All five faces of oppression are present in the United States today. Exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence all have roots in the United States, some more than others. The major faces of oppression in my opinion are exploitation and violence. According to Iris, exploitation is the act of using a group of people or a person and not compensating them correctly for their labor, essentially exploitation is oppression via capitalism. For example, in the U.S, immigrants are easily exploited by bigger corporations and employers because they are desperate to provide for themselves and/or their families, so they know they will accept whatever is dished out to them. More specifically, usually a migrant from Mexico or a third world country comes to the U.S in hopes of obtaining the “American Dream” and agricultural companies recruit them and pay them unlivable wages.
The next face of oppression is violence, which according to Iris is the act of unprovoked attacks and violence towards minorities. In the U.S, specifically, Arabs and those of Muslim faith are often targeted and assaulted because of who they are. There is a common idea amongst white supremacists and racists that Muslims are terrorists due to a single event, so hate crimes are committed against them. From what I can recall from past events, they have had acid thrown in their faces, their places of worship have been vandalized and destroyed, and they have even been physically attacked.
