Portland State professor discusses power structures, inequality through Lake Oswego Reads program

Though this year’s Lake Oswego Reads book, “Honor” by Thrity Umrigar, takes place in India, Portland State University professor Jack Miller will zoom out to provide context to the power structures that persist in the story and in all societies.

Miller, a professor of American politics and political theory, will deliver his talk at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, April 11 at the Lake Oswego Public Library.

Umrigar’s novel depicts an American journalist covering a story in a rural Indian village about a Hindu woman who is burned alive by her brothers for marrying a Muslim man. The story shows inequalities based on religion, gender, wealth and caste.

“The reason I agreed to do the talk is not because I have expertise in Indian politics or history,” Miller said. “But (I can shed light on) the idea that inequalities are upheld through certain kinds of brutality as portrayed in the book and upheld in situations like the courts and police and certain cultural practices and the ways that people talk about and understand their own place in the world.”

Miller pointed out a common means by which power structures are upheld in both India and America — playing one disadvantaged social class off of another. In “Honor,” the poor Hindus and Muslims are similarly impoverished but the Hindus establish superiority and inequality through other means. He saw this as a parallel with how Black people are treated in America, especially during the period of slavery.

“Poor white people are psychologically helped if Black people don’t have rights. That is one reason why racism was established in the 1600s in the first place, so poor whites wouldn’t make a common cause with Black slaves and way out number the plantation owners. The differences in status get played on,” Miller said.

Further, Miller said power structures are maintained by the stories societies tell about themselves — like which religion is true and the proper roles of certain people in society.

“A big part of oppression is the different level of access to resources. Some have the courts and cops and governments on their side. Some are the stories we accept that are widely held within a society and in fact are oppressive forces even for the people who benefit from them the most. The dominant culture tells stories about the world that the vast majority of people believe even though those stories are totally different from another society and can’t be proven true,” Miller said.

Miller said inequality and power structures aren’t necessarily bad — and they are impossible to totally eradicate. In turn, individuals and societies should focus on ways to lessen them to the point where they are more beneficial. And he mentioned a variety of ways that societies have reduced inequality, such as providing greater legal rights and freedom to women and minorities and the creation of the social safety net in America. Miller said that, while it’s easier for people to feel outraged or hopeless about the state of the world, doing so only benefits the powers that be and we all can take steps to improve the world.

“There is a plentiful history of human beings working to make things less bad. That is the hopeful side of looking at inequality,” Miller said.

For more information about the talk, visit www.ci.oswego.or.us/loreads/persistence-power-structures.