This reproduces the text of three brief articles by Leticia Nieto & Margot Boyer that appeared in

ColorsNW Magazine in 2006 and 2007.

This material was a preview of the concepts published at full length in the 2010 book
Beyond Inclusion, Beyond Empowerment: A Developmental Strategy to Liberate Everyone
by Nieto, Boyer, Goodwin, Johnson, and Smith.
For complete information, visit https://beyondinclusionbeyondempowerment.com/

Part 1
Understanding Oppression: Strategies in Addressing Power and
Privilege
Leticia Nieto and Margot Boyer
From ColorsNW Magazine, March 2006
Everyone who has tried to address the social realities of oppression and privilege knows that
these are tough subjects. Even saying the word “oppression,” or the more-loaded “racism,”
“sexism” and “heterosexism,” will get some people’s back up. Many folks start to feel angry,
guilty, ashamed or upset when these topics are raised, no matter how we approach them.
But we can’t have a more just society without talking about injustice. How can we address
these topics in a constructive way that will help people to listen and grow, not just create
conflict and ill feelings?
In this series of columns, we’ll outline an approach that can help people grow in their
understanding of oppression, and their compassion for self and others. This approach is
largely a psychological one, and we use the language of imagery and feeling more than that
of politics or activism. We believe that people can develop more appropriate and useful skills
to address the issues of oppression just as they develop other skills, and we’ve found that
when people learn about these skills they find it easier to tolerate discomfort, change their
own behavior and work with people whose experiences differ from their own.
This is a complex model, and we’ve greatly simplified it for this space. We teach it in the
course of a one- or two-day workshop, or over an academic semester as part of a graduate
program in counseling psychology. This column will offer a sketch of these ideas, which were
developed and synthesized by the co-author of this piece, Dr. Leticia Nieto, incorporating
ideas and models from developmental theory, diversity models and her own work as a
therapist, teacher, artist and cross-cultural worker.
We’re all members of many different groups. Many of these memberships reflect our choices
and lives in ways that are neutral or positive. Some of us come from big families, and some
are only children. Some of us have pets and some don’t. Some of us are basketball fans,
symphony lovers, vegetarians or film enthusiasts. We can enjoy these affiliations and know
that we are not likely to face discrimination because of them.
Other social memberships are troublesome. Because of our socially ascribed memberships in
certain groups – based on gender, ethnicity, social class and other groups – we will
experience either oppression or privilege. We don’t sign up to join these groups, nor do we
sign up for the system of oppression and privilege, yet they are part of our lives. We use the
term “Rank” to describe this system, and we believe that people can develop access to
better skills for responding to oppression in each of the rank areas. Later on, we’ll describe
those skills in detail, but first we’d like to lay some groundwork for understanding how the
system works.
In this model we distinguish among three terms that are sometimes treated as synonyms:
Status, Rank and Power. The “Onion” diagram shows these as layers or ways to understand
social interactions. Status is the outermost layer, the one that is easiest for other people to
see and the one we are most likely to be aware of, rank refers to the system of valuing
people differently depending on certain social memberships, and power is the innermost
layer, related to the core of our being.
Power relates to our connection to that which is greater than ourselves, to the numinous or
the divine. It signals our connection to ancestors and descendents, to nature and to the
whole of creation. Any person can have access to power; it’s not a function of social role or
worldly success. We connect with power through our spiritual practices and our creative
lives, through our mentors and loved ones, and through anything that allows us to move
from a genuine center. In workshops, we ask people to envision a person or being that has
this kind of power, and to imagine walking in their footsteps, as a way of getting in touch
with personal power.
Remembering our power enables us to work with the challenges of our lives and to cut
through the social constructs of status and rank effectively. Usually other people cannot see
our power, though they might feel it in some situations.
Status, in contrast, is the most superficial level of interactions, one which is easy to
observe. We all know how to take a high-status or low-status position, and we all get lots of
practice in both. High-status behavior is marked by a dominant or assertive posture and
verbal messages of assertion, leadership, dominance or knowledge. Low-status behavior is
marked by a submissive or passive posture, and verbal messages of agreement,
compliance, acceptance, and support. Both high- and low-status moves can be useful in
some situations or destructive in others – these are fundamental modes of behavior, not
good or bad in themselves.
Like other animals, human beings continually play status games. Most of us take both high-
and low-status positions throughout the day. With close friends, partners and colleagues,
status play can become very fluid, with both parties taking each position in turn. Certain
social roles evoke particular status behavior, and we’ll talk more about those later on.
It’s easy to observe status play at any bus stop, family meal or business meeting. Watch an
interaction unfold, and you’ll likely see people switching status positions regularly. This is
important, because status is not a permanent state or role; it’s a temporary behavior. Unlike
rank memberships, which are generally stable, status play is mobile.
High-status behavior includes many positive activities: leading a group, teaching a class,
speaking up for a principle, asserting connection. High-status behavior also includes the
whole spectrum of aggression, from positive action to confrontation and even violence.
Violence is a high-status move, and this is true no matter who does it. When a person who
is a member of a socially marginalized group commits an act of violence against someone
who is a member of a socially over-valued group, we see that as a high-status move. It’s a
temporary situation, a snapshot of an interaction, that doesn’t change the underlying
dynamics of societal and institutionalized inequity.
Similarly, when someone who is a member of a socially over-valued group or holds social
privilege takes a low-status position in a particular interaction, that does not change the
rank memberships of the people involved. To use an extreme example, a slave-owner could
be kind, friendly or submissive to a particular slave in a given situation, but that would not
change who was the owner and who was the slave.
It’s helpful to keep discussions of status and rank separated to better understand the issues
in both areas. Often when people talk about rank, examples of status play come into the
conversation. However, the fact that some members of devalued social groups experience
success and exhibit high-status behavior does not change the underlying dynamics of rank.

