Essay:

Humans are physiological creatures. We think and find a reason for everything we do, even if that reason is not “good.” Everyone does it including the people you wouldn’t expect; people with high authority over others. Those people believe they have more of a right to inflict violence onto other people because of the position they have. They are also more perceptible to violence. This all leads to a world of violence due to the people of power.

In early August of 1971, 24 male college students from the US and Canada were chosen to be part of a social psychological experiment; The Stanford Prison Experiment. The experiment would split the group into two. Half of the group would play the role of prison guards while the other half of the group played the role of  prisoners. These positions were all chosen at random. Instructions were given to the prisoners while the guards were given little to no instructions. It was their house to run. The experiment studied and evaluated both groups. They wanted to see what stripping a person quickly of their identity would do but they also wanted to see what power would do to an everyday citizen. The results were shocking. It took a very short amount of time for the guards to sink into their roles. They created rules for the prisoners to follow. They treated the prisoners like true criminals. They degraded the prisoners by making them wear prison dresses as their uniforms. They punished them by making them do push-ups, similar to how Nazis punished Jewish people in concentration camps. The fact that this happened so quickly is scary to see. These were everyday college students, all with positive backgrounds that just wanted some money (paid for doing the experiment). This shows us that people with authority will do whatever it takes to degrade someone who is below them. They believe that if it is not hurting them that it is alright. Before the experiment started, all 24 men were similar. The one switch changed it all. Power. Power gave them the ability to inflict violence. They had the power and didn’t care how bad it would hurt others who in all reality, were just like them. The master behind the Stanford Prison Experiment, the experiment talked about above, is a man named Philip Zimbardo. After the experiment, he went on to make a TED Talk and write a book about what he calls the Lucifer Effect. He defines the Lucifer effect as,“ Individuals and groups  who usually act humanely can sometimes act otherwise in certain circumstances (TedTalk, Zimbardo). This proves that everyday people are easily able to change their ways of thinking and acting based on a situation. In the case of the SPE, we saw the guards act out because they were put in a non-everyday situation. A situation that gave them power.

People of authority and power also tend to make important decisions without the input of the people the decision will be effect. Look at the case of our government and presidents (past and current). Wars have been waged without the consent of our nation. National emergencies were called with little to no thought of the people. Presidents have skipped the approval of the congress to go to war. There are rules such as the War Power Act, that presidents completely ignore. It seems as though presidents, some of the people with the most power in the US, don’t think about the violence that going to war can bring. The violence doesn’t directly affect them; So why should they care? They are not the ones fighting in the fields. They are not the ones trying to keep them alive. They are not the ones dying for the Nation they should be running. If people have power over others, the chance they wouldn't send those other people into the violence is slim to none. They do what they want. They don't want to be hurt. They would rather have others fight the job so they don't have to.

In conclusion, we can see that through social psychological experiments and with everyday life that people of power use violence to their advantage. We can see a tie between violence and power. When people are given power in situations they are more likely to use it to their advantage and inflict violence on people who they feel are lesser. People who have power do not think about the people the violence will affect. As long as it is not them they don’t care.

Work Cited:

1.) Stanford Prison Experiment https://www.prisonexp.org/the-story

2.) War Power Act https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2001/09/what-war-powers-does-the-president-have.html

Essay:

Humans are physiological creatures. We think and find a reason for everything we do, even if that reason is not “good.” Everyone does it including the people you wouldn’t expect; people with high authority over others. Those people believe they have more of a right to inflict violence onto other people because of the position they have. They are also more perceptible to violence. This all leads to a world of violence due to the people of power.

In early August of 1971, 24 male college students from the US and Canada were chosen to be part of a social psychological experiment; The Stanford Prison Experiment. The experiment would split the group into two. Half of the group would play the role of prison guards while the other half of the group played the role of  prisoners. These positions were all chosen at random. Instructions were given to the prisoners while the guards were given little to no instructions. It was their house to run. The experiment studied and evaluated both groups. They wanted to see what stripping a person quickly of their identity would do but they also wanted to see what power would do to an everyday citizen. The results were shocking. It took a very short amount of time for the guards to sink into their roles. They created rules for the prisoners to follow. They treated the prisoners like true criminals. They degraded the prisoners by making them wear prison dresses as their uniforms. They punished them by making them do push-ups, similar to how Nazis punished Jewish people in concentration camps. The fact that this happened so quickly is scary to see. These were everyday college students, all with positive backgrounds that just wanted some money (paid for doing the experiment). This shows us that people with authority will do whatever it takes to degrade someone who is below them. They believe that if it is not hurting them that it is alright. Before the experiment started, all 24 men were similar. The one switch changed it all. Power. Power gave them the ability to inflict violence. They had the power and didn’t care how bad it would hurt others who in all reality, were just like them. The master behind the Stanford Prison Experiment, the experiment talked about above, is a man named Philip Zimbardo. After the experiment, he went on to make a TED Talk and write a book about what he calls the Lucifer Effect. He defines the Lucifer effect as,“ Individuals and groups  who usually act humanely can sometimes act otherwise in certain circumstances (TedTalk, Zimbardo). This proves that everyday people are easily able to change their ways of thinking and acting based on a situation. In the case of the SPE, we saw the guards act out because they were put in a non-everyday situation. A situation that gave them power.

