Contradicting Young Adults’ Internalized Oppression
At the East Coast North America Pre-World Conference, Emily Bloch, the International Liberation Reference Person for Young Adults, asked all of us young adults to lead or organize a one-day workshop for young adults in our Region before the end of the year. Three of us decided to work on ours together. It was awesome!
At our workshop, which M— led, we spent a lot of time building connections and getting to know one another. M— was right on target [exactly right] about how we can’t really rush that part—our relationships are the foundation for contradicting our distresses.
For the afternoon break we went outside and played and walked in the snow. Initially almost nobody wanted to get up and go outside, but we had a good time. It reminded me again what a contradiction [to distress] it is to play—including when it doesn’t feel like something I want to do.
We also had discharge groups on racism. When I work on racism with other young adults, there’s an expectation that we will be bold in setting up our lives to contradict white oppressor material [distress].
Open questions were another highlight. Young adults thinking smartly about Co-Counseling theory and providing each other with information contradicts young adults’ internalized oppression.
I had neglected to inform the rest of the Region about the workshop, and I realized that was young adults’ internalized oppression. I feel so isolated and marginal as a member of this constituency that it hadn’t occurred to me to inform the Region that we were having a workshop. Like, who really cares what young adults are doing, you know?
Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion listfor leaders of young adults
(Present Time 193, October 2018)