Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
Privilege, power, and domination
Power privilege and oppression
Power privilege and oppression
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Privilege, power, and domination
Power privilege and oppression
Power privilege and oppression
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Privilege, power, and domination
This week we were assigned to read to different articles. The first article was written by Peggy McIntosh titled, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”. Throughout the article, Peggy showed the readers what it means to have white privilege. She showed the readers 50 different types of “advantages” that whites get over other races, such as African Americans. This is the biggest theme throughout her entire piece.
(page 1, par. 3). As he continues to write, he uses the word “privilege” liberally throughout his essay. In this essay, I will be analyzing how the author uses the word “privilege” in his essay to gain credibility and an emotional response from his readers.
The “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” McIntosh begins her essay portraying the unwillingness of men to admit that they are over privileged. Even those who are willing to admit that women are at a disadvantage have a problem admitting their privilege. McIntosh realizes that this denial of privilege does not only apply to gender but to race as well. She realizes that white people including herself are thought to view racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage but have never had to considered an aspect of racism that befits them; white privilege. Although being a woman puts McIntosh at a disadvantage she realizes that by not acknowledging her privilege she is unintentionally oppressing others as well.
Throughout our history our society struggles with inequality. Sexism and racism still addresses like class, gender or other dominating classifications a structural problem in our United States culture. In Jean Baker Miller’s essay “Domination and Subordination” she discusses the temporary and permanent inequality. Miller states that the temporary inequality is a relationship between a dominated individual who explains and is a teacher to the subordinated individual. In contrast her explanation of the permanent inequality is the relationship of different individuals who always will be unequal.
According to McIntosh, white privilege is like “an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, assurances, tools, maps, guides, codebooks, passports, visas, clothes, compass, emergency gear, and blank checks” (McIntosh, p2), also McIntosh believes that she had trouble facing that for she is white as well. Male privilege contains that men have done most of important things in life or in civilization so men must be put in the center, and male hegemony exist in “all the inner sanctum of our most powerful institutions” (McIntosh, p2). One thing necessary for implement meritocracy is to have education, and the education is not designed for certain color or gender. Like McIntosh mentioned, the school gave her “no training in seeing me as
Looking at the modern office there are many “glass ceilings” that Steele refers to not only apply to minorities but to genders in general. Some bosses may stop people from being promoted because they are intimidated by women and do not think they should be placed on the same level as themselves, even though they are equally qualified for the position. Steele also talks about how a misused privileged can turn out to be a disadvantage such as the concept of welfare, because people use it to their advantage so much that it become a crutch for the rest of their lives. Wiley addresses a more individual process of failing to meet educational standards hence; “You get ballplayers who could barely form a compound sentence to keep a dog off them.” This statement is still true to this day due to the fact that so many people get accepted on full ride sports scholarships but their academics are below par, so that if something happens that keeps them from competing in sports they can not afford to stay in college nor can they keep their grades
In chapter one, "Privilege, Oppression, and Difference, Allan Johnson begins his argument that "difference is not the problem"( Johnson, pg 5 ). The author goes on to explain that difference by itself is not the problem, rather difference in conjunction with our ideas that cause fear. That being said, discrimination was a bigger problem in the past and it still is today. We starts with talking about Rodney King and racism he had received from police officers in Los Angeles. Johnson continues on with the idea that people are judged not for who they are or the things they have accomplished, but how they are perceived by others.
In the world there are some people who have more advantages than others because of their spot in society. Such as people with no disability have more power than disabled people. Furthermore, that is why everyone is treated differently by the outside world. In the novel, Of Mice And Men, by John Steinbeck, the characters George, Lennie, and Curley all show the use of some sort of power.
I sometimes get irritated when people don’t agree on the same ideas that I have or when the other person says something that I don’t agree with. The objective of this chapter made me comprehend that based on an individual’s experiences and viewpoints impacts the person’s behavior. Some experience may deal with the oppressions and privileges a person has, the article “Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person…” made me realize that I am more privilege than what I thought. The author didn’t think she was privilege until she read a book she got recommended and from her article she summarizes
Whites are privileged because we are seen as the average American. We do not get second glances, because nobody suspects we are doing anything but living our lives. Though since we are not subject to this intense scrutiny we do not realize that we in turn do this to African Americans, just simply living their daily lives as well. McIntosh (1988) points out that she repeatedly forgot each of the realizations on this list until I wrote it down. For me white privilege has turned out to be an elusive and fugitive subject.
Introduction This essay focuses on understanding the term “white privilege” with special focus on UK society and also explores the reason behind coining such a unique term and finally shed a light on racism and the term “white” in detail (Cripps, 2004). Time and again UK society has been struck by the power as well as the legacy of white supremacy and racism. Studies confirm that Americans and Britons are the most “race conscious” people on earth. White skin privilege or “white privilege” is a unique term that refers to societal privileges which means that white people benefits in the western countries under same socio-political and economic circumstances.
Factors that contribute to privilege, power, and oppression include who has power, how is that power being used, and what social groups are being affected. This year I began working in Target’s return department where employees are supposed to, what feels like stereotyping, call out shady and weird-acting people who are most often appearing to be houseless or on drugs. Because of certain types of individuals that frequent our story in Janzen Beach, we do not return certain products without proof of purchase. However, one day we made an exception for on customer and did not for another by a manager. Later in the day I confronted the manager and expressed my frustrations that our personal biases were getting in the way of helping our customers equally and expressed that certain people or groups are less likely to express their frustrations or ask for a manager when they are denied a return in comparison to others.
How can the concept of White Privilege be expanded to include gender privilege, class privilege, or heterosexual privilege? According to Monahon (2014), p. 73, stated, “In the broadest terms, the concept of privilege is meant to capture the unearned benefits and advantages that accrue to members of dominant groups as a result of the ongoing exploitation and of members oppression of members of dominated groups”. One way white privilege can expand to class by a wealthy son of a business owner.
White privilege is something I didn’t have much knowledge on until this year because it was starting hit social media and I realized it affected me aswell. In this article it gave a lot of example of how white privilege is very much around still in 2015. The author of this article took a step back and was aware of their surrounding and how they do in fact get treated differently than those of colors. There are many whites now a days that don’t understand that white privilege does indeed still exist. She mentioned important examples in which I can relate to, for example when buying postcards or toys there is almost never some one of my race.
Privilege is a word that I hear very often and especially now that I’m in college I hear it almost everyday. I’m glad that I have heard this word a plethora of times because it has allowed me to analyze and see my role in privilege. Addition to the in class CDI “ Unmasking Your Privilege”, I also went to “Paving the Way: First- Generation College Students”, both workshops were informational and I truly enjoyed them. My main takeaway from the workshops is that although I am a Black Women I do have some privilege, I have learned that there are levels and different types of privilege.