Freire Revisited

I want to comment on Ryan's group's quote today on page 31 and acknowledge that when Ryan talked about how his kids were applying this text to their own situations, I said, hmmm...
I turned back to that paragraph and read it again. "In order for the oppressed to be able to wage the struggle for their liberation, they must perceive the reality of oppression as not a closed world from which there is no exit, but as a limiting situation which they can transform...it must become the motivating force for liberating action."
Time for a personal tie-in. I was a teenage statistic in high school--pregnant at 17 and giving birth to my first child in September of my senior year. Everybody told me I wouldn't make it, I had messed up my life, that I had two chances of success--slim and none. I mean, everybody said that, even my own parents.
In a matter of a couple of weeks in the winter of my junior year I went from upper-middle class to having almost nothing. Though my husband did an admirable job of supporting us, he was a 21 year old kid, and so we made do or did without. We did not go on welfare out of pride, and when my father offered to pay our car insurance, we politely refused. We would do it ourselves.
The problem was, people in the general public made horrible assumptions about my SES, and I was shocked. Being pregnant and being a teenager automatically equated with being a drain on the system. I was treated with pity sometimes but mostly with contempt. Both were infuriating. I knew who I was and what I stood for and what I was up against. I resented the hell out of people trying to make me feel bad about myself when they knew nothing about me!
I made it my personal goal in life to prove the world wrong. My marriage would not fail, my children would be healthy and happy, and I would be able to support myself. That is why Freire's words really hit home with me...my oppression, the label given to me by people who didn't even know me, became a limiting situation which I could transform. It became my motivating force.
My father offered to pay for my college education, and i took the offer. I went to school at night so I could stay home with my daughters during the day, and 8 years later, I had a degree and a job. I transformed my situation through a lot of persistence, a lot of hard work, and a lot of emotional support from friends and family. O.K., I also don't like to lose. :) From that time on, nobody would make negative assumptions about my social class.
But what about those who can't escape a label by earning more money? What about those who can't change their skin color or their gender or their age? I think we owe people more than a cursory glance and a quick assumption. Nobody can truly know anybody else's values by looking at them, and who said we are here to judge anybody anyway? We must NEVER tell anyone what they can and can't accomplish, because though it may motivate some people, it may crush others. I think our role in this world should be elevating those who are oppressed by aiding them in finding their motivating force and helping them to apply it in a way that will bring them liberation.