Everywhere we turn, we find evidence of a society where people are mistreated based on various physical, sexual (or sexual preference), linguistic, age and national characteristics. An exonerated Black man in Chicago, who had spent 15 years in prison, goes to a car dealership, puts $20,000 down for a car and is given the runaround by employees, who claim to lose his application. After the man sees the application on a desk and raises a complaint, the police are called in, and they Taser and arrest him. An 11-year-old boy hangs himself with an extension cord after being bullied all year by his school peers for acting “feminine.” A restaurant manager explaining that his restaurant is a “family establishment,” asks two lesbian women to leave after they hug each other. An immigrant mother from Oaxaca has her newborn taken away from her by a judge because she cannot speak English, and this makes her “unfit.” Thousands of examples such as these – some milder, some much worse -could be listed. People experience many of these things as individual acts of discrimination or violence. While it is certainly true that individuals can be and are the bearers of racist, sexist, xenophobic or homophobic ideas and behavior, all of these oppressions are systemic–that is, legally, institutionally or in some other systematic form, they are part of the fabric of the societies in which we live.

Take the question of racial oppression in the United States. Indians and African Americans, and to a somewhat lesser extent, Latinos, suffer higher rates of unemployment, lower pay, worse housing, and greater rates of police harassment, arrest and incarceration than their white counterparts. Women are still relegated to lower-paying jobs, face sexual harassment and rape, and are expected to work both inside and outside the home. And increasingly in the Western world they are faced with restrictions on their right to control their own reproductive health. Sexist imagery and commentary that denigrate women are more and more a part of the mainstream. Though, in general, the level of acceptance in society toward LGBT people has increased over the past few decades, they still face systematic legal and social discrimination, as well as violence and police brutality. A 2005 Amnesty International report documented serious patterns of police misconduct and brutality aimed at LGBT people, including abuses that amount to torture and ill treatment.

More at: Heart of a Nation!