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The middle layer of the Onion, rank, is complex. Because rank is difficult to discuss, we use
a series of metaphors to attempt to understand how it operates. One metaphor is that of an
essentially mechanical system, a conditioned response that everyone is trained to make
when they are very young. We call it the Rank Machine. It operates like an old-fashioned
clockwork or a primitive industrial system, like an assembly line of 100 years ago, but it
happens within and around us.
The rank machine does only one thing: It sorts people into two piles, a small pile of people
who are overvalued and a larger pile of people who are devalued. We call these two piles
Agents and Targets. Since the rank machine is part of our deep conditioning, we rarely
become aware of what it does, or even that it’s operating. The effects of rank would need to
be measured in nanoseconds. We meet a person, and the rank machine has assessed them
as well as us, and categorized them and us, often before either of us speaks. We don’t have
control over this; it just happens. What we do have some control of is our awareness of the
rank machine, and how we respond to the categorizing that goes on in ourselves and
others.
In the United States, the rank machine sorts people in nine different categories. We use the
acronym ADRESSING (developed by Pamela Hayes) to remember them: Age, Disability,
Religious Culture, Ethnicity, Sexual Orientation, Social Class, Indigenous Background,
National Origin and Gender. In these nine categories, people are classified as either agents
or targets. Agents receive advantages or privilege, while targets receive liabilities or
oppression.
One problem with this whole rank system, of course, is that the categories are ridiculous
and false. People don’t fit well into binary, yes-or-no categories. To use one obvious
example, racial categories are only social constructs, and many people have ancestors from
many places and connections with many ethnic groups. People are not either “white” or
“people of color;” we are various and complex. This is the truth.
At the same time, this rank system, as absurd as it is, has a tremendous effect on our lives.
Being categorized as male or female, as straight or gay, or any other rank assignment, can
make a difference in the access, opportunities and comforts of our lives. This is the reality
for life in the U.S. As you read about these models, we’ll ask you to keep both of these in
mind: the truth that rank categories are absurd and false, and the reality that rank
categories affect our lives.

Part 2
Understanding Oppression: Strategies in Addressing Power and
Privilege
Second Installment, Skill Sets for Targets
Leticia Nieto and Margot Boyer
From ColorsNW Magazine, October 2006
In our last column, we talked about Status, Rank, and Power – three different layers of
interactions between people. To make sense of systems of oppression and privilege, such as
racism, sexism or homophobia, we find it helpful to separate these elements.
In our model for analyzing social dynamics, Status refers to the superficial level of
interaction that humans share with other animals, the one-up, one-down dynamics of day-
to-day interactions. Status dynamics are fluid and change from one moment to the next,
and most anyone can take a high-status or a low-status position in a given moment.

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We use Power to refer to our connection to source or the sacred, our core. Anyone can have
access to this kind of Power; it’s not a function of social role or position. Power is usually
invisible, but sometimes we can see it in action. It’s not a temporary condition, but
something we can strengthen over the course of our lives.
The Rank layer of interactions is the most complex and troublesome. Rank refers to a
socially constructed system in which some people are socially overvalued (sometimes called
“privileged”), while others are systematically undervalued and subject to oppression. We call
these two groups Agents and Targets, respectively.
Of course, none of us signed up to be part of the Rank system. As small children, we
learned a particular set of social rules, which we follow in a mostly unconscious way. We
learned what Rank memberships were assigned to us (based on our gender, our ethnicity,
our having or not having a disability, etc.), and how we should behave as members of those
groups. We also learned to sort and categorize other people based on their social
membership assignment, and to expect certain behavior from them because of their Rank
makeup. Even as adults, we frequently react to these categories before we have a chance to
think about them – we respond to people in nanoseconds, automatically, based on the social
rules we internalized as children. When we respond this way, our actions are mechanical and
scripted, even robotic. We don’t have much consciousness or choice about what we
perceive, nor about the subtle aspects of what we do and say.
Overcoming this social conditioning takes a lot of work. We can learn to see through the
Rank categories, to act from a deeper, more conscious, real self, our Power, regardless of
the social memberships assigned to ourselves and those around us. With practice, we can
get better at responding to each situation with integrity, bringing creativity and wisdom to
the challenges presented by oppression and privilege, the whole system of Rank.
Like other kinds of learning, the ability to struggle against oppression, to respond effectively
to Rank dynamics, means gaining specific skills. The skills we internalized as young children
often won’t serve us well in taking on the difficult situations we encounter as adults, but we
can learn better, more effective skills. One set of skills applies to us in our Target
memberships, and a different set relates to places where we have Agent membership.
The Agent/Target Rank chart shows the way that Agent and Target Ranks are assigned
currently in the United States. There are nine categories in which people are ranked. These
are socially ascribed memberships – we don’t get to choose them. Most of them are
permanent and can’t be changed by our actions. Take a look at the chart and notice the
places you are assigned an Agent rank and the places you are assigned a Target rank. Most
people will find they have been given both Agent and Target assignments. That means we
all need to develop both kinds of skills.
The model of skill sets here does not describe “stages” of development that we stay in
permanently, but a set of skills inside skills like a set of nesting bowls or nested dolls. As we
grow and practice our anti-oppression skills, the skills we learned earlier don’t disappear,
but they are included in a repertoire, which also includes more mature skills. The larger skill
sets give us more choices, more possibilities for action, and a truer sense of ourselves and
others. The earlier skills are still with us, though, and we will still use them much of the
time. This process of growth that incorporates earlier stages into later ones is sometimes
called a “holarchy,” and the process of moving to more inclusive skills is called “transcend
and include.”
A similar process happens as we learn to read. As small children we learn the alphabet.
Later, we learn to read short words, then longer words and sentences. As we grow up, we
might master reading novels, computer manuals and social theory. Yet the fundamental
skills of knowing the alphabet and decoding short words remain part of our repertoires.

