"From Race Rebels" & "From Weapons of the Weak"

In "From race Rebels," D.G. Kelley describes his own experience in working for a fast food chain, McDonalds. His reflection of his time spent there in his youth shows how less they cared about the issues of being treated bad, instead he remembers all the time he had fun with his coworkers when they all worked there. The means of resistance against the establishment still existed, except that they didn't really know that they were being oppressed in a way that they ended up having to rebel against the establishment certain times to get what they wanted, such as fighting the rules of hair codes and dress codes to fit their wishes. I think that recently, the amount of people rising up against the corporations of minimum wage paying establishments have been increasing, while back then in Kelley's youth, they did not dispute about their wages. I think this increase in working class people rising up against the corporations that employ them is due to the fact that now, everyone has an equal voice because of social media and this allows for the corporations and its working people to connect directly with ease, as opposed to back then when in order to dispute, you probably had a more difficult time trying to reach the corporate offices to claim your dispute. This connects to the idea of how whenever there is oppression, rebellion is always there with it because it creates a sort of call and response to each action.

James C. Scott's essay, "From Weapons of the Weak", mention that the oppressed masses rebel against the few by subtle evasions of work and compliance. Scott refers to slaves and servants who do not always comply completely with the orders given to them, but because they need to keep their values worth of work, their "masters" keep them despite their slacking off of work and subtle rebellion. Similar to Kelley's work, Scott is talking about how whenever there is oppression against the masses by the minority, rebellion, whether it be done in small or big actions, will always be the response. Even though the rebellions may not always have the outcomes that the masses want, they more often than not, bring at least some benefits to their cause, making the a rebellion a good effort to meet their demands for a better environment. I have never really thought about the oppression and rebellion factors that come into play when there are huge movements, at least not to the level that Scott and Kelley put into words. Now I know what to look for when there is a mass protest or movement, to see who is being oppressed and who are the masses that are rebelling against their oppression.