Power
People desire for the feeling of power so much that they achieve their desires of having powers in different ways such as having so much authority and control over other people, or having plenty of money to sit on, or placing themselves in an honorary position.
Not all types of power are bad, some power could be used for good causes. Some power is in good hands such as good bosses, teachers, and leaders. Good leaders tend to be seen in peaceful protests or running organizations, and working in place of service such as hospitals.
Good leader was portrayed in the movie, Walk Out, when people of color gathered up in groups of their school district and peacefully protested for their accessibility and education. (Esparza & Katz, Olmos, 2006) Here’s an example of bad use of power from the movie, that asshole teacher in the movie, Walk Out, his face shows that he has power and he quoted an unnecessary statement to the students which was, “You guys are putting yourself into slaughterhouse like lambs”. (Esparza & Katz, Olmos, 2006) Power is used in the way however people want it to be used, we need to remember that we will always have good and bad leaders, it challenges and balances people.
Power is easy to achieve but it will require some work to do, which brings us to Allport’s Scale, this scale is the easiest way to practice and achieve hate on specific group of people. This is why Allport’s Scale tend to appear in almost every oppression issues… take the book as an example, in The Mask of Benevolence, they practiced hate by having power over specific people. “If the native is a child, he needs the European’s guidance. If his actions are immortal and heathen, he needs the missionary. If he is uncivilized, only Europeans intervention can raise him up to the status of civilized man.” (Lane, 1992, P.69) This shows that they automatically decided how he will be raised based on his race.
We seem to always end our every lesson with the discussion somewhat related to Allport’s Scale and in the sum of what we have been learning, they guaranteed to have one thing common such as in the movie, Walk out, students was spanked if they spoke other language than English which is in the common with the book, The Mask of Benevolence, “They said that if we were Americans, then we should speak the language, and if we wanted to speak Spanish, then we should go back to Mexico. When we spoke Spanish, the teacher swooped down on us. I remember the ruler whistling through the air as its edge came down sharply across my knuckles. It really hurts” (Lane, 1992, P. 104) This shows that hate is very common, we will always find at least one or more thing in common in every oppression situations.
The Mask of Benevolence book, Walk out movie, and article on internet about Allport’s Scale and after our weeks of classes and lectures about oppressions on different groups of people left me wondering, why do people really desire for power? This gave me a lot of thoughts about how can we recognize and remove the Allport’s Scale? I think we need to start at the beginning, article of Prejudice and the Allport’s Scale also agrees with me. The writer quoted, “If behavior can be stopped at the antilocution stage, that is to change the environment of the office and to shift attitudes to create a more inclusive and respectful environment, then it is far less likely that we will find ourselves in a situation of having to manage discrimination issues or even something more severe than that.” (Wales, 2007)
WORKS CITED;
Esparza, M. and Katz, R. & Olmos, E. J. (2006) Walkout. [motion picture]. United States. HBO.
Lane, H. (1992). The mask of benevolence: Disabling the Deaf community. San Diego: CA.
DawnSign
Wales, I. (2007) Prejudice and the Allport’s scale. Retrieved on October 5, 2017 from
http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2007/2/9/174945/7647
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