Blog #4

The Stanford Prison experiment placed subjects into either the role of a guard or a prisoner. From a sociological perspective, the guards are oppressors while the prisoners are subjected to oppression by the guards. The people were meant to believe the entire prisoner was an experiment and nothing more. The first day brought about little excitement in the test subjects both the guards and prisoners because the reality of freedom to end the experiment at any point was apparent in their mind. As the days progressed, the guards become forceful in the eyes of the prisoners due to the actions of one purposefully aggressive guard. However, some guards never committed any acts of degrading behavior yet did not stand up against the oppressive guards while they had the same level of power. The prisoners eventually became convinced they could not leave and became submissive.
This scientific experiment is completely applicable to the white, male, and able-bodied dominance of America and the rest of the world. When watching the video of the children beating up the car, it was sicken to have the police called twice due to a family of African Americans that were asleep in a car while their was only one call for a group of white children vandalizing a car in daylight. People made the assumptions that blacks were outsiders in the community because it was primarily white. The show made the audience aware of the reality that whites are privileged to commit more acts of crime when people walk by and do nothing due to racism or the basic fear for safety. Police exhibited similar behavior with racial profiling when watching drivers on the road. So in the end, privilege due to race or sex is still a basic fundamental to the way over society works even though there is no more slavery.
It is startling to imagine people behaving in such a manner regardless of their core beliefs. People easily adapt and accept their position of power when in an institutional setting. In the Johnson reading, it is clear that people of power have to accept the internal and external struggle of having privilege and power and adapt to being mindful of our individual actions and thoughts due to it. The idea that every person be able to do this every time they interact with someone else or in a group is completely illogical until every one is taught by the very institution that causing the oppression.
The problem with contemporary society is the country does not seem to be able to identify the issue until a form of media tells them what to care about. One would think people should establish what to fight for objectively. Unfortunately for equality to exist, individualism has to be sacrificed. However, it does not mean you are not allowed to express yourself or you have to hide your identity relative to the world. It means self-worth cannot interfere with the collective good. Collective good does not identity with any bigotry of any kind and it is centered around the survival and happiness of the human race .