People of authority and power also tend to make important decisions without the input of the people the decision will be effect. Look at the case of our government and presidents (past and current). Wars have been waged without the consent of our nation. National emergencies were called with little to no thought of the people. Presidents have skipped the approval of the congress to go to war. There are rules such as the War Power Act, that presidents completely ignore. It seems as though presidents, some of the people with the most power in the US, don’t think about the violence that going to war can bring. The violence doesn’t directly affect them; So why should they care? They are not the ones fighting in the fields. They are not the ones trying to keep them alive. They are not the ones dying for the Nation they should be running. If people have power over others, the chance they wouldn't send those other people into the violence is slim to none. They do what they want. They don't want to be hurt. They would rather have others fight the job so they don't have to.

In conclusion, we can see that through social psychological experiments and with everyday life that people of power use violence to their advantage. We can see a tie between violence and power. When people are given power in situations they are more likely to use it to their advantage and inflict violence on people who they feel are lesser. People who have power do not think about the people the violence will affect. As long as it is not them they don’t care.                       

trau·ma

/ˈtroumə,ˈtrômə/

noun

1. a deeply distressing or disturbing experience.

Traumatic experiences are person-dependent. Something that is traumatic to one person might not be traumatic to another. It can be anything from your bullying story to breaking up with your first love to your parents divorce . Whatever it is, it sticks with you. It stays in the back of your mind, shaping your moves and thoughts. They shape you into the you that you see daily.

“Alright Michaela, the floor is yours,” my teacher announced

As the words flew from my mouth and from my mind, I could feel their eyes on me. I didn’t want to look up to meet their gaze. The gaze that would soon send me out of the school day in tears day after day. I finish the presentation. I am reassured with the claps.

“Boo!” I hear faintly from the back of the classroom.

There goes the reassurance, so short lived. Why did they have to do that? I did nothing to them. Why me? The faint and quiet “Boo” felt like the weight of the world on top of me. It hurt as nothing had before. It hurt me deep inside and I didn’t know why.

This was the first time I ever felt like this. I was scared to be in front of my classmates. I was scared of my classmates. That presentation back in 7th grade seemed to set a tone to the rest of my doing when it came to school. I became nervous and untrusting in myself. Yes, it has changed a bit in past years due to gaining more confidence in speaking to an audience but the feeling of being judged stays crawling up my spine as I stand in front of any traditional classroom setting. I hate this feeling. It comes back even if I don’t expect it. I feel my hands shake. I hear my voice trembling in my ears. The faint “boo” makes an appearance in my mind every now and then. I do try and fight that awful noise telling me I am not worth the presentation but it is quite hard sometimes.

Even short, quick words like these ,can be very effective in impacting how you feel about your identity. They stick with you. Catcalling is something many women will handle throughout their life. For some, it may be more traumatic than it is for others. Burtman said, in a New York Times article titled, My Body Doesn’t Belong to You, “...once I turned 16, my body no longer belonged to me but to the world at large and to certain men who drove their cars past it” (Burtman, 2017). Traumatic experiences can very easily affect how someone views themselves. In the example of catcalling, women can begin to feel that they are only worth the words they hear on the streets, words from mouths of people they don’t know. The words they hear on the streets are brought up during self-reflection. Self-reflection is not always dwelling on trauma, but thinking about them in a more positive light. Reflecting can flip those words around; That “ayo Ma, let me tap that”, can turn into words of self-love. “You’re beautiful”  Self-reflection is very much key to true self-love and being able to face traumatic experiences again. You ultimately know you better than others do, but that does not mean they can’t help you. You need to know all kinds of ways to help yourself out of a rut. Others are able to give you those ideas. Others can be used to bounce around your own ideas. It is very important to most people. I say most because something that works for you might not work for someone else, just like something traumatic for you might not be traumatic for someone else.

