Being Told is Not Always Right, Thought about Rodriguez Experience Zhiguo Li Indiana University South Bend

Abstract
Power abuse happens a lot in our society. As the most powerful members in a family, parents always make the choice for kids or impose their thought to kids. In Rodriguez early life, he had a very bad experience for being a dark skin Mexican. His mother would get angry and yell at him if he doesn’t take care of his skin. His mother also tried to prevent him from either labor or lower class out of her purpose. Rodriguez experience showed Broody’s theory are well seen even in family. People who have power usually don’t realize the power they have and abuse it for their own purpose. After analysis what happened to Rodriguez, it alarming people that be aware of the others power and always think about it instead of fully trust to avoid being a victim of power abuse.

Key terms: Power abuse, Experience, Purpose.

People come to the world as a baby with no experience and knowledge. As they growing up, they will be told a lot from their parents, teachers, friends, or experts in a specific field. Parents tell them what to do, teachers teach them which is right, and friends tell them what is good for them. In Broody’s theory, power abuse happens in medical area. Experts use their medical knowledge give patient advice, but sometimes it’s not necessary, sometimes just because it’s good for physician themselves. Broody, the writer of “The Social Power of Expert Healers” talked about Opal case and the Bakers case to explain her theory in medical field. Expand her theory to Rodriguez essay, He wrote “Complexion” by his own experience with dark skin. His mother told him how bad the dark skin is, and ask him to take care of that. Rodriguez’s mother is a victim of social value system, but she used her power as a parent, which makes Rodriguez another victim. Patients need to think about the suggestions that the physician gave, so they don’t have to lose all their “teeth” if only one is needed to be removed. Kids will build their own value system so that they have their own opinion on things instead of taking everything from what people say. Things that are being told are not always right.
Should we always listen to our parents? Parents are the most powerful members in one’s family, especially in eastern countries. In eastern countries, parents can decide what you can have, who you cannot be friends with, even who you are going to marry. This owned power by parents just came from one reason, they born you. Parents don’t realize they have this power since the baby is born so they often abuse it. Parents always think they are making the right decisions for their kids for they have more experience to lead the kids to shortcut in life. Kids can be unhappy with it but they will finally accept it since they don’t really have a choice until they become an adult. Rodriguez was a dark skin boy like most of Mexicans, and his mother doesn’t like this fact of having a dark kid, so she doesn’t allow Rodriguez expose himself in the sun. After his mother telling him dark skin is a bad thing for many times, she successfully imposes her views on him. “Nothing else about my appearance would concern me so much as the fact that my complexion was dark” (p.455). His mother thinks what she did is for his interests, but she didn’t realize she made Rodriguez care more about the complexion instead of enjoying a wonderful childhood a kid deserves. This owned power is often abused because it’s hard to share since parents think they are right and don’t take kids opinion into account. As Broody claimed “Power is almost impossible to share when one does not know that one has it and does not know what one is doing with it” (p.122). Parents use their experience as theirs kids’, their choices are actually what they want, not what the kids want. Parents may think they know what they are doing, but what they did is just make their kids a copy of them. So when the parents don’t take kids opinion into account, think on the other way, why do kids have to take their opinions into account?
Is complexion really matters? Rodriguez mother was afraid that he will end up looking just like the other Mexicans worked very hard for little money. Complexion is just an appearance that people have since they were born. His parents don’t know that complexion cannot decide what people do and what they become. Even though, all his families are trying to avoid a dark skin kid. Female would use some special prescription during the last weeks of pregnancy, and dark skin kids would be often treated with mixture of egg white and lemon juice concentrate. There is always a comparison to decide who is powerful and who is powerless. Parents are the powerful one to their kids, but less powerful to social power. Rod’s mother would tell them that they are Mexicans when kids asked about their ancestry, but people wouldn’t tell that from his parent’s complexions. On the on hand, his parents don’t deny their ancestry. On the other hand, his parents trying to deny the dark skin in Mexicans. Rodriguez experienced a few times racial slurs by strangers, and his older sister was pushed down to a sidewalk after school. Those circumstances indicate that dark skin was a burden to them, so their parents try to “cure” their dark skin out of care. As to parents themselves, Rodriguez pointed out, “they continued to respect the symbols of what they considered to be upper-class life” (p.453). Definitely dark skin is not an upper-class symbol to his mother but a life of oppressive labor and poverty. It is one of the reasons that his mother trying to “cure” his dark skin. Broody also implied in her theory, “The way all parties used their power at cross-purposes makes it understandable why a better resolution was not reached” (p.123). What Rodriguez mother did was out of her own purposes and care for kids, this made her didn’t know what she was doing with her power which related to Broody’s theory was mentioned before.
Power abuse is a common thing in our society in almost every fields. As what happened to Rodriguez, complexion seemed to be a problem that he could never get over, but eventually he made the word, “so be it” (p.458). If all the parents tell their kids that dark skin people have to be a hard work labor or poor, then the kids will be like what they said. Look around the country, if the complexion really that matter, the current president won’t be a guy with other complexion. Rodriguez experience tells us that be aware of the power of others and think about if what people say is right or true.

References
Broody, R. (1990). “The Social Power of Expert Healers.” In T. Brunk, S. Diamond, P. Perkins, and K. Smith (Eds.), Literacies (2nded.). (pp.111-119). London: W. W. Norton.
Rodriguez, R. (1982). “Complexion.” In T. Brunk, S. Diamond, P. Perkins, and K. Smith (Eds.), Literacies (2nded.). (pp.447-458). London: W. W. Norton.