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It takes more effort to use higher-level skills, and we tend to choose the easier path that
uses less-developed skills. Many people find that if we are not required to read difficult
books for school or work, we gravitate to newspapers and exciting novels rather than
complex technical or theoretical works. When we have the flu, we might find a book too
demanding and choose to read magazines or just watch TV. We don’t always make use of
our ability to read challenging books, and the less energy we have, or the more stress we
are dealing with, the less likely we are to utilize our high-level reading skills.
Like reading skills, our ability to respond to Rank dynamics can develop over a lifetime, yet
we will often opt for the less-demanding, more familiar and automatic skills that use less of
our energy. We learned the basic skills that fit our Rank roles when were growing up, as
part of our social conditioning. We learned certain skills that fit with our Target social
memberships, such as so-called appropriate behavior for a girl, or for a person of color. We
learned other skills that fit with our Agent memberships, such as the recognized behavior
for a boy, or for a member of the middle class.
We also learned which social groups are overvalued, the Agent groups (adults, able-bodied
persons, heterosexuals, non-immigrants, White people and so on). We learned which social
groups are under valued, the Target groups (children and elders; people with disabilities;
Jews, Muslims and other non-Christians; people of color, gay/lesbian and bisexual people;
and so on). The adults in our lives probably passed on these rules without much
explanation, nor awareness that they were teaching us so much about how to be in the
world. Since most of us have both Agent and Target role assignments to fulfill, the rules are
complex.
In our Target memberships, we learn skills that help us fit in with Agent expectations for our
group. Some of us may have many Target memberships, while some of us have only one or
two. (The small minority of people who have no Target memberships at all are often
referred to as “mainstream,” which says a lot about how the system of privilege works.) The
description of Target skills will be easiest to follow if you look at the Agent/Target chart and
identify just one Target membership that you hold right now. Think about the Target skills
from the point of view of just that Target membership that you know very well. (Any readers
who hold no Target memberships can think back to the experience of being a child or
adolescent to understand the skills.) Bear in mind that the skills described here apply only
to the members of Target groups within those specific Target memberships.

Experience of Empowerment

Survival Confusion Empowerment Strategy Re-Centering

Agent-centric Skills Agent-relative Skills

Development of Re-Centering Awareness

We call the first skill set for Targets Survival. Survival skills enable us to stay alive and in
relative safety by conforming to Agent expectations. There are two ways we express
Survival skills. The first is to approximate Agency – to move, think and talk like a person
who has Agent membership. In doing this, we unconsciously attempt to meet the goal of
this skill set, which is to make members of the Agent group comfortable and to meet
demands based on the Agent group’s definition of what is normal or okay.

