Describe the scenes that portray RACISM, SEXISM AND CLASSISM IN the show ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK

 

In the series, Orange is the New Black, it focuses on the lives of inmates in women's prison. Throughout the series, many scenes uptake racism, sexism and classism. One example was during episode one, Piper is given a toothbrush, by a fellow white inmate named Morello, and told that "we take care of our own" and that it is "tribal, not racial." In here, the statement is interlaced with racist preference. Morello's statement sets the stage for how the prison population is segregated by race at Litchfield and the impact race has for inmates. Race in Orange Is the New Black is largely portrayed through a white lens —Piper.

Still in episode one, Piper's privileged treatment gets established when she is instructed by another inmate to sit with "the nice white lady."  As being directed to sit with the other white inmates race becomes a deciding factor in the space that these inmates inhabit. Societal norms have put in the ideology and functions as a class system within the prison that creates divide and having designated bathrooms, showers and even where they sit for meals.

Mr. Healy's preferential treatment to Piper is based on this assumption rom Piper's race, class, and gender presentation. Piper's feminine gender expression causes the counselor Mr. Healy to often take her side. Piper takes advantage of how Mr. Healy doesn't like to see girls cry and cries in his office and then he lets her use his office phone to call Larry. Also, Healy explains to Piper that some inmates may muscle in on her because they may think that she's rich. This implication shows the first example of race being tied to social class within the prison. 

The scenes during the campaign for representative also portrays the decisions of each candidates in accordance to race, class and gender representation. It omits what's actually going on within the three groups, associating the anti-Blackness of the Latina women and anti-Latina racism of the white women —which is not prejudiced but instead a satire of the very kind of white femininity that Orange is the New Black consistently points at Piper.