“Prejudice plus power;” this, according to many social justice activists and scholars, is the equation for oppression.
This formulation was coined in 1970 by behavioral sciences scholar Patricia Bidol-Padva, PhD. The concept was then popularized by activists who railed against systemic racism and oppressive structures, and has become an underlying concept of a wave of activism that has now gained mainstream status.
However, many proponents of this idea used this to impose a double standard when discussing racism and other forms of oppression. This includes the idea that there is no such thing as racism towards white people or sexism towards men because they are placed in the dominant position vis-à-vis people of color and women, respectively. Today, the proliferation of this logic in its unrestrained form has led to the extremes of man-hating, violence towards white people, and a resurgence of anti-Semitism.
In his 1976 work The History of Sexuality, philosopher Michel Foucault traces the notion of power back to the Victorian era in the sovereign, which was most often a monarch, seen as the physical, tangible manifestation of power. He calls this power “the right to decide life or death,” since the sovereign had power over life because he could decide when to end it.
Foucault argues that the sovereign in modern society, which we now call the state, no longer operates on the notion of power as simply bringing death, but preserving and nurturing life as well. He calls this “biopower,” which is exercised in order to protect and empower the people, instead of simply suppressing and terrorizing them. More importantly, the sovereign no longer had a monopoly to this power. In his words, “power is everywhere, not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere.”
Sociopolitical entities such as feminist groups, Black Lives Matter, and men’s rights activists all operate on the notion of protecting and bettering the lives of their constituents. This is essentially the logic of identity politics, but given that the exercise of biopower has the potential to both empower and repress, this often leads the persecution of those perceived to be in a dominant and privileged position in society.
For instance, in the Chicago Dyke March of June 2017, Jewish lesbians were banned by their fellow marchers for carrying LGBT flags that bore the Star of David. One could also look to India where the dowry laws under IPC-498A, which was passed to protect wives and daughters from their abusive patriarchs, assumes husbands guilty until proven innocent and led to thousands of men being implicated in false dowry cases. The oppressed are very much capable of oppression, and the minorities within the minorities are almost always marginalized as a result.
This is not to discredit or devalue those who truly empower the disempowered. This is also not to defend the genuinely oppressive social structures and constructs that are perpetuated to this day. Everyone understandably has an inclination to look after their own. We are justified in protecting and preserving life, so long as we do not do so at the expense of others.
In today’s world no one group has a monopoly on power, just as no one group has a monopoly on prejudice and oppression.
