Roksana Alavi

In my dissertation I discuss voluntary racial oppression. In my view coercion is not required for all oppressive situations. The psychologically oppressed, internalizes the expectation of inferiority and becomes one's own oppressor. This theory of oppression can best explain the situation of racial minorities in the United States. There are no laws discriminating against racial minorities. So, their oppression is not externally inflicted. I provide Sally Haslanger's theory of race. I believe in this theory of race, passing people are also victim of oppression. I discuss three harms of oppression: violence, economic oppression and stereotyping, and show that they can be both voluntarily and involuntarily inflicted. Although passing people are not victims of direct harm, they internalize the negative stereotypes and become their own oppressors. So, in order to end racial oppression, we ought to address both the political aspects of having rights and bringing everyone to the threshold level of functioning of capabilities.

Many immigrants and their children ask themselves the question of identity. Often we allow others to identify us and colonize our consciousness. Once we are “given” our identities, we are then stereotyped because of them. We then reap the benefit, or the disadvantages of our stereotypes. In turn social stereotypes that surround us, further shape our self-identity and consequently, the decisions we make. If we have no other outlet or if we feel as though there are no other options, we live those stereotypes. Some are harmful to us and leave us in the disadvantaged places even to oppression of ourselves. In this paper, I discuss some harms of stereotyping, how it leads to voluntary oppression, and make some suggestions for ending racial oppression.

Living under oppression, individuals develop variety of survival mechanisms. Racial passing has historically been one of those tactics. Some people in the Iranian American community living under unfavorable conditions have resorted to passing to gain the benefits of being non-Iranian. I find passing both personally and philosophically challenging. I have wondered if living as a passing person implies a lack of integrated self and inauthenticity. Elsewhere, I have argued against this notion. In this chapter, I argue that people who live under the non-ideal conditions gain (at least) psychological safety by presenting themselves differently from how they identify. Passing under oppression is not a sign of moral deficiency. Using non-ideal theory as my framework, it is evident to me that passing can’t even be evaluated under ideal theory because in an ideal world, where ideal theories operate, there is no need for passing. I will (1) define and develop the concepts of identity and passing and (2) provide a brief description of non-ideal theory as used in this chapter, and (3) consider objections to passing and give responses.

Table of Contents: 1. Why be moral? / Roksana Alavi -- 2. Ethics and leadership / Susan P. Mullane -- 3. Leadership ethics / Joanne B. Ciulla and Donelson R. Forsyth -- 4. Motivation matters : effective ethical agents as leaders for change / Lindsay Kelland and Sharli Anne Paphitis -- 5. Ethics and the development of relationally motivated leadership / Jane Mummery and Marnie Nolton -- 6. Developing leaders : children and ethical leadership / Michael D. Burroughs -- 7. Odin, Enron, and the apes : distinguishing real leadership from counterfeit leadership / Dean Williams -- 8. Follow the leader? / Simon Robinson -- 9. Leader and follower : a commentary / George Henderson -- 10. Compassion, suffering, and servant leadership : combining compassion and servant-leadership to respond to suffering / Brian Davenport -- 11. Lessons in compassionate leadership : a blog post / Jose "JC" Cruz, Jr. -- 12. A new world / Jeffrey E. Garten -- 13. Are men natural leaders? / Alice H. Eagly and Linda L. Carli -- 14. Women of color in leadership : rendering the invisible visible / Marilyn Y. Byrd -- 15. Racial spaces and academic discourse : transactional diversity as a model for communicating across difference / Meta G. Carstarphen -- 16. Barriers in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) leadership attainment and sustainability / LaVonya M. Bennett -- 17. Collaborative management of crowd dynamics / Vern Neufeld Redekop and Shirley Pare -- 18. The right to work : a strategy for addressing the invisibility of persons with disability / S.K. Tororei.

In this chapter I explore my lived experiences as a first generation immigrant woman of color in academia and the implications of these experiences in my life as an academic. I will frame my chapter using standpoint theory. I will touch on issues of developing my identity as a person and as a professional in the boundaries that the society has drawn for me, as well as the stereotypes that I have to overcome. At the end, I will borrow from Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach to give some suggestion as how we can face these challenges and what the universities can do to create a more welcoming (inclusive) place for us, and what we, as professors can do, in order to address the social injustices the manifest themselves in and out of the classroom.