Extension Activities
1. The authors argue that one of the most common patterns in dominant culture that makes oppression difficult to see is the focus on individual people or issues, rather than on broader patterns. Identify a well-known
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individual from a minoritized group who has been held up as “making it” and generate a list of the ways in which oppression (organized at the group level) is obscured by mainstream representations of that individual. What does focusing on a single person prevent us from seeing?
2. Spend an evening recording information contained in commercials depicting the “average family.” What is the composition of the average family? What do they do? What kinds of activities does each member of the family engage in? Record all the places you have seen this “average family” in mainstream culture. How do they communicate to us what is normal in terms of race, class, gender, ability, and sexuality? How does their presence function as a kind of “looking-glass self”?
3. Watch the documentary film Very Young Girls (2007) by David Schisgall and Nina Alvarez, an exposé on the sex trafficking of adolescent girls (www.gems-girls.org). Imagine that you are a journalist investigating this issue. Research at least two other anti-sex-trafficking activists/organizations in addition to Rachel Lloyd and GEMS (see Figure 7.1). Based on what you learn, convey the issue to the broader public or your peers, in ways such as (but not limited to) the following: a poster, stencil art, article, graph, or short public service announcement video (3–5 minutes long).