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The second Survival skill is to fit the stereotype that the Agent group has of our Target
group: to move, think and talk in conformity with Agent expectations for our group. For girls
and women, this means meeting the requirements of socially expected “feminine” behavior:
to have the right size, the right tone of voice and, especially, the right attitude towards
men. In other words, as women using Survival skills, we do whatever is necessary to make
men comfortable, including unconscious, though sometimes verbalized, agreement with
sexist norms.
Everyone gets practice in Target Survival skills, because everyone has been a child, and all
children are age Targets. For a few people, age Targetship is the only type they ever
experience. Most of us experience other areas of Targetship, so we’ve experienced using
Survival skills in those memberships too. Although we’re usually not aware that we’re using
them, Survival skills are exhausting because they require us to constantly change our
shapes to conform to the expectations of the Agent group and the Agent-dominated
environments we encounter every day. Yet, we get so much practice in these skills that we
become very good at them, and when we feel threatened or stressed we are likely to
unconsciously fall back on Survival skills.
Part of using Survival skills is to be unconscious of Rank dynamics. Using these skills, we
may say that there is “no such thing” as sexism or racism or classism, whatever form of
oppression operates against our Target group. We might assert to ourselves and others that
we have never experienced discrimination because of our Target memberships, or that we
don’t let those experiences affect us or get in our way. As Targets using Survival skills, we
will even criticize ourselves or other Targets for failing to meet the expectations for our
group. This is sometimes called internalized oppression. For example, as women using
survival skills, we may assess and criticize our own appearance and that of other women to
make sure we meet the social expectations for our group. Survival skills for Targets can also
include horizontal oppression, which is when as Targets we direct hostility, prejudice,
discrimination or even violence at members of our own Target group.
The second skill set for Targets we call Confusion. Describing Confusion as a skill may seem
strange, but moving from Survival to Confusion takes work. Confusion skills arise when we
notice how exhausting it is to use Survival skills, and begin to realize that something is
amiss. We might spend a long time going back and forth between Survival skills and the
start of Confusion before we notice that some people are valued differently than we are,
that we are encountering oppression. We begin to see the Rank dynamics, and in our hearts
we know that the subtle and not-so-subtle inequity we experience is real, and that we
should not have to conform to it.
Yet understanding and responding to oppression is a huge task, one we may not yet be
ready to take on. We know that we’re encountering inequity, but we do not yet have the
language or the support to make sense of it. This mixture of knowing and not-knowing we
call Confusion. We may still present ourselves in the ways that Agents expect of us, but we
also begin to notice, for example, that the leadership at work is white while the workers are
Latino and African American, or that the men in our organization earn more than the
women.
Using our Confusion skills, we may contradict ourselves and doubt the evidence of our
senses. We say things like, “That doesn’t seem fair, but there must be a good explanation.”
We might even say, “I’m confused,” or “I don’t understand” or “I’m taking this personally.”
We admit the possibility that something is wrong, but we do not yet call it sexism, racism or
a violation of our civil rights. We might still act in the ways assigned by our Target role,
following those rules we internalized earlier in our lives, but sometimes we think or say or
do things that do not fit the role.
As long as our skill repertoire is limited to only Survival and Confusion skills, we remain
subject to internalized and horizontal oppression. We may act in ways that are hurtful to

6
ourselves and to people who share our Target memberships, and we will probably not know
that, nor why we are doing it. These skills reflect unconsciousness of the whole Rank system
and lack of access to our own Power.
Shifting to the next skill set, Empowerment, takes an enormous amount of energy from
within and without. It can feel like waking up from a deep sleep or responding to a life-
threatening situation. To make this big move we must have access to Empowered Target-
only space, a place where people who share a common Target membership get together to
talk about what we face, how it feels and what do to about it. This could take the form of a
women’s group, a black students alliance, a GLBT center, a labor union or any space that
belongs to members of our own Target group. Those of us who hold multiple Target
memberships may need to join several groups to become Empowered in each of those
memberships. (For organizations that want to empower Targets, supporting access to this
kind of space is a critical step.)
In Empowered Target-only space, Targets listen and talk about our common experience,
what happens to us every day, and often we see others nodding in recognition even before
we finish the story. We talk about the historical roots of the problem, the social conditions
that support the status quo and so on. Using our Empowerment skills, we need to talk about
our experience of oppression, especially the subtle but constant marginalizations,
sometimes to the exclusion of everything else. It’s painful, but it keeps us awake, like
pressing on a bruise to see where its edge is and how it hurts. When we speak about the
oppression we wake up more and more, which can help us avoid sliding back into the
unconsciousness of the earlier skills.
Target group members using Empowerment skills will bring up the issue of oppression in
many different interactions. We seek out information about our own group and the history
of oppression we have faced, and express solidarity with other members of our group. We
express anger at Agent norms, Agent institutions and individual Agent members. This
constant focus on the issue keeps us activated. The energy of Empowerment helps us
mobilize to resist oppression, take action, learn everything there is to learn about the nature
of supremacy and how to counter injustice. Yet, constant focus on the dynamics of
oppression is often exhausting for the Target and everyone around us. There’s a sense that
there’s no down time. We may bring it up in many environments and at moments that are
unproductive, even in situations where we risk our own safety.
As we use Empowerment skills, we may notice that we can’t sustain the energetic demand
of constantly confronting oppression head-on. We begin to evaluate what works and what
doesn’t, and to make more conscious choices about when to bring up the issue, when to
walk away, when to concentrate on other matters. We call these Strategy skills. Using
Strategy, we start to choose our battles and sort out the most effective action: when to
work with other Targets, when to make demands of social institutions, when to confront
individual Agents, when not to act. We align ourselves with the best values and norms of
our own Target group and spend less time reacting to the Agent group and Agent
expectations. Strategy skills free us to make choices that support our group and ourselves.
We can appreciate other members of our group because of their personal qualities, rather
than the Target group membership itself. We find we can selectively appreciate individual
Agents who show themselves to be allies in our struggle. Strategy skills conserve our
energy and maximize our effectiveness in anti-oppression work.
As we continue to use Strategy skills, we begin more and more to discern our own optimal,
liberating norms and values from oppressive, dehumanizing ones, and to support members
of our own and other Target groups. We acknowledge the significance and impact of inequity
due to Rank memberships and make increasingly congruent and adaptive choices. We find
more ready access to our true Power, and are able to bring it to bear on our daily lives. We
call these the Re-Centering skills. Using Re-Centering skills, we collaborate with other

