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Dear white people: when black people say you are “privileged”, they do not mean you were born rich nor do you not have to struggle to make a living. The privilege referred to is the privilege of having white skin, which immediately protects you from certain things in society. Privilege is an advantage available only to a particular person or group of people. Try to understand. White privilege is not something that white people purposefully create, do, or enjoy. White privilege is the term for societal privileges that benefits people whom society identifies as white, beyond what is considered a common experience by non-white people under the same circumstances. In the last few years, it has become impossible to deny the reality of discrimination that people of color are experiencing in the United States from power structures that, for the most part, remain in the power of white people. The concept of white privilege helps …show more content…
There was the sense that more racial minorities were now occupying the high-power positions that were typically reserved for white people. Tim Wise says in his essay, “A Look at the Myth of Reverse Racism”, that “...when a group of people has little or no power over you institutionally, they don’t get to define the terms of your existence, they can’t limit your opportunities, and you needn’t worry much about the use of a slur to describe you… What are they going to do next: deny you a bank loan?” (Wise). This quote explains how racial slurs towards white people are meaningless compared to anti-black slurs because they do not dehumanize white people like they do black people. The ‘n-word’ slur is a term used by whites to dehumanize blacks, to imply their inferiority, to “put them in their place”. The same cannot be said of the slur ‘honky’: after all, you cannot put white people in their place when they own the place to begin
In her article, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” Peggy McIntosh writes about the privilege white individuals get without noticing it. McIntosh talks about how whites are taught to not recognize their privilege. McIntosh having a background in Women’s Studies, she also talks about how men have more privileges than women, yet they rarely recognize it. In the article McIntosh claims that “After I realized the extent to which men work from a base of unacknowledged privilege, I understood that much of their oppressiveness was unconscious.”
In conversations many people get defensive when someone says, “You have this because of your privilege” they feel as though that the person they are talking with doesn’t understand that they have worked hard for what they have, however that is not the point that anyone is trying to make. What someone in that position is saying is that although you have worked hard to get where you are your journey have been well furnished with privilege on account of your race. It is said to think about that you got somewhere in life due to the color of your skin, but it is also sadder to think that someone got declined a job, got stereotyped, or got overlooked because of their race or
The famous anti-racism activist Tim Wise once said “The irony of American history is the tendency of good white Americans to presume racial innocence. Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege. In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America.” White Privilege is commonly defined as “a set of advantages and/or immunities that white people benefit from on a daily basis beyond those common to all others.” (What) As White americans living in the United States, you never really pay any attention to the fact that there is a racial “smog” (Marks) living among us in everyday life and you really never realize how it affects the people on the other end who don’t receive this ‘privilege’. White privilege shapes the world we live in by how we go about and interact
Tim Wise’s book White Like Me provides a picture of what it is like to be white in America. A main topic covered in White Like Me is white privilege. On pages 24 and 25 Wise illustrates what white privilege is and shares his opinion regarding how to address white privilege in society today. Wise’s plan for addressing white privilege is one not of guilt, but of responsibility, a difference Wise highlights. The concept of feeling guilty for white privilege lacks reason because white privilege is something built up through generations and its existence is not of any one person’s fault. Guilt would just be detrimental to the possibility of making progress in this field. Responsibility, on the other hand, is a perfectly logical action to take when
In "The Meaning of a Word" and "Being a Chink", Gloria Naylor and Christine Leong examine words of hatred that are meant to scorn, hurt and disgrace people. But these same words could also be used without harmful intentions and in a fashion of endearment amongst the people those words were created for. They each had a different word to discriminate their different culture and ethnicity. These writers discuss the words "nigger" and "chink", which are words in our language mostly ignorant people use. Naylor and Leong are also both minorities who were raised in America. They talk about how discrimination and hatred towards minorities is almost always inevitable in America, which is mostly populated by Caucasians. Naylor and Leong observe how these racial acts of discrimination can unify a group of people even closer together. Naylor didn't know the true meaning of the hate word nigger until it was used against her in a degrading manner. On the other hand Leong already knew what chink meant but wasn't traumatized until she found out her father discovered it.
“I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group,” Peggy McIntosh wrote in her article White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. Too often this country lets ignorance be a substitute for racism. Many believe that if it is not blatant racism, then what they are doing is okay. Both the video and the article show that by reversing the terms, there is proof that racism is still very existent in this world. By looking into A Class Divided and White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack along with their ability to broaden the cultural competence, once can see how race is still very prominent in our culture.
