of Apartheid or American slavery in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries; but oppression also came to be used to describe largely unintentional but harmful systemic factors in the culture, economy, politics, and educational systems. Again, the causes of this form of oppression are not typically the result of intentional discrimination by the majority group, so much as they are the result of the majority’s adherence (sometimes out of simple habit) to economic, cultural, educational, etc, beliefs and practices which essentially contribute to keeping the oppressed group from having an equal chance to succeed. In short, these unconscious habits and practices of the dominant group (e.g., middle and upper class whites) result in an unlevel playing field.  




Now, select one exact quote that you believe might be worthy of extraction and weave this quotation into a sentence of your own. Further, analyze and explain your quotation and its significance…extend/elaborate your quotation. Be sure you use correct parenthetical documentation for your citation.

As Iris Young points out, some forms of oppression are largely unintentional, yet they still result in an unfair system which benefits some members of society (majority groups) more than others (minority groups). Young reports that beginning in the 1960s and 1970s oppression came to be understood as long-term suffering that was not only the result of intentional cruelty and unfairness on the part of the majority, but also suffering or unfairness that might be perpetuated by “well-intentioned liberal societies” (5).  Young further elaborates that this type of oppression is due to “the systemic constraints on groups that are not necessarily the result of the intentions of a tyrant” (5).  Educational inequalities in Illinois are a prime example of this, as an educational system funded almost entirely by local property taxes means that minority groups which predominate in impoverished communities and neighborhood will continue to get subpar educational opportunities. Though most people in more affluent areas (still primarily white in 2015) do not intend that this inequality should exist, existing habits and laws combined with individuals’ concerns about how changes might affect their community schools and their personal financial situation play a role in maintaining an imbalanced educational system: superior educational opportunities for the haves and not-so-good opportunities for the have-nots.  This is essentially another example of the rich get richer while the poorer get poorer. And as the divide between rich and poor grows in this country as the middle class shrinks, we should all be concerned because democracy and peace probably can not be maintained in a country with such economic disparity. Either the majority must become absolutely tyrannical, or the proles will indeed rise up. So besides an altruistic urge to create a society where everyone gets a fair shake, we have more practical reasons to change habits and rules which help maintain permanent underclass-status for so many of our citizens.

Now it’s your turn again. Read the excerpt from Young and then rewrite the passage in your own words in roughly the same length—a paraphrase. Try to focus on what Young is saying and then replicate her idea with your own words. Be sure you use correct parenthetical documentation for paraphrase.

“Marginalization is perhaps the most dangerous form of oppression. Via marginalization a whole category of people is expelled from useful participation in social life and thus potentially subjected to severe material deprivation and even extermination. The material deprivation marginalization often causes is certainly unjust, especially in a society where others have plenty.  Contemporary advanced capitalist societies have in principle acknowledged the injustice of material deprivation caused by marginalization and have taken some steps to address it by providing welfare payments and services. The continuance of this welfare sate is by no means assured, and in most welfare state societies, especially in the United States, welfare redistributions do not eliminate large-scale suffering and deprivation” (Young 8).

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Select one exact quote that you believe might be worthy of extraction and weave this quotation into a sentence of your own. Further, analyze and explain your quotation and its significance…extend/elaborate your quotation. Be sure you use correct parenthetical documentation for your citation.

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