Privilege

Many people acknowledge white as the “default” and the “good thing” in our country. They also tend to try and be careful when discussing the issue of race so they don’t say anything wrong or offensive. In certain communities white people are taught to walk on different sidewalks than people of color. There are also stereotypes for white people that people of color hold similarly to how white people have stereotypes such as “ghetto” for people of color. People defined white privilege as different things that all apply to the term, some that were shocking. One person said it was being able to go to a convenient store and not worry about being hassled by the police and another said it meant not having to prove yourself as one of the good ones. Both of these answers shocked me because I wasn’t aware of how self-aware certain people are in regards to white privilege because I hear more about white privilege not existing rather than people owning up to its existence. This shows me that people acknowledge white privilege for what it is and think it shouldn’t exist which I am in agreement with. I also learned that in South Dakota in one of the tribal schools they have mainly white teachers however, all the kids are Native Americans learning from someone whose color represents terrible pasts. These students also hold predominantly negative stereotypes against white people, even their teachers and consider them to be greedy or a “wasichu” in their language. Many white kids said they don’t think there are many negative aspects to being white besides things such as scholarships. White people also see the disadvantages in regards to scholarships and see this as a form of reserved racism. However, white people have access to roughly all scholarships and are 40% more likely to receive a scholarship rather than a person of color. In this video people say the reason they think white people are at a disadvantage is because they expect to get everything. It was refreshing to see that many white people acknowledge not only their own privilege but also how their experiences have shaped the views they hold onto today. It was surprising to hear many white people don’t discuss race with their family and feel uncomfortable bringing up the issue to anyone. I personally understand this despite being Hispanic and a minority when I bring up racism within my family or anything in regards to race. My family, specifically my mom, tends to think I am attacking or demonizing them and argue with me when I’m stating facts not opinions. For this reason I do my best to avoid this topic with my mom because she is very conservative and pulls her information from conservative sites rather than getting facts she just believes what anyone on FOX says. She also doesn’t believe in white privilege and thinks anything in reference to white privilege as reverse racism when it isn’t. At times, almost always, I tend to feel I can’t live with my mom with my own beliefs because of how defensive she gets when I attempt to tell her what I believe. I think my mom could benefit from a white privilege workshop such as Lucas’ shown in the video. She claims to be “open-minded” yet she holds the most closed-minded beliefs and openly says racists statements. In fact, I think many people can benefit from a workshop such as Lucas’ and that more people should host them. I also learned about a neighborhood where white people are the minority for once. This was interesting to me because I never imagined a minority race would take over a predominantly white neighborhood. Seeing white people get frustrated based on the Asian language barriers was quite comical since they think English is the default but fail to realize every race and ethnicity has their own first language. Expecting people to understand how to “simply say hi” because “it’s not that hard” in itself is a terrible mindset to hold. This is especially the case because English is by far the hardest language to learn especially in a country that isn’t as welcoming or helpful as they make themselves seem to be. All in all, white privilege needs to cease to exist because it causes harm to all races and we are all supposed to be equal.