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Targets and with ally Agents to challenge system of oppression in the most effective,
humanizing and streamlined ways. We use our understanding of systems of oppression to
move into leadership roles in our social-change work.
Few Targets get to use Re-Centering skills, and even the most wise and skillful Targets use
these skills only some of the time. As Targets with access to all of these skill sets, we use
each one, depending on the situation and how much energy we have in a specific moment.
The goal is not to always use a certain skill set, but rather to use the skills that are most
functional in a given moment. Each skill set has some value. We can support ourselves and
other Target group members best when we have appreciation for the value and necessity of
each skill set. When we receive appropriate support for the skill set we are currently using,
it becomes possible to shift into higher skill sets, and to create more effective solutions to
the challenges posed by the Rank system.
Anti-oppression work aims to free everyone from the harmful and dehumanizing effects of
the Rank system. As we develop better skills, we gain the ability to liberate ourselves and
others and to move through the world as whole human beings in spite of the limiting
definitions that societal conditioning tends to impose.

Part 3
Understanding Oppression: Strategies in Addressing Power and
Privilege
Part 3: Skill sets for Agents
Leticia Nieto and Margot Boyer
From ColorsNW Magazine, March 2007
In previous columns, we’ve discussed Status, Rank and Power – three separate layers of
interactions between people. We envision these as a model of concentric circles, like layers
of an onion, with Status on the outer surface, Rank under that and Power in the center. We
use the term Power to refer to our connection to our core, our authentic self and the person
we are at our best moments. A person’s ability to be grounded, to exercise compassion, to
use humor in a healing way, to love without demands, and to support themselves and those
around them can indicate the presence of Power.
Status play refers to the up-and-down dynamics of interactions, a type of behavior that
humans share with other animals. Status play can be as light as teasing among sisters. It
can also be hurtful, upsetting and dangerous. Actions that assert our own importance, value
or point of view are high-status moves. We can do this in a way that is helpful and positive
for those around us, by exercising leadership, speaking out on injustice or teaching a skill.
Likewise, low-status behavior can be positive and supportive, as when we actively listen to
someone else’s story, lend our support to another’s idea, or share our appreciation for
someone. High-status behavior can be used in harmful ways too – the ranges of aggressive
actions from a verbal put-down to a violent assault are high-status moves. Similarly, low-
status behavior is not always benign. Passive-aggressive behavior, refusing to acknowledge
someone or ignoring a problem are low-status moves. High-status and low-status behaviors
are not, in themselves, good or bad; they’re just part of what it is to be a human being.
The key to identifying status play is to ask “when did it start” and “when did it stop.” Status-
play interactions come and go; we may play high-status in one situation and low-status in
another. Our status style preferences reflect our individual personality, and also our
professional roles, our family and cultural background, and the styles of our geographical

8
region. Many people in Seattle use a low-status style, sometimes described as “polite but
not friendly.” It’s a cool, correct, introverted way of relating. People who move here from
other regions sometimes find it chilly, and many say that it’s hard to make friends with
Seattleites. New Yorkers, in contrast, often have a high-status style that is both friendlier
and more aggressive. This style is hotter, louder, more likely to embrace and more likely to
fight. Visitors to New York may find this exciting or frightening – depending on their status
preferences.
Status-level interactions can grab our attention in a given moment, but we can change them
by shifting our behavior. One strategy for getting along with people is to notice the style
preference of the person we’re with, in that moment, and to let them have their preference.
When both people insist on taking a high-status position, there’s likely to be conflict. When
both choose the low-status position, the interaction can be stagnant and the pair may find it
impossible to make decisions or move forward. Flexibility in status play can enhance our
interactions, free up conflict and allow more vitality and energy in our relationships. Movies,
television and theater are full of changeable and dramatic status play, which can be fun to
watch and to participate in – especially when we don’t take it too seriously.
Our focus here is on issues of Rank, as distinct from Power or Status. When specific
discriminatory, exclusionary or prejudiced acts can be seen as discrete in time, we can
examine the function of Status play in that interaction. Rank dynamics, though, are
operating full-time. Rank describes how society systematically and consistently advantages
the same people while marginalizing others.
Because Rank dynamics are not as distinct in time as Status dynamics, we have found it
useful to envision Rank as an essentially mechanical system that sorts people into two
groups. The system automatically (and mostly unconsciously) favors some people, who we
refer to as Agents. Agents are members of groups that are socially overvalued. Sometimes
this is referred to as having “privilege,” but because the Rank system is mostly unconscious,
Agents rarely notice being privileged. It takes a lot of work to perceive the ways that the
Rank system overvalues, favors or advantages us.
The system also categorizes some people as Targets, who are members of groups that are
socially undervalued, sometimes referred to as “oppressed.” Because the experience of
being socially undervalued or oppressed is unpleasant, Targets are more likely to notice the
Rank system, even when we don’t have words for it.
Another helpful metaphor is to think of Rank like a barcode beneath our skin that is scanned
in many subtle ways in all situations. This happens so quickly we don’t even notice it. One
small part of this scanning process is our scanning of each other: In the instant of meeting,
we identify the age, ethnicity, gender and other “rank” roles that each person plays. If we
can’t figure out how to classify the other person, we might feel uncomfortable or even ask
“What are you?” This discomfort reveals how much we rely on knowing how to classify each
other in order to figure out how to relate. It can be useful to think of Rank as being made
up of all the socialized messages we have internalized about the groups we belong to and
those we don’t.
We use psychologist and author Pamela Hays’ ADDRESSING framework to remember nine
rank areas currently important in the United States: Age, Disability, Developmental and
Acquired Disabilities, Religious culture, Ethnicity, Social class, Sexual Orientation,
Indigenous background, National origin and Gender. Most of us have been assigned Agent
rank in some areas, and Target rank in others. We don’t get to choose these memberships;
they are stuck to us by society, or socially ascribed. Each of these Rank areas, or social
memberships, is constructed – that is, invented as ways to categorize people. Our position
is that they are fairly faulty rather than accurate, but that they operate as if they were valid,
so we must deal with them.

