Capitalism, Class, and the Matrix of Domination

1. Capitalism, Class, and the Matrix of Domination is about race being socially constructed and made up along with people being privileged without knowing it. The section about Capitalism, difference and privilege: race and gender tells us that capitalist used racism to control their workers. If the white workers complained about wages or the working conditions the capitalist kept the workers worried that they were going to lose their jobs. So in order to keep their jobs the white workers just kept their unhappiness to themselves.

2. On page 47 it says “other capitalist connections to racism have been less direct, capitalist, often used racism as a strategy to control white workers and thereby keep low wages and productivity high.” I think this is saying white workers did not want to be considered to be on the same class level as African Americans, so the white workers did what ever they were told to do because it made them more superior to African Americans and raised their class status. This article shows that capitalism does not just target African Americans, it also says that “capitalism exploits people with disabilities…the 1938 minimum wage law allowed managers to hire people with disabilities at less then minimum wage.” Even If people with disabilities, may do a task at a little slower rate then others, and does not give someone the rights to pay someone a less wage do to the fact that they have a disability. If someone did that in this day an age, that manager would be taken to court for discriminate. This article shows that African Americans are not the only group being oppressed.

3. Is everyone privileged and oppressed? It sounds like if you working class, white male, as it says in the text that you are 2/3 privileged, because white males have some kind of advantage when it comes to claiming the corporate latter. If you are a white male you can be promoted and promoted and keep going higher up. Where if you are a white woman and have the same skills as the white male, you will be promoted but at a certain point there becomes this glass ceiling. Where the male will keep going up the latter the women stops dead in her tracks. For this reason I agree that everyone is privileged and oppressed in one way or another.

4. When I started to read this I thought it was going to talk about race and how one race was superior to other. As I was reading this however I found that it was talking about how privilege and oppression did not just deal with race it also involved gender, class and sexually orientation, and ability. What I mean by this is, someone can be oppressed because they are male, or female, low, middle or high class. As well as being homosexual or header sexual, or have a disability or not have a disability. I knew that all of these people are discriminate against in one way or another, but it did not occur to me that they're oppressed. I thought being oppressed means that a group of people are treated so badly that they do not feel like they deserve any respect. I do not see how this is different to discrimination.