There’s a great song by REM about oppression called “Fall on Me.” Michael Stipe sings about the sky falling and world collapsing on the character in the song as a result of being born in the wrong place, in the wrong class with the wrong set of circumstances.
In an interview Stipe talks about the inspiration for the song and Galileo’s work at the Leaning Tower of Piza. A pound of feathers and a pound of irons fall at the same rate and land in equal time. Stipe noted that this is symbolic of us and scientifically recognizes the need for equality in a pluralist society.
Oppression is a common theme that’s been addressed in art, especially in folk music. Bob Dylan wrote his fair share about the issue in songs like “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carrol” and “Only A Pawn in Their Game.”
Dylan also wrote a song titled the “Death of Emmett Till.” Recently the story of Emmett Till was made into a movie, “Till.” Emmett Till was a northern adolescent black man in the 50s who went to the South to visit his family. There are different versions of the story as to what happened but the 14 year old child lost his life in Mississippi after commenting on a white woman’s good looks. The woman’s husband and father took matters into their own hands, abducting the child in the night, torturing him and throwing his body into the river.
His killers were tried and though there was clear evidence pointing to the crime they committed, they were found innocent. There was never going to be a fair trial. The men later admitted to the crime in an interview in Look magazine. Interestingly enough, the woman who accused Emmitt Till of the act, recently passed away. Before her death she stated she was abused by her husband and said Till did not deserve to die. She implied that she suffered her own form of oppression at the hands of her morally depraved husband.
Emmett Till’s mother became an important figure in the Civil Rights Movement, sharing her story of the evils of oppression. Her son’s mutilated corpse was photographed and outraged a nation. Till’s mother also had an open casket to illustrate to the world the oppressive nature of Jim Crowe Laws and evils of segregation in the South. Recently, President Biden authorized landmarks relating to Emmett Till’s case to remind the world how dangerous oppression can be and “remind us of our past so as to live better the future.”
Oppression strips the dignity of a person. Unfortunately, the person doing the oppressing does not realize it but the act of undermining the power of another undoes something in the oppressor. It devalues the oppressor. It also works on a subconscious level. If an oppressor can deny dignity and degrade someone it can be done to him and probably has been done to him in some form or some manner — thus the need to impose his power on another and claim a place in the hierarchy of existence.
The act of oppression forces people to hide in corners. People will use any trick in the book to avoid facing indignity. It is the most degrading, defeating intensely evil expression on the face of the earth. Some powers thrive on this because it allows them to have more control over people and do what they wish to exploit others and have a good life.
When people try to claim power and it is not given, it can create a chasm of fear in the mind and a cycle of poverty that is at times unbreakable. Psychologically speaking, that gap between dignity and dehumanizing indifference needs to be filled with something to overcome the emotional instability it creates, and those being oppressed will reach for anything that can compensate for the void to make themselves whole. Sometimes it is filled with drugs, sex, violence and forms of abuse and any form of aggression that will help an individual reclaim a sense of self. You could also say that such acts are a form of “self-hate,” as the individual covers the shame through acts of indecency and self-punishment.
These acts of indifference lead to unstable families, unhappy marriages and unsettled life situations that can create their own new cycles of fear and indifference. It is a perpetual evil that snowballs in our society.
Dr. Elliot D. Cohen, in an article in 2014 in “Psychology Today,” noted what is scariest about the forms of oppression is the act of “willful oppression.” The “sundry act of oppression” is so insidious that more often than not individuals don’t even realize they’re being oppressed.
There is no better example of this than our treatment of women in our society. Sexist oppression can carry with it undermining rights of women. Equal pay for equal work is still a problem. Considering that we still have not had a woman as president should give us pause in terms of how we feel about women in our society and their role in fulfilling the clarion call of all humans being equal. Not to mention the fact that women make up more than half the population and still don’t have equal representation in Congress by the numbers.
A society suffers most when those who have less do not realize that their oppression has great implications on society. They embrace their enslavement and accept what has been given to them. They support and even enable oppression. Look at the voting rights that undermines blacks’ and peoples of colors’ rights to the ballot box. Another example is the unwillingness to fair wages and even a livable wage for some.
Oppression is called out in scripture. Luke 4:18-19
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
The above quote is the first time we see Jesus addressing an audience. It would be the hallmark of his ministerial journey. Every Christian is called to account for his part in undoing the rights of others in the name of making a buck. Every Christian is called to account for his actions toward the poor. It’s no secret that the oppression of poor in society created an unstable pyramid that was built on the backs of the poor.
The power of corrupt systems compromises our ability to do anything about oppression, but that doesn’t mean we should just give up. Only through our willingness as one people to right the wrongs are there any hopes at overriding the injustices imposed by corruption and the indifference of the most powerful.
The solutions to oppression begin with our recognizing the needs of the poor and the fight for equality.
spirit beat 