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 Agent/Target Rank
Rank memberships can be deciphered using the acronym ADRESSING as a guide to where
Agent and Target ranks are ascribed. These social memberships are assigned by society, not
chosen by individuals.

Social Rank Category Agent Rank Target Rank

Age Adults (18-64) Children, Adolescents, Elders

Disability Able-persons Persons with Disabilities

Religion Cultural Christians, Jews, Muslims, and

(relates to religious culture) Agnostics, and Atheists members of all other non-
Christian religions

Ethnicity White Euro-Americans People of Color

Social Class Culture Middle and Owning Class Poor and Working Class
Persons Persons
(Access to Higher Education) (No Access to Higher Education)

Sexual Orientation Heterosexuals Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,

Questioning

Indigenous Ancestry Non-Native Native

National Origin US-Born Immigrants and Refugees

Gender Cisgender Men Transgender Persons,

Intersex Persons, Cisgender
Women, Non-Binary Persons,
Questioning

Most of these Rank memberships are permanent. Age changes in the course of our life; we
experience Targetship growing up, acquire Agency when we become adults, around age 18,
and are again classified as Targets around the age of 65. Disability rank may change, for
example, if we experience temporary or permanent ability loss through an accident or
illness. Most of our Rank memberships are pretty stable throughout our lives. This is
important to remember because, unlike Rank, Status can change moment to moment,
giving us the illusion of a much more flexible or moveable social system.
Because most of us are classified with both some Agent and some Target memberships,
effective anti-oppression work requires us to develop better skills on both sides. The skills
for Agents and Targets are different; we need both sets of skills, but we use them in
different situations. These skill sets are like toolboxes. The early skill sets resemble a small
toolbox, with only one or two tools in it. As we grow and practice our anti-oppression skills,
the early skills don’t disappear, but we get new tools to add to our collection. We still use
the earlier skills, but we have more ability to choose appropriate skills that will serve our
anti-oppression purposes. These are not “stages” of development – we don’t gain some new
skills and then use them reliably 24 hours a day. Rather, we are more able to respond
effectively to oppression, more of the time, when we have a bigger toolbox. We are more
likely to use our high-level skills when we are feeling calm, supported and well. Anything
that causes us distress, like being hungry or tired or angry, makes it more difficult to use
the high-level skills. For this reason, we see taking good care of ourselves as an important
dimension of anti-oppression work.

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In this article, our focus is on anti-oppression skills for Agents, members of groups that are
socially overvalued. From childhood, part of our training in being an Agent is to be
unconscious of the whole Rank system and of the ways we are overvalued by society. Even
as adults, we don’t know that this is happening, and the people around us often prevent us
from figuring it out. Usually, they don’t know they’re doing this because they are also
unconscious of the rank system. We learn to not notice differences and the way that they
affect our experience and our access to resources.
Before you read the rest of this article, identify one area where the Rank system identifies
you to be an Agent. Stay in that “channel” as you read the skill descriptions – think about
how you might have experienced these skills as an Agent. (For the Target skill sets, please
check out the October 2006 issue of this magazine.)
In our Agent memberships, we learn skills that allow us to make ourselves and people who
share our Agent rank comfortable. We learn not to notice the existence of the Rank system
and the ways in which we are socially overvalued. We learn to not notice members of the
Target group, and to not value them as much as we value ourselves and other Agent group
members. Most of this training is unconscious on the part of other people around us; often
they are passing on behaviors and attitudes that they are not aware of. We absorb these
messages unconsciously, too.
The Agent Skills Model
As Agents develop anti-oppressive consciousness, they build better skills for understanding
and responding to oppression. This development is a holarchical sequence of skills sets, as
shown below. Each of these skill sets represents some tools for dealing with oppression. As
we move toward Allyship, we have more and better tools to work with
Experience of Allyship Awareness