The words Negro, nigger, and nigga have always been a sensitive topic, yet it is a topic that needs to be addressed in light of the more common use of its vernacular. One word is used to describe a color, while the others are used to define a people. It’s very clear to many the negative connotation these words carry, but where did these words come from? Furthermore, is there a difference between the word nigger and nigga; and why is it that African-Americans now use the word nigga to degrade each other in today’s society? These words, in spite of their spelling, still holds the same degrading power as it did during the time of slavery, and they are still spoken out of cruelty and ignorance, but who is to blame? Can one still blame the Spaniards for considering people of a darker skin tone –Black? Can we blame the Europeans for perpetuating their hatred and ignorance of superiority over a race of people to the point they felt it lawful to define and dehumanize them? Or does the blame lie with the African-American race as we use this degrading labeling on our own kind, thus becoming the victimizer. Either way nigger or nigga are words that should be eliminated from the vocabulary of every human being.
White privilege is not a figment of African American or colored people’s imagination, it is just as real as many problems in America and one privilege that wealthy and middle class white people have is the right to a decent education. Many people might not think a simple thing such as education is a privilege seeing that all students by law have to attend schools but it is, and we all know that all schools and their districts are not created equally. In Jonathan Kozol essay “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Education Apartheid,” he writes, “Of seeing clusters of white parents and their children each morning on the corner of a street close to school, waiting for a bus that took the children to a predominantly white school” (349) Kozol
America is a presumptuous country; its citizens don’t feel like learning any other language so they make everyone else learn English. White Americans are the average human being and act as the standard of living, acting, and nearly all aspects of life. In her essay “White Privilege: The Invisible Knapsack,” Peggy McIntosh talks about how being white has never been discussed as a race/culture before because that identity has been pushed on everyone else, and being white subsequently carries its own set of advantages. Gloria Anzaldua is a Chicana, a person of mixed identities. In an excerpt titled “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” she discusses how the languages she speaks identifies who she is in certain situations and how, throughout her life, she has been pushed to speak and act more “American” like. McIntosh’s idea of whiteness as a subconscious race that carries its own advantages can enlighten why Anzaldua feels like she
In her 16 January 2016 The Washington Post editorial, “What is White Privilege?”, Christine Emba asserts white privilege is a societal advantage inherent in people who are white, irrespective of their “wealth, gender, or other factors.” According to Emba, white privilege makes life smoother and is an entity that is hidden or unknown until the privilege is taken away. Although racism is still a rampant issue in society today, white privilege is a concept created by the progressive left in order to brand whites as a scapegoat for issues and adversities that non-whites face. This concept of privilege ultimately causes further dissension between whites and non-whites.
Privileges are things that a person receives that gives them an advantage over most people (Merriam-Webster). These are benefits that only certain people receive for being in a certain group or discourse. Peggy McIntosh, director of the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, wrote “White Privilege and Male Privilege” and states “I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privileges, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege” (605). She argues that whites and males receive certain privileges, yet they do not even notice them. This shows that different races and women are still put at a disadvantage, but the people who receive the benefits are blind to the problem. Many people will argue that she is correct while some others will explain why this not is the case.
Do you consider yourself to be privileged? If so, to what extent? Yes, but only as far as my race is concerned. My SES throughout my life has been low, and in my opinion, has effectively mitigated my white privilege on countless occasions. But there is no denying that being considered white has afforded me opportunities, accommodations, and entitlements that are out of reach for folks of other races and ethnicities.
With all of these facts, the author tries to prove that racial differences and privileges appear exaggerated and unrealistic. The privileged and less privileged exist at all levels of society. Duke wants white people to understand that they are in the same position as all other races. The awareness of “white privilege” is only a fallacy that causes feel of guilt without foundation.
“White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks” (McIntosh, 172). White privilege is all around us, but society has been carefully taught
Essay 1: WRITE A COHERENT ESSAY IN WHICH YOU ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN THE USE OF BLACK ICONIC IMAGES (AND OTHER ETHNIC IMAGES) TO SELL PRODUCTS AS THE ECONOMY OF MASS CONSUMPTION EXPANDED IN THE LATE 19TH AND EARLY 20TH CENTURY. YOU ARE ENCOURAGED TO INCLUDE IMAGES IN YOUR PAPER! During the 19th and 20th century, America –mostly white collar, middle class Americans- saw a great increase in salaries and a huge rise in mass production which paved the way for the modern American consumerism which we know today. The advertising scene saw a dramatic boost during that period and tried to latch on to this growing pool of emerging consumers. Although only limited to print, advertising during this pivotal period showed panache and reflected American society and popular culture.