Oppression and Welfare

     While I was reading the Frye article about oppression I immediately thought back to the Politics: Race and Gender course that I had last semester. Frye describes oppression like a bird cage, there are systematic obstacles that may be very difficult or impossible to overcome but it is hard to recognize them as part of a structure. I like to think about it more like a glass cage such as a fish tank or terrarium. The structure is transparent, it is difficult to detect its presence. Also like the see-through glass of a terrarium, it gives the illusion of freedom but in reality is an invisible obstacle.
     Welfare is a good example of how the government systematically oppresses people. In reality most people in America support social welfare spending but if you were to ask them specifically if they support welfare they would say no. This is because the conservative media has framed welfare as a negative, race/gender charged issue. In class we learned that most people subconsciously think of welfare as going to the "lazy African-American" stereotype even though the vast majority of people on welfare are Caucasian. It is hard to raise children on one person's salary and for that reason a large portion of those who are on welfare are single mothers. Because public opinion of welfare is so poor, much funding for welfare programs has been cut. This leaves less money to be given to the many people who need government support. Most welfare recipients are single mothers so this in turn is a systematic way of keeping them poor. Some people operate under the impression that people on welfare are sitting around living off of the government. In reality, however, the amount of money that is given in welfare programs is so low that one could NEVER live off of it. In fact, it is still near impossible to get by on welfare and a minimum wage job, especially if you have more than one mouth to feed. In this example oppression is placed into the system based on people's irrational and unfounded racist ideals. When you keep the public ignorant of the truth of an issue, it makes it much easier to install systematic oppression.