Tuesday, February 3, 2009

White Privilege

In the article White Privilege and Male Privilege, Peggy McIntosh is touching on a subject that certain groups of people don't like to think about. Peggy McIntosh is a white female who knows that racism still exist but wants to figure out what form of racism is there in todays society and what can be done about it. Being that she is seen as the dominant in this case, it's a little hard for her to really put her finger to where racism is a problem. Being that she is a female, which is seen as inferior to males, she uses this inequality to compare it to inequality of blacks and whites. This helped her in her search of racial problems today.
McIntosh, due to her reasearch, found that whites don't really concentrate on racial issues because they feel like they are the superior ones and that they don't have anything to worry about. They see where everything is falling perfectly into their hands and they don't see where racial problems are not only affecting the blacks but is also affecting them, only in a different way though. This is also true about male dominance too.
Just as woman, blacks are being very much mistreated. They don't have half as many opportunities as whites do. In a perspective of a white though, they feel like blacks are being offered just as much opportunities but blacks just aren't striving as hard as whites to take advantage of these opportunities. McIntosh, due to her observations, now see that this is false and that blacks really don't have the same opportunities and whites.
Because of how whites think, racism is not something that is affecting them, racism will always be an issue. Surprisingly to say though, racism is affecting whites also. It is affecting their behaviors, their way of thinking and it is affecting the world. The world is suppose the be equal and everyone is supposed to be free and it is not. Racism is alienating one group while falsely misleading others.

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