Tunnel of Oppression opens minds
Interactive Tunnel of Oppression encourages empathy.
by Kathryn Hopper
TCU students post their reflections about the Tunnel of Oppression on the “Wall of Change.”
I have to admit I wasn’t excited about spending a sunny spring afternoon traveling through the “Tunnel of Oppression,” but I also have to admit I feel better for having had the experience.
Unlike a simple poster to promote tolerance and acceptance of those different from yourself, the interactive production actually gets in your face.
Through role-playing, you experience what it’s like to face prejudice in a job interview and wrenching videos force you to witness a young woman abused by her boyfriend.
Described as “a social event” the interactive production has been touring colleges nationwide and made its first stop at TCU this week thanks to sponsorship from the Office of Residential Services, Inclusiveness and Intercultural Services, and Fraternity and Sorority Life.
The tunnel is actually a series of rooms each examining different types of oppression. The first one room has two job interviewers and you are randomly assigned a gender and ethnicity, but you don’t know what they are. Then two TCU students playing hiring managers start firing away questions at you, except they are not politically correct.
“Are you sure you’re going to be able to get to this job – do you have a bus pass?” Dani Folks, a junior social work and anthropology major, asked me.
That was my first clue that my identity was a low-income minority woman. The second indication was when I went to the second room, a type of real estate office, and was steered toward an apartment in a bad neighborhood instead of the Tudor home I preferred.
Folks and Caitlin McAfee, a junior social work major who also portrayed a hiring manager, both participated in the project as part of a social work class and said the experience was really interesting, in part because of the reactions from their fellow students when they faced their pointed interview questions.
“I have a lot of people who just stare at me,” McAfee said. “They have never had to face anything like this.”
The Tunnel concept began in the 1990s at Western Illinois University as an education tool against hate crimes and bigotry and to encourage positive choices and promote a safe emotional environment on college campuses.
Giving students first-hand encounters with injustice and intolerance makes them more concrete and not just abstract concepts that happen to someone else.
Each year the tunnel focuses on slightly different topics and this year covered sexual orientation, domestic violence and abuse, racism, religious discrimination, genocide, Veterans issues, learning disabilities and poverty.
Participants go one a one-hour tour through the series of rooms depicting scenarios of various types of oppression then afterwards, come together to discuss the experience and reflect on what they’ve learned.
“When the leave, they’re very quiet,” said Karla O’Donald, a Spanish instructor who volunteered to staff the event. “It’s hard to process everything right away. It will dawn on them later.”
You also can write a reflection about what you’ve learned and post in on the “Wall of Change.”
Scanning the comments, I noticed one that said, “Wow, Today I’m out of my comfort zone. It won’t be possible to ignore these issues.”
Another was ever more succinct.
“Love more, Hate less.”
