As I decided to truly think of white privilege and how it applies to my life, it was a somewhat challenging thing to do. I have never been a racist person; however, any non-colorblind person could tell the physical differences between a Caucasian male or female and a person of another ethnicity. Throughout my life thus far, I have been able to recognize the increasingly drastic difference in thought toward race and overall mentality toward life evidenced through my parents, grandparents and myself. With each generation comes a new level of tolerance and understanding in terms of race and the thoughts we hold about those different from us. After becoming aware of privilege, the fact that I fall within the racial majority has allowed me to see the ways that I am treated as opposed to someone of a different heritage. To read further into white privilege, I consulted, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_privilege. In this web site, I was able to see more about the entire idea and concept of white privilege. The following are ways I noticed privilege in my daily life the past week:
1. As I was shopping with my friend who was African American, I noticed that the store employees seemed more eager to help me, which should not have been the case seeing as she was the one who wanted to buy something and not me.
2. While eating with some of my Caucasian female friends, I noticed a table of racially-mixed students staring, possibly making fun of us because we sounded like “valley girls.” I say the word “like” all the time and naturally tend to come across that way.
3. My father works with an African American man who has worked at the same company with him since he moved there. Every six months, they change offices to get a new change of scenery based on their level of production. My dad got an office with a window and was allowed to choose, whereas the other man was selected last. Although it cannot be proven that it was because of race, it certainly seems that way to me.
4. On OU’s campus, I also am able to tell a difference, not necessarily directly related to white privilege, but the fact that there are significantly more Caucasians than there are African Americans. This leads me to believe that clearly, stating the obvious, whites tend to receive more educational benefits.
5. At the pre-school I work at an African American lady that works with me always makes comments on my “blonde free-flowing hair” as compared to hers which is more stiff. That makes me uncomfortable because I cannot change that about myself.
6. In the neighborhood where I am from in Dallas, TX, there is also a very racially-driven community feel, which is sad. Racial profiling on the part of police officers is very noticeable. I.e. I was in a car wreck once and the officer was trying to help me and virtually ignored the Hispanic man.
7. Also, I have seen neighbors around me be unkind and talk down to their yardmen and other workmen that are helping them. I highly doubt they would be able to fix whatever job it is they are helping them with if it was not for them.
8. Lastly, as I was eating dinner last night, the table next to mine was having a gender and race discussion about the differences between the U.S. culture now versus in the 1960s. Although I have to agree that it has drastically improved, there is still a very long way to go before we have complete equality and racial acceptance.
The media definitely feeds racial discrimination through news stories depicting crimes committed by lower class minorities and other ways similar to that. Also, images of African American women and as “divas” and Hispanic women as “Jenny from the Block” do not help end the stereotypes. I think the majority of society has modernized itself enough to the point that the one drop rule is becoming less and less. I may have some French ancestry, but I do not walk around telling people that I am a French person.
At the end of the Tim Wise video, he discusses the importance of people having the responsibility to recognize the current situation and change our behavior toward thinking about race. Based on my level of awareness, if we teach future generations that there is no difference between people based upon their race, then the future seems promising for racial equality.
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I definitely agree that white privilege is a problem and I had not recently stopped to look at the higher levels of management (probably because I'm so frustrated that they are male and many times incompetent at their job) but they are typically white men.
ReplyDeleteI do take particular interest in your privilege sightings and your home community. I would be interested to know if there is a reason behind this heightened racial profiling (like it's in the south or there really is a higher rate of crimes committed by people who are not white). And I would love to see the reaction of your community to Tim Wise. I have a feeling it would not go over well (to put things lightly). But it would be interesting to see if some people would listen and take Wise's message to heart. We can only hope the latter because we can only affect change if we recognize there is a problem.
Also, in reference to your coworker, I think unfortunately in our society we have made the tall, thin, white woman the ideal beauty and everything else is somehow less. I find this a grievous shortcoming of our society because beauty comes in all forms, shapes, and sizes. Women are all beautiful and should not be subjected to the "white" standard of beauty. And until our society starts appreciating all different colors as beautiful, and all types of hair as beautiful, we are missing out on worlds of beauty.
Good comments and follow-up.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that white privilege is something that I have learned to tolerate over the years. It is a definite problem within the United States although it has decreased through out the decades. Growing up I have almost have become immune to white privilege since I have been privileged through out the years because I am a Caucasian female. I think the most predominate reason is because I grew up at Southlake Carroll High School in the DFW Texas region where there were only about 3% minorities at our school. This gave me a very misconstrued image of the world. As I came to the University of Oklahoma I was not used to being in an environment that was different but it definitely gave me a very good learning experience. I am so happy that I have expanded out of my Southlake "bubble" and have gained more valuable experience for the real world.
ReplyDeleteI feel that white privilege needs to definitely be overcome which will result as we all work together. In this day and age I feel that no one should get immunity based on skin color or ethnicity. We are all given equal chances to succeed and therefore our prosperity's should be based on how hard we work, no matter where we come from.
I think it's especially hard to understand white privilege growing up in all-white neighborhoods like a lot of white people have. I guess we tend to accept our sphere of society as "normal" and assume that anyone that did not achieve the education and salaries we did must have not deserved it.
ReplyDeleteI have noticed the racial profiling in our suburb of Dallas, too. People get very uncomfortable around minorities that aren't employed by their neighbors because they look very out of place and can only be assumed to be up to trouble. Very few people are blatantly racist, but I think having lived in extraordinary privilege for so long, people have a hard time sympathizing with minorities.