Indifference Distancing Inclusion Awareness Allyship

Agent-centric Skills Agent-relative Skills

The first skill for Agents is called Indifference. When we use Indifference skills, we are able
to not notice the existence of Targets and their life conditions, and the whole system of
Rank. It can be as innocent as saying, “I don’t know any _____ people.” A person who lives
in a small community might have a similar attitude, “I’ve never met any _______.” “There
aren’t any ________ around here.” Often, however, a person using Indifference skills will
not notice the existence of a person with Target rank, even when they are talking directly to
them. Saying, “I’ve never met a _______” while talking to a member of the group being
named is an extreme, but not unusual, example of Indifference skills at work.
The physical posture we associate with this skill set is a simple shrug of the shoulders that
says, “I don’t know,” “It’s not my problem” or “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The
key to understanding Indifference skills is to remember that we all must select a portion of
the information and stimuli that we are exposed to. Through conditioning as Agents in
various social areas, we learn which elements “matter” or are “relevant.” These tend to be
Agent-related elements. The result is that Target-related elements are out of our
consciousness without us even trying to ignore them. It is not difficult to notice that what
bolsters indifference is a socially enforced, passive aversion and devaluing of Targets and
Target-related aspects of life.
Indifference skills require the least amount of energy from us. They are the skills we default
to in the areas where we have been assigned Agent membership. When we encounter
Target group members and can no longer use Indifference skills, we use the next skill set –
Distancing, which allows us to hold members of the Target group at arm’s length, to keep

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them “away” from ourselves. Our feeling is that when we do this, we are actually trying to
distance the awareness of our own unearned advantage, rather than those who have been
labeled “other.” Using distancing skills, we emphasize the difference between the Target
group and ourselves. We notice how much they are not like us.
This skill set is more complex than Indifference; it has three different positions. One is
“distancing out.” The physical gesture of this skill is holding our arms in front of us, rigidly,
as if holding something away from our bodies. The words sometimes verbalized as, “I don’t
have anything against _____; and the sometimes unsaid next thought may be, “I just don’t
want to live next door to them.” Or it may take this shape: “They can do what they like as
long as they stay in their own neighborhood.” The feeling here, sometimes just beneath the
surface and often unconscious, is of disgust, perhaps dislike, or fear. “Just keep it away from
me” is the message.
The skill of “distancing down” is the one we are most likely to recognize as bigoted or
oppressive. The gesture of distancing down is holding our arms rigidly and down, as if trying
to push a lid down on something, trying to close a garbage can, or trying to shove
something down into a container. This skill set is verbalized with overtly negative messages
toward the Target group: “They’re sick,” “they’re dirty,” “they should be in jail.” Sometimes
people using this skill set learn not to verbalize these feelings, but this doesn’t necessarily
change the underlying attitude. Another version of this skill set is the attitude of wanting to
“help” or “convert” or “heal” the Target away from their Targetship and towards something
resembling Agency.
The third Distancing skill is “distancing up.” Distancing up allows us to see members of the
Target group in a pseudo-valuing way, perhaps as special, beautiful, even spiritual or
magical. The gesture is of holding our arms up and away from us with our hands open as if
to frame a beautiful view. The verbal messages of such distancing up express appreciation
for the group’s special qualities – but without awareness of the Rank system, the fact of
Agent privilege – or for the individual qualities of target group members. Verbal messages
associated with this skill include “_____ are so spiritual,” “______ seem really close to
nature,” “_____ make beautiful music,” or ___ are so amazing, exotic, heroic. Often this
skill is accompanied by appropriation of things associated with the Target group, such as
collecting art or music by Target group members or imitating a cultural style from that
group.
Like holding our arms rigidly raised for hours, Distancing skills take a lot of energy. They
don’t come easily. Organized hate groups, societies organized around oppression and
difference, are ways of providing group support for the difficult act of maintaining the
distancing posture. But distancing is uncomfortable, especially when we find ourselves
interacting with Target group members a lot. At that point we are likely to shift into the next
skill set, which feels like a big relief.
The skill set of Inclusion offers some advantages over distancing. Using Inclusion, we focus
on the similarities between Target group members and ourselves. We use verbal messages
that emphasize similarity and connection, like “We’re all children of God,” “fundamentally,
we’re all the same,” “treat everyone as an individual,” and “every human being suffers.” The
physical posture associated with Inclusion is arms open, as if to embrace members of the
Target group. As Agents, we experience Inclusion as liberating. It feels like we’ve finally
gotten out of the oppression business. We can appreciate members of the Target group. This
seems terrific, to us.
It takes a while to notice the limitations of Inclusion skills, and many of us never do. In
society as a whole, Inclusion is often seen as the height of intercultural appreciation,
diversity and liberation. Yet Inclusion is still an Agent-centric skill. Using Inclusion, we do
not recognize the Rank system, the ways we are consistently overvalued, and the
consequences of our privilege and of Target marginalization. Without realizing it, we see our

