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How do social constructs prevent full inclusion in discourse? How are these oppressive labels perpetuated by the oppressed themselves and by society as a whole? Bartky's "On Psychological Oppression" discusses the ways in which members of minority groups internalize systematic notions of inferiority that both dehumanize their personhood and maintain a system of privilege using race, class, and gender. Analyzing this piece with Kernohan's "Equality, Tolerance, and Cultural Oppression," we see that structural injustices in the form of sequential acts of cultural oppression ignite the enculturation of these dehumanizing beliefs and thus, inhibit the oppressed from desiring to examine these falsities. I will draw upon this connection between "cultural oppression" and "psychological oppression," as manifest in three types of membership - a black adolescent, a darkskinned black woman, and a white woman in a black environment. Assessing these experiences of oppression, I will illustrate the influence of societal perceptions of "blackness" in a black adolescent's psychological construction of personhood; next, I will exemplify how mainstream societal standards of beauty doubly inhibit a dark-skinned black woman from rejecting notions of inferiority; lastly, an account of a white woman's "otherness" within a black setting depicts her oppression due to her race's traditional role as "oppressor." Furthermore, we will understand that race and gender in respect to one's social environment limit full inclusion in discourse at the expense of personal degradation and depersonalization.
Psychological oppression, as defined by Bartky, can be expressed by Frantz Fanon's phrase "psychic alienation," the separation of a person from personhood (22). Psychological oppression through "psychic alienation" does not necessarily entail physical deprivation or economic exploitation, but rather, attacks one's psychological perception of his or her personhood and negatively impacts one's self-esteem. This attack occurs through the "internalization of intimations of inferiority" (Bartky 22). This internalization of false meanings degrades one's personhood and allows the oppressed to become their own oppressors as they are "shadowed by an alternate self, a truncated and inferior self (24). Bartky also states that the depreciation of one's personhood is "dehumanizing and depersonalizing," since one believes that he or she has no capacity to exercise personal autonomy (29). Because psychological oppression is "institutionalized and systematic," the perpetuation of stereotypes, cultural domination, and sexual objectification provide negative images of...