In the book Between the World and Me, Coates is trying to convey the importance of race and identity. He talks about living in his own skin and telling us what it is like to live through experiences that were truly created by race. He says, “In America, the injury is not in being born with darker skin, with fuller lips, with a broader nose, but in everything that happens after” (120). This quote says that the things that affect your identity most are experiences. Many different things can make an experience traumatic. For Coates, traumatic experiences that happened because of his race left a great impact on his character. They affected how he viewed himself in comparison to others. They left a lasting impact on his identity.

Many things we know and experience in life can have an affect on our identity. A traumatic experiences can be one of those things that effects you greatly. Though it is traumatic it doesn’t mean it has to have a negative lasting impact on your self identity. Through self reflection and reflecting with others you can change how that experience affects you. Traumatic experiences are different for all that go through them but in the end, the impact is the same.

No Need for Regret:

Do I really like this one? I mean, it's soft and comfortable. Do I even wear this color? What is everyone else going to say? These questions and statements race through my mind at rocket speed as I sit there, contemplating over this pink crop top.

“Will you even wear that?,” my mom asked.

Will I? But everyone else does? They look good in it so why wouldn't I?

As I walk to the cashier, with my pink top in hand, I see where they all lay. Where each one of my classmates got theirs. They check for their size and go. Why is it so hard for me to decide? My hand moved closer to the pink mountain. I should put it back, shouldn't I? Why is this so hard?

I continue to walk to the register with the shirt in one hand and peer pressure in the other. As I walk out of the store I think to myself, “That was $12.90 not well spent.”

Do I regret that purchase? Yes.

Do I wear it? No.

Does it sit in the back of my closet with the tag still on it? Yes

Why? Because maybe one day, I’ll have the guts to wear something so not me but so everyone else. I bought that shirt to please others, not to please myself. The image of others smiling faces as I walk down the hall and all the “oh that’s so cute!”’s are burned into my brain. If I please them, I feel at ease. It doesn’t matter how I feel. Their comments make me feel like maybe the $12.90 was worth it.

Maybe I’d wear that pink piece of cloth today. Why? It’s uncomfortable and totally not my color. Why force myself into something that is not me for someone else’s pleasure. It makes no sense. I should do me. I cared about everyone’s opinions on me physically then. Now I care what people think about me. How they think I am as a person. Summer camp is a great example of this.

“Oh my gosh! I can’t tell anyone! Why did I just do that? I’m such a shitty person,” I exclaimed one of the many nights on the parade field. Alone. Just him and I laying in a large bed of grass under the stars.

“Hey, hey, hey calm down,” he says as he leads me back to the bench with his hands on mine.

I can’t tell anyone I thought. Who won’t judge me? Everyone will. I have to keep it to myself. Let it eat away at me. I don’t regret what I did. I did it again and again. His lips on mine in the moment didn’t seem wrong. When I left, I didn’t regret it. But the moment I thought about someone else’s opinion of me changing, I lost it.

I arrive back at my cabin. They were waiting for me. My friends who I’ve known for years or had just met a couple weeks before. They ask what we did. I told them we talked. They believed it I guess. I sure hope they did.

I care way too much about what they think of me. What anyone thinks about me but especially at camp. We are all so close. Almost no secrets are secrets. Everyone knows eventually. Whether it’s years later or the moment it happens. But I can’t tell anyone what happened between him and I. In the eyes of everyone else, my lips were never on his. We were just talking. My brain started to think about others opinions of me. I felt like they all knew even though they didn’t. I don’t know if hiding what I did made me feel worse or the thoughts. Everyone questioned why I was sad but it was easy to make an excuse that people wouldn’t judge me for.

1. My friend is leaving the U.S.

2. I’m sad that camp is almost over.

3. I’m just tired.

I might not care too much physically what people think about me. I can brush that off. When they are able to see through my lies, into my mess of a head, that’s when I’m scared. That’s when I care. But why should I? If I feel comfortable and don’t regret it, what is the problem? The opinions of others should not change my being. I should not have to hide my experiences or my emotions to make others see me as me. I don’t have to wear something that isn’t me just to impress others and get a reaction that I truly don’t care about. I care too much about what others have to say about me. But I shouldn’t. I am flawed and I mess up but I shouldn’t feel the need to hide that.