Stereotypes Of Internalized Oppression In The US

The United States is believed to have one of the highest standards for education, and yet in this diverse country many youth from the minority groups do not make it to the uppermost educational institutions. The blame then falls on how they are being educated and what exactly they are being taught. While some are aware of this, most people are not conscious of the types of oppression they are being exposed to while in this system. Many choose not to speak out at all due to the system purposely employing strategies that teach that these oppressions are part of the social norm. Internalized oppression is kept in place by educational structures that constrain student’s abilities to freely think for themselves, employing tactics enforcing straightforward
Whereas in Black and Latino demographics, there is physical evidence of set classes and unequal opportunities, in Asian Americans internalized oppression is evident in how a majority of these students conduct themselves in class. Many simply “feel uncomfortable about speaking up in class.” (Osajima) Keith Osajima makes the point that Asian students, stereotyped as being quiet, live up to the sayings because of how they internalize it; they simply accept it as it is. This becomes evident in even more cases relating to different ethnicities because people refuse to question those assumptions. Instead what happens is that they “become resigned” and “do not look critically,” at their situation. (Osajima) It basically becomes a part of who they are. It is a circle of the oppressors putting down the oppressed and the oppressed choosing not to fight back, thus becoming “unwilling participants in their own oppression.” (Osajima) When students are stripped of the power to think for themselves and to think critically of their situation, the oppressor versus the oppressed battle has been lost. Internalizing the expectations, sticking with the status quo, and refusing to individualize themselves from everyone else is submitting to exactly what society accepts and expects from people of
Teachers act as depositors and students are the the actual “deposits.” Teachers are given a set of standards that do not challenge, to any degree, a student’s creative mind. They are asked questions and respond with answers such as, “four times four is sixteen; the capital of Pará is Belém.” Straightforward and with only one correct response, teachers are tasked with “receiving, filing, and storing the deposits.” Children are naturally creative beings always asking questions and thinking about the world in an abstract and different way than adults. Submitting children to this form of oppression through this education suppresses a person’s natural instinct of inquiry: an instinct that challenges systems that are currently set in place to bring about change in our modern day society. Through banking education, people are not taught to fill in the missing clues and thus are not even made aware that there are gaps in their “knowledge” in the first place. A belief that all that is known is what is being taught becomes a mindset that is hard to escape. There is no need to venture if all that one needs to know is right in front of them. This is why students do not see the oppression they face in this system. From a young age they are taught that there is only one truth; there is