Racism is not the question anymore. I do think it is white privilege. We live in a world where overt racism has been denounced, but white people have not relinquished the privileges they have gained through time. There are so many it is mind boggling. Anything that a white person can do strictly because there are more of them is a privilege. The questions that come to mind, though, are could we remove them, and should we?
Personally I don’t think it is possible to remove all white privileges without removing our majority status. Some of the privileges Mclntosh mention come to mind, such as knowing that when I go somewhere I will be amongst the majority. Others such as the Affirmative Action privilege of not being questioned about my abilities because I am a white person are also entirely based on the majority status of white people since that was one reason for the creation of Affirmative Action.
To my second question of should we remove them, I find the answer more difficult to address than previously thought. As a white person I am loath to gain the worries that occur amongst other races. I refer to a movie I watched some time ago called Something New. In the movie a black business woman dates her white gardener and expresses, among other things, the difficulties of reaching a high level in her business while being black. It is difficult enough as a woman to reach high levels in business nevertheless getting past the unfair disqualification of being black. That is only one among many privileges granted in a Fanon’s racialized post-colonial country. I think it fair to grant equal rights to those who merit them, but that is much too simple a response for real life. It begs the question of who decides merit? A white person? That’s just another privilege. It also brings up that it is more difficult for minorities to express their merit because of the situations that they have been entrenched in from years of white dominance. How could they possibly be granted equal opportunity?
It is so easy for a white person to accept that it is too difficult to answer and become cynical and move on about with their white privileges, (again a privilege we have is to ignore that we are privileged and continue to reap the benefits) but I think it may be like everything else and need time to evolve.
The white privilege lies in the fact that we live in a world in which whites are the norm. To change this kind of mindset seems difficult to do. How do you change a society's norms? Values? What, short of a revolution, can uproot the very foundation that a society is built on. I agree that it is now more about white privilege than it is about racism. But how do we fix this? As we've discussed in class, the goal is not to create a color blind society, because not only is that impossible to do, it would also be removing a person's individual identity.
ReplyDeleteIt also seems problematic because the majority of upper class americans are white. The nation was founded on white male's ideals, and those ideals favored just that demographic. In order to get away from this, there needs to be a change in the way we educate our youth, distribute the top 1% of wealth, and look at what are the means to "success" in this country. If one person feels that it is harder to rise to the top, then it probably is. That person should try harder, because that is also a part of the proverbial american dream. I realize that some people are not afforded the opportunity to foster such strong driving forces, but it does not mean that it is not possible. If we want people to be in the same place, we need to start at the beginning, implementing that passion for success, so that everyone may overcome, even if the wealth of america will not easily be overcome.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what everyone said about white privilage being the problem more than racism. I think that if white privilage is addressed and resolved, racism would fade out. But also like everyone is saying, it would take a social revolution to remove white privilage. Many people don't even realize that their day to day habits and interactions are a result of their privilage. Before I read McInosh's essay I had no idea that some of the things that I experienced were indeed privilages. I think that the first step to fixing the problem is to educate on what exactly are the privilages that whites take for granted. From there maybe there can be some improvement.
ReplyDeleteA main problem with dealing with race in our society, as has been made clear by this point, is that whiteness is the cultural norm, and thus serves as the scale against which the actions of all other races are compared. The problem is not individual racist people (they can be dealt with on an individual basis) but with institutions and the great problem of "white privilege". I personally have come to have a very pessimistic outlook regarding this situation. As Alana discussed in detail, white people are the majority in this country and it will be very difficult to overcome the obstacle of privilege without first addressing and dealing in some way with this fact. This fact, however, is not projected to change in the foreseeable future and there are no practical, ethical, or legal means available to reverse this reality. I think that the change really has to occur in individuals. Races have too long been seen and classified on the basis of group membership and not on the merits of individual members. In this respect I think it will be a matter of gradual change through generational evolution. This is not a problem we are in a position to directly face and dismantle at this time and with our current cultural mindset. We are not properly equipped or armed for the conflict. I would argue that culture has never been proactive in the sense that it has been directed towards a distant goal. Hegel demonstrates this with his dialectic paradigm in which historic changes are at least in part reactions. There are not simply reforms we can make to legislate the problem away, nor is our thinking on the matter where it should and could be. Many of us are just now, as college students, learning that this is a problem. By virtue of that fact alone we cannot expect, realistically, for people to change their ways of thinking. We have to make the existence of white privilege more visible now and wait for most people alive today to die and for their children's children hopefully to have a completely different way of thinking about race. I see history more than anything as mass shifts in ways of thinking which occur, for the most part, intergenorationally (a bit like Hegel, I suppose) and I think that the next shift in thinking will be absolutely critical to how our country and the world deals with the problems of invisible, institutional racism. We must try to anticipate the next shift in thought (sorry for something so abstract) a generation or two down the line as they react to what we are establishing today. Is it possible to shape that reaction by making today as horrible as possible so their reaction will be more powerful and unified? It is a difficult thing to think about, but I think it is not something we can deal with effectively now. We must wait and think about how we can productively and effectively shape the future. Can it be done? I don't know.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is very irrational to say that to achieve success one simply has to work harder. I think that mindset totally ignores white privilege. The major goal I think is awareness of white privilege. it is impossible for the structure of society to be completely overhauled by just a select few being aware of white privilege. It requires the support of the masses.
ReplyDeleteI think that we can't move on from our class discussion of white privilege to what to do to eliminate white privilege, the next question should be what can we do to spread the awareness of white privilege?
I would have to agree with Annie on this one. Getting rid of white privilege is not necessarily what needs to happen and nor do I think it is feasible. The awareness of white privilege is what needs to spread. As I have heard people previously state that they were not conscious of the number of privileges that come along with being white, I believe the fact that awareness is present is a major step. Unfortunately, in any society that has a dominate majority there are going to be privileges that members of that majority recieve. I do not believe there is a way to rectify the societal structure of maority dominance and privilege. Nevertheless, it is possible to make the members of the majority aware of their privileges. Though the question still remains what happens after they become aware. Will their actions or beliefs change in any way?
ReplyDeleteIn response to Johnson's last question, I would like to point out that white people are very soon about to be a minority in America. As it already is in Texas, in the last population census, the Mexican population overtook the white population. The problem I see, though, is that white people still have greater privileges. As it is projected, the Mexican population is to overtake all of America. If white people continue to hold on to their (our)privileges consciously or unconsciously then we will have a revolution on our hands. Because, as Mills points out, everyone else knows that we have greater privileges except us for the most part.
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