As Neyyirah Waheed once stated, “Never trust anyone who says they do not see color. This means to them, you are invisible.” Neyyirah is explaining how at one time, when one’s self was little, one is taught not see color. But at the same time, one becomes more aware of the situation while being told to ignore it all at once. Peggy McIntosh’s White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack reflects on how she was taught how to deny the privilege she was born with as a white woman but also how to benefit from it.
The severity of racial profiling is very concerning. As proven by numerous texts studied for this Expository Writing class, it is evident that the Black respondents of Otis Johnson’s poll, analyzing citizens’ relationships with the police, are not the only Black people that: “expressed far less confidence than whites in local police to treat both races equally” (Johnson). In White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, Peggy McIntosh describes various privileges which sound ordinary, though surprisingly only White people have. Among them, is one that affects all people on a daily basis: “If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race” (McIntosh). Governmental
Jeremy Dowsett is determined in countering the racist arguments that are prevailing in the current world. He is not happy about the “white privilege” that the blacks and other non-whites direct to the white people in the society. The author does not like hearing another person telling him about "white privilege" because of his color. Dowsett uses the bicycle formula to explain how the blacks are the minority in a particular place such as the US, hence, perceiving most of the opportunities that the whites obtain as a result of “white privilege.” In his analogy, he recounts how drivers acted aggressively towards him whenever he tries to share the road with them.
Throughout the article, McIntosh integrates ethos and a comparison of male privilege to white privilege into her argument. Interestingly, these methods create a reading that, nearly 30 years later, is still shockingly relevant. Accordingly, “White Privilege” works by directly speaking to an audience of primarily white people. When it was written in 1989 at a time when the term ‘white privilege’ was not commonly used, McIntosh was one of the first people to ever write about white privilege from the perspective of a white person.
White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide Book Review Draft 1 White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide is about the history of African Americans’ fight for civil rights in the United States. The author, Carol Anderson creates a meticulous time line of the struggle for civil rights starting with the passing of the 13th Amendment to the election of President Donald Trump after the only black president, President Barack Obama. Anderson goes much deeper than any normal history textbook and gives cultural context to major events for African Americans and the white reactions to these events which mitigated these gains. The author argues that with every African American civil rights victory there is a strong detrimental reaction
White Like Me was written by Tim Wise to inform the world, specifically white people, there is such thing as “whiteness” and urge people to be attentive about their own prejudice. Wise wanted to make white people cognizant of racial privilege and modify the national arguments about race and racism in pursuit of aligning American values with today’s truths. The concept of white privilege is unjust and damaging to our society. White privilege influence individual attitudes and political policies without full regards of other races. Not only as American but mainly as human beings we should seek justice and equality for all individuals regardless of race.
Are white people superior to black people? Despite arguing against white privilege, if you read “White Economic Privilege is Alive and Well” by Paul F. Compos you may get the sense that he believes it. While reading “White Economic Privilege is Alive and Well” by Paul F Compos I have concluded that white privilege is not thriving as much as he assumes it is. In my opinion, I believe, that if you’re poor, you’re poor you can accept it and keep living like that or you can choose to fix the dilemma.
Many Europeans thought that if there wasn’t such a difference between upper and lower class, there would be a possibility that the lower and working class could live a better life at home and at work. The rich were so distant from the poor that they “do not possess the power of finding employment” and the poor are suffering through horrible, long hours and terrible conditions (Document 1). The people also spoke out about their concerns about the government. People don’t want a government that’s going to sit back and just watch what is happening, they want a leader that will have “a social force to protect [the people]” and will “intervene in industry” (Document 4). The citizens are still just trying to suggest peaceful ways to fix the social class wealth gap and to have “no class distinctions among citizens,” but just simple ideas would still have a hard time changing things (Document 7).
The first point that Rhodes makes is his idea of the term ‘chav’ and ‘white working class’ means. His second point that he makes is his definition of what whiteness is, and how the concept of it is constantly changing. He also makes the point that the purpose of defining whiteness often is used to exclude a subgroup of people who are white, but don’t follow the same ideals or political beliefs. One of the final points in the article, Rhodes theorizes that the ‘white working class’ sometimes recognizes the existence of white privilege, and tries to use that to try and get better treatment than black working class
The difference in social classes shows how the Marxist analysis approach can be applied to Life in the Iron Mills. Social structure wasn’t always present in society, in fact towards the start of the human race, everyone was actually equal. Sure, there were the hunters and there were the gathers, but they realized they
White Privilege: Essay 1 White privilege is a systemic issue that has roots in our history as far back as the creators of our country. Searching back, we see our norms and values created into habits that have been woven into how we view and act around specific groups such as African Americans. This essay is going to explain how the average Caucasian individual experiences white privilege on a day to day basis and the solutions to insure that white privilege will stop and true equality can be handed out. This paper views the latter issues through symbolic interactionism, with supporting sub theories such as; labeling theory, looking glass self, and selective perception.
When someone hears the term “White Privilege”, immediately one would assume that it denotes a meaning that a specific race has ‘privilege’, or special treatment, that other races might not receive. However, the term “White Privilege” goes beyond what the eyes see, like Peggy McIntosh, an anti-racism activist, suggests, it is “an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing each day, but about which I was ‘meant’ to remain oblivious.” In other words, McIntosh is saying “White Privilege” is not entirely a status, special treatment, nor a certain standing in a social structure, but is instead, in its most inherent and intrinsic definition, a subtle but yet powerful phenomenon that subjugate us as social creatures to conform to its power of giving certain races advantages that are oblivious to our own knowledge.
Critical Whiteness Studies responds to the invisible and normative nature of whiteness in predominantly white societies, criticizing racial and ethnic attribution of non-white subjects who have to grapple with their deviation from the set norm, and opening the discussion on white privilege that results from being the unmarked norm (Kerner: 278). As Conway and Steyn elaborate, Critical Whiteness Studies aims to “redirect[...] the scholarly gaze from the margins to the centre” (283) and, more specifically, to interrogat[e][...] the centre of power and privilege from which racialization emanates but which operates more or less invisibly as it constructs itself as both the norm and ideal of what it means to be human. (ibid.) Thus, Critical Whiteness
All of these aspects of the living conditions faced by the working-class further strengthens the class divide. Fernando Garrido’s views on communism in Spain clarifies how these divulging lifestyles resulted from the Industrial Revolution: “What is said...about property: however sacred this right may be, when only a small number of privileged people can use it - and generally to the detriment of the greatest number who own nothing - is it not normal for the greatest number to view it as an enemy of their
A problem I would like to solve is the prevalent racial inequality in the United States today. African Americans and Hispanics are the most underserved racial groups in American society. About 45% of African Americans and 46% of Hispanics live in episodic poverty (defined as poverty lasting less than three years). Over 15% of African Americans are unemployed, and they make up 40% of the prison population in America. This is a shocking statistic, as only 13% of the United States ' population is African American.
