Power and The Centre

People in our society today have taken for granted the social norm of social organization as a whole. Society in a nut shell has many different class, race, gender, and sexual differences which influence and reflect the privileges and opportunities we have as people. The authors of the text book “ Power and Everyday Practices,” refers to any taken for granted or normative features of social organization, distinguished by the ability to confer privilege upon those who occupy it, as called the “Centre.”

The centre, the author refers to as a very predominant aspect in our society today. In many ways we take for granted things we have and do and don’t realize we are doing  it.  We are all a victim of this assumption, and there are many people in the world who don’t have the privilege or resources that we may have.  One key example of a taken for granted normative feature in our society would be the resource of food. In many parts of the world food is taken for granted. I personally have been brought up in middle to upper class family where I have always had the privilege and accessibility to food. But, in many third world countries people are dying each year from starvation. We don’t put it in to perspective that there are people around us who are less advantaged and the simple things such as food they don’t have the resources for. Moreover, we don’t consider this when we throw away perfectly good food after dinner. This then leads to my opinion on the centre and just how much it affects our everyday life.

My view of the centre is that we don’t realize just how much we take for granted until we compare ourselves to people who are less privileged or of a lower economic status. The author refers to these people as on the margins looking in. In this case these people are less privileged and are looking in on those who are privileged. In many ways the centre has impacted my life. To me I believe at one point in each person’s lives they will be a different part of the centre and see the world through different lenses throughout the life span. My own personal experiences I have been a witness of both of these margins revolving around the centre.

The centre in many ways has impacted my life and many people in my life. The centre is a big part of our society and is present in everyday life even when we don’t realize it. Growing up in a middle class family gave me the privilege to participate in allot of activities most children don’t get to experience. I took part in dance classes for 16 years of my life commuting an hour everyday and paying a good chunk of change to partake in the best school in Atlantic Canada. As a young child at many times I took for granted the opportunity my parents gave me and would often make excuses to miss classes or just not attend. In many working class families’ children would only dream of this opportunity but in most cases don’t have the stability and financial support they need from their families allowing them to have this privilege. This is one major thing in my life that has been taken for granted. This is an example of how the centre has impacted my life from the perspective of being the insider of the centre.

Furthermore, I have also been a part of the outside looking in margin of the centre. I am an African Canadian. Although, I do not appear as a visible minority I was raised in an African Canadian family. African Canadian students receive many opportunities in life because they are one group that is disadvantaged. This brought forth my participation in African Canadian group at my school and also allowed me to receive many bursaries because of my ethnic background. My relationship with the other students was not a positive experience. They believed that I didn’t deserve the right to be there because I wasn’t a visible minority. I was both a witness of the outsider and the insider on this particular occasion. Where I am of African decent I was lucky to receive the benefits, but because I wasn’t a visible minority I was criticized and yelled at because they did not believe I deserved the money. Many times I felt taken advantaged of because they would make me feel like I didn’t deserve to be there.  Leading me to almost draw myself completely from my own ethnicity, because they convinced me I wasn’t a real African Canadian and wasn’t worthy of the benefits. Being and outsider let me have a look at what it is like outside of the normative social structure and just what it is like not having the privilege to partake in a given activity.

Moreover, the centre is an important and very predominant aspect in our society and has effect d both positively in negatively in many people’s lives.  Everyone has a different view and different position in the centre, which impacts peoples’ lives in different ways depending on the privileges and opportunities they have whether it is based on class, race, gender and sexual differences.