Uppity: Name-Calling, Internalized Oppression, Or,: Things That Happen When Working Class Folks Like Poetry
By: Jenny Justice
Tags: Poetry, Social Justice, Oppression, Working Class, Self

We learn that some things are for other people early on, — this does not mean it is true.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

When I graduated from high school I wrote a poem. I wanted to read it at graduation. To this day, I am not sure why. I was an introvert then as well. Shy and not that into public speaking. But I was into justice. And for me getting to read my homage to my peers at graduation was an unexpected matter of social justice.

See, when I was in high school I was ultra-working class. And in many small towns, though most people are working class, some are not. And these folks who are not tend to skate through life.

And no one talks about social class at all. Back then it was little things like if you had K-Mart clothing or Mall Clothing, if you were in AP classes or not, if you were able to go to the movies over the weekend on a whim not after a whole week of asking, planning, scrounging, and waiting to see if it was going to be possible or not.

So, I knew about social class. And I knew my place in the wheel of life in my small town. I was a girl who was doing a lot of upper class things — things like hanging out with some “preps” and reading a lot of books! — but who had working class roots, limitations, and an added dose of often public family dysfunction to boot.

Internalized Oppression — Doing the Work of the System On Its Behalf

The name for people like me back in the day might have been “uppity” or “going above her raisin’” — simply perpetuating some limiting self-imposed internalized oppression stereotypes onto working class people who wanted to do fancy things like go to college, write poetry, be a nerd.

These limitations are not any fault of those who called me these things. It is just how internalized oppression works. The system works best when the oppressed oppress themselves and each other. And also it is a lot of fear — that is what internalized oppression is. Fear of being judged, fear of being left behind, fear of being labeled and treated as working class. So when women act in misogynistic ways, participate in things that fuel our own oppression, and when people of color fight amongst themselves using terms that lock each other into separate boxes and ranks, — this all benefits the system and the oppressors.

So, if we look at the cultural iceberg, we can see that so much of what we do and believe, how we act towards each other, how we think about ourselves, comes from deep culture. Things that no one has to ever explicitly tell us or say to our face or instruct us on how to do. Now, look at the pyramid of hate, — the ways in which our culture, and then our family, friends, — our inner voice, — contributes to oppression, hatred, and acts of violence. Language is one of the first places. Jokes. Humor. Name calling. And allowing for these things provides justification and excuse for things the next level up, and so on and so on.

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Photo Credit: Authors Facebook Page

My point here is that sometimes we do it to ourselves, we do it to those like us. And that is because it is part of our culture, something we internalize. It is reflected in everything around us, our media, our textbooks, music, songs, — and so, when we treat ourselves and each other to some internalized oppression, we just feel like it is easier than daring to challenge it. Because heads up: oppression is exhausting. Or rather, being oppressed is exhausting.

But my goal is that, internalized oppression, be it in areas of race, class, gender, — or the actual oppression terms, racism, classism, misogyny/sexism, — is something we can be aware of, work on, stop doing, and call out.

Because we can do and be better. We can envision and create a better society.

Justice as the Action Response to Internalized and Everyday Oppression

When I was a senior, things started to click in me a bit more often, and in some memorable ways. I joined with a group of junior girls to create a girl’s junior varsity soccer team for our high school even though I had never played soccer an hour in my life. It was a matter of justice.

I volunteered at the local domestic abuse shelter and spent hours babysitting children who had been through some traumatic incidents. Because it was a matter of justice.

And I needed to read my poem at graduation or else. Because it was a matter of justice.

The graduation committee and the teachers in charge said only AP students and the valedictorian, same thing, could give a speech at graduation. I was not either of these things. But I knew how to petition and organize, instinctively. So, students signed a letter that said they would like to hear my poem at graduation. And I did it. I got in. I read it from the podium. I think I did fine.

And ummmm, I wish I had a copy of that poem today. But, I do not have it saved. Because I did not have a computer back in high school and it was all handwritten. Which is actually awesome and quite nostalgic, really.

Sigh. If I find it I will add it to the end of this story, I promise.

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The Responsibility of Woke-Ness

Being working class in a society that automatically discounts people based upon their place in the stratified system is having to work that much harder for things that are automatically given to, or assumed to belong to, someone else — the middle class, the upper class.

We learn about this early on. But that does not make any of it true. Learning, poetry, college, reading, writing, self-expression, and fighting for social justice are things that we can all do, regardless of race, class, gender, or other structural forms of oppression, — coming down on us, or coming up through us via what we have been socialized to believe about ourselves, about those like us, and about what we should and should not do, who we can and cannot be.

When people defy stereotypes and boxes it does not mean we are abandoning our roots, or that we have to perpetuate internalized oppression by blaming where we came from. It means we see through the system and are able to grow through the cracks. And it means we have a responsibility to bring others up with us, — by changing the system itself. As a matter of justice.

Jenny Justice is a mom, Sociology instructor, and writer. You can follow her on Medium and at Jenny Justice, Writer. She has been recognized as a Top Writer on Medium in Poetry, Parenting, Reading, Education, Racism, and Climate Change, so far.