Kelsey Paxton - Chapter One Reflection

When I was reading the chapters I knew that our society was based on the oppressor and oppressed, but what stuck out to me the most was when the passage stated that the oppressed are so used to being told that they are worth nothing, that they cannot do anything, that they believed it themselves. The passage also stated that the people being mistreated and oppressed they start to drink and there life does not mean anything to them but rather death as meaning to it. People who feel that their life is unimportant and that they cannot get anywhere because people tell them that they cannot do anything with their life and they are worthless hits my heart very hard. I grew up in home where my family was very loving and taught us to help others not put them down and to be accepting.

It is very true when the passage talks about the people being oppressed feel they are worth nothing because all their life they have been told they will never amount to anything. In my high school my joiner year I was in my history class and we were going over things that students need to have to get into college and one girl said great I will not be able to go to college next year. I asked her why? She told me that the counselor just put her in classes that she did not need and she never knew that the classes would not count for college. I told her that she will have to do summer school and go on home studies if she wanted to graduate next year and be able to go to college. At my high school the goal is just to try and get the kids out of there, mat it be by the students graduating or letting them drop out. They say that the only students that will be able to go to college will be the ones that are very prestigious. The staff members oppressed the students every day until now most of the students stopped caring about their education because they believed that they could not go to college any way.

I think that the oppressed are the ones who need to stand up and fight for their rights, but at the same time they do not realize that they have any rights because the people oppressing the oppressed nail it into their heads that they are not worth anything so the oppressed come to believe that the only people able to achieve are the ones oppressing. Divide and conquer that is how the oppressors work to keep people down because when people feel bad about themselves they stick to themselves and fell worthless. A change needs to take place in society because every human being as worth.