Purpose: To use poetry as content to identify cultural emotion (s), privilege cultural emotions of soft and hard boundaries and?

Understanding Privilege Cultural Emotions

To understand privilege cultural emotions let's imagine a situation in which there are two communities who believe they are different, for example in language, culture and way of life, history, and/or some visible physical characteristics. (In reality, there are often many community's in society, but let's simplify the situation to make the definitions clear.) We can describe the relationship between communities in two ways: privilege cultural emotions and the openness of institutional decision-making structures.

            "Hard and soft privilege cultural emotions" refers to a set of beliefs, values, and norms about how rigid the lines are between the two communities and how easily individuals can emotionally participate in the activities and institutions of the community to which they aren't ascribed. In a "soft privilege cultural emotion" situation the boundaries are permeable and fluid; there are few barriers to emotional participation. For example, in urban America today, whether a person is "English" or "Scotch-Irish" makes practically no difference; the two ethnicities intermarry, live in the same urban neighborhood, and recognize little distinction between them. In a "hard privilege cultural emotion" situation, the boundaries are rigid and extremely difficult to cross or penetrate; one community shuts out all individuals from the other community from any emotional participation in the activities of daily life–jobs, education, residence, friendship, marriage, social clubs, perhaps even the use of public spaces like beaches or mass transit. The former white-controlled apartheid regime in South Africa constructed these kinds of barriers to any emotional participation by individuals living in Black African communities: Blacks and other "non-whites” (colored) were residentially segregated, kept out of many job categories, forbidden to marry or date whites, confined to separate schools, and barred from the use of white-designated beaches, buses, parks, etc.

            "Open and closed institutional decision-making structures" refers to the degree to which one community monopolizes control of the economy, the political system, cultural institutions (churches, media, schools) and social organization. In an open system, members of both communities can direct and organize any of these institutions. In other—less open—systems, each community has its "own" institutions, sometimes enjoying a equal amount of power, in other cases, separate and unequal. For example, in Belgium, both the French and the Flemish-speaking communities have established their own universities, media, political parties, and are roughly at parity in their power in the society. In other cases, although both communities have institutions, those of one community clearly dominate. In these systems, the institutional decision-making structures could be said to be "separate and unequal." For example, Canadian institutions like the national government and the national economy are far more "English" than "French"; the control of the French is effectively limited to the province of Quebec, and even there, their control over the economy is not exhaustive.

            In the closed type of institutional decision-making structures, one community is not permitted to have any institutional control at all, neither in a set of common institutions nor in a separate set; for example, the plantation system of the South in the United States was a totally closed one, with African slave communities having no political representation, no economic rights, no schools…not even in churches or families, except with the permission of the slave-owner. Any institutions the African slaves established were treated as illegal. In this system, all institutional decision-making structures were completely monopolized by one community.

            Below, in Table One, are ideal types for each of the privilege and institutional decision-making structures.

Table 1. —Privilege Cultural Emotions and Institutional Boundaries

Ideal Type Privilege Cultural Emotions and Institutional Structure

            In hard/open privilege cultural emotions and institutional structure situations the ideal type community is accommodation . In this ideal type, privilege cultural emotion communities co-exist and share resources but there is a privilege cultural emotion community that determines the financing, allocation and delivery of resources for communities that co-exist with the privilege cultural emotion community. Social groups that co-exist with privilege cultural emotion communities in the accommodation ideal type are defined as either hyphenated community's (e.g., in the US African American, Hispanic American) or gendered community's (e.g., same sex individuals and groups) or class-based community's (i.e., middle class, working class, lower class, poor). These community groups are typically stereotyped as lacking the privilege cultural emotions community’s culture and work ethic. In this ideal type community of accommodation, we hypothesize the emotional experience (s) of content, gratified, pleased if they are located within a certain echelon of the class-based community system (e.g., middle class, working class) or they are located in the gendered division community (i.e., same-sex) or are benefiting from the psychological wage of looking physically like the privilege cultural emotion community. They may seek to involve themselves in social action and thus, can become discontented when their co-existence in the accommodated community is threatened by less privilege cultural emotion communities seeking to gain more resources; usually social actions, at times, are at the expense of keeping other communities deemed "lower" or "inferior" in there “place.” Can you think of any real situations in the global community (including the United States) that approximate this ideal type community— accommodation ?

            In soft/open situations the ideal type community is inclusion . In this ideal type, privilege cultural emotion communities are treated in an equitable (not necessarily equal) way and receive opportunities to express their cultural emotions regardless of their social position, language, religion, phenotype, sexuality etc. The least advantaged communities are provided for along with the advantaged communities to minimize inequality and to promote opportunities for all cultural emotions to be expressed, accepted and most important respected. While there may be a privilege cultural emotion community group that determines the financing, allocation, and delivery of resources they seek to include least advantaged cultural emotion community members into the privileges and institutional decision-making structures to minimize social distinctions and to offer the least advantage community members opportunities to participate in decisions that affect all peoples’ cultural emotions. The ideal type inclusion community seeks to practice democracy by sharing privilege cultural emotions with all communities along equitable standards that are deemed appropriate by each community members participation. Can you think of any real situations in the global community (including the United States) that approximate this ideal type community— inclusion ?

            In closed/hard situations the ideal type community is exclusion .  In this ideal type community, certain cultural emotion communities are excluded from resources by a privilege cultural emotion community that determines the financing, allocation, and delivery resources for communities that are not excluded (these communities might also be in an accommodation ideal type community) but excludes other communities based on national origin and citizenship. The excluded cultural emotion communities are perceived as potential drains on those resources afforded citizens of the country (e.g., undocumented Mexicans in the US; Algerians in France; Yemini in Britain). The cultural emotion of a person in this ideal type community of exclusion is either forced to act on changing their exclusion or they feel powerless and incapable to change the existing terms of their exclusion . Can you think of any real situations in the global community (including the United States) that approximate this ideal type community— exclusion ?

            In soft/closed situations the ideal type community is conflict . In this ideal type community conflict exist because there is a need for certain cultural emotion communities to participate in the boundaries of a country as guest workers, migrants or seasonal laborers etc. and they are providing resources for the host country. For example, undocumented Mexicans that live in communities throughout the US provide up to 7 billion dollars annually in social security funds per year but are not given access to a set of social services (e.g., education for their offspring—Dream Act). In this ideal type cultural emotion community, the person is in conflict as they sense an injustice in the rewards the privilege cultural emotion community gains from resources created by communities at the expense of their participation. Can you think of any real situations in the global community (including the United States) that approximate this ideal type community— conflict ?

Conclusion

            It is imperative that we critically examine the role of privilege cultural emotions and institutional decision-making structures that are “soft and hard” and “open and closed” when attempting to create privilege cultural emotions for everyone in a society based on liberty, justice and freedom for all. We believe each of these ideal types can lead to the growth of advocates seeking to create, develop, and grow more privilege cultural emotion situations. We hope this short analysis provides a way to begin to understand and examine the actions required to promote and welcome the unrestricted expression of all peoples’ cultural emotions. Finally, we understand the ideal type privilege cultural emotion community of inclusion is the model thus, those who advocate for privilege cultural emotions of inclusion at the local, state, national and global levels ought to set their goals on achieving this ideal type to minimize various forms of discontent in the privilege cultural emotion situations we have identified—accommodation, exclusion and conflict.

Liberty

emotions

Freedom

emotions

Justice

emotions

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