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own group, and its values and norms, as the standard, and expect everyone to align with
Agent-centrism and Agent-supremacy. We want others to meet our expectations. We may
host an intercultural potluck, but we will likely feel annoyed if the people who come bring up
the topic of oppression. We feel happy to welcome Targets – but we unconsciously expect
them to conform to our expectations, to make us comfortable and to avoid issues that we
don’t want to talk about, and even to be grateful to be included.
One danger of the Inclusion skills set is that, being very clear that we do not subscribe to or
hold negative views about Targets, we can resist the perspective that oppression is
essentially a supremacy problem, rather than one of prejudice and discrimination. When we
use Inclusion skills we are not conscious of the Rank system, and we can’t work effectively
against oppression until we wake up.
Moving beyond Inclusion requires us to move well out of our comfort zone and out of the
conventional rules of our culture. It’s a difficult transition that we’re unlikely to make
without a powerful motivation. Usually it takes a strong personal relationship with a Target
group member – a close friend, lover, family member or mentor – to care enough about the
issue to confront our internalized Agent supremacy and step into the next, most difficult skill
set, Awareness.
Awareness is initially experienced as unpleasant. When we access Awareness skills, we feel
cold, paralyzed and even disoriented by emotions such as guilt and shame. We see the
reality of the Rank system and realize how much it favors us as Agents, and we notice the
workings of oppression and privilege all around us. We realize the many ways we have been
overvalued in our lives, and we see the ways that the Targets around us are undervalued.
We are likely to remember incidents in the past, situations where we used lower skill sets,
where we failed to speak up about injustice, where we took advantage of our privilege. The
whole Rank system is revealed to us, and we are rightly horrified, particularly because it
becomes readily obvious to us that we are going to continue to use Indifference, Distancing
and Inclusion skills for the majority of the time.
The physical posture of Awareness is immobile or frozen. We may feel nauseated or
panicked, and we may verbalize horror and shame. “I can’t believe I never saw this before.”
“Everything I say is oppressive, because I’m the oppressor.” “I should have done...”
Awareness skills are difficult to stay with, because they are so uncomfortable. Usually, when
we access Awareness, we will shift back to Inclusion at the first opportunity.
Practicing Awareness skills takes determination and support. Most settings in society
discourage us from using Awareness skills, so it’s helpful to have friends, allies and
colleagues who can confirm the reality of oppression regardless of our perceptions.
Awareness skills are, at heart, an opportunity to listen to and learn from the experience of
Targets. Using Awareness, we realize that we don’t know what it’s like to experience
oppression in this particular Rank channel (even though we may experience other kinds of
Targetship). We can practice what writer and priest Henri Nouwen called “learned ignorance”
by thinking and, when appropriate, saying, “I don’t know what that’s like. Would you tell me
more?” We can notice the discomfort we feel when we use Awareness, name it and stay
with it as long as we can. It’s a good opportunity to pay attention to what Targets have to
say about their experience.
If we can tolerate the discomforts of Awareness, listen to the experiences of Targets, believe
Targets who speak about their experience of oppression (especially when their experiences
do not fit with our sense of the world), and delay a shift back into Inclusion, we may be able
to access the precious skill set of Allyship. Using Allyship skills we are, for that moment,
fully aware of the reality of oppression and of the privilege we receive under the rank
system. We acknowledge that we can never fully understand the experience of Targets in
that rank area. We see the Rank system operating within us and in others, and we recognize
the dehumanizing effect this has on all of us. At the same time, we remain able to think and

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to act. We are not paralyzed; we can choose to work against oppression, to midwife other
Agents in developing anti-oppression skills and to support Targets. The key to understanding
Allyship skills is noticing the shift from dreading experiences of Awareness to a stance of
welcoming such experiences. Another way to describe this shift is a growing sense of being
comfortable only when being uncomfortable – which signals that Awareness is happening.
Using Allyship skills, we can take on the challenging process of helping other Agents wake
up to the reality of the Rank system. We can listen to Agents we might describe as bigots
and help them move to the next skill set – increasingly without judgment. We recognize the
need for, and can support, Targets in creating Empowered Target-Only space. We can use
the social agency of our rank to change the system, to challenge the social hierarchies that
favor ourselves. Allyship can mean listening. It can mean speaking out on injustice. It can
mean gently helping other Agents to gain access to a new skill set.
Even if we sometimes can access Allyship, we will not use those skills all the time. When we
are busy, distracted or caught up in the dramas of our own lives, we probably aren’t doing
anti-oppression work. Our commitment to Allyship means a process of waking up, over and
over again, to the Rank system and its operation in our lives. As we see that we ourselves
don’t always use our best skills, we can practice listening to other Agents and helping them,
too, to wake up to the reality of rank and privilege.

Citations for these materials:

Part 1
Nieto, L., & Boyer, M. F. (2006, March). Understanding Oppression: Strategies in addressing
power and privilege. Colors NW Magazine, 5, 30-33.

Part 2
Nieto, L., & Boyer, M. F. (2006, October). Understanding Oppression: Strategies in
addressing power and privilege, second installment, skill sets for Targets. Colors NW
Magazine, 6, 48-51.

Part 3
Nieto, L., & Boyer, M. F. (2007, March). Understanding Oppression: Strategies in addressing
power and privilege, Part3: Skill sets for Agents. Colors NW Magazine, 6, 34-38.

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