White privilege by definition is the advantage that white people have over colored people. An example of this would be when a white person walks into a store they are able to browse the store freely where as a colored person would be criticized or watched over to make sure they don’t steal anything.However white privilege can become transparent or invisible to its beneficiary when one has lived with this privilege all their life. They have grown up with these advantages so they become normal.When one grows up in a society, they come to believe that that is the norm for all of society, and since it is the norm, they do not think about how it is different from anywhere else.
“In white supremacist society, white people can ‘safely’ imagine that they are invisible to black people since the power they have history asserted, and even know collectively assert over black people, accorded them the right to control the black gaze,” (21). I strongly agree with this quote because it brings attention to the ignorance shown by white supremacists. However, it is ignorance on both sides.Some history books we use today still write that Reconstruction failed because black people were not competent, when it was completely the opposite.
I am not part of the privileged white. I was born in a completely different country and my first language is not English. I was raised by Asian parents and was brought up to follow traditional cultural ideals. My skin does not allow me to gain trust as easily. When I attended my middle school, a lot of the white people I tried to talk to looked at me differently. I have even seen where they can be lazy and slack off and it’s accepted, where if I do that I am criticized more easily.
The authors believe that it is important to study whiteness. You have an awareness of "whiteness" so that you could recognize when or where it is happening so that you would know how to react to it or if fix it if you believe it is a problem. Part of this is acknowledging that in the United States, whiteness is a commanding force. White skin is better than other colors, and people are wrong to think that way. For example, meritocracy is not always realistic. Discrimination against color always happens. More often than not, white people seem to always get more opportunities than African Americans, Asians, Native American, and most everyone else, severely limiting opportunities for education, social status, or even politics. Equality of opportunity is the idea a lot of people try to work towards.
There was having a history behind the highlighted title, “How White People Became White.” This seems to be a straightforward summary, but it is an incredible example of people always wanting to fit in. This tries to define how immigrants wanted to be white in the United States. There was a racial going in the past that we did not know, and the thing we did not study ago. The white American became an insider. There were many white men who were rich, powerful, and arrogant during the Industrial Revolution. Immigrants from non-white countries were especially hard hit, as they were exploited in large numbers. The enormous gap between rich and poor turned the rich into people who did not care for other people, but for money. Many different ethnicities moved to United States to earn a better life. They saw the how American citizens became relatively wealthy and owned their own properties. It made the new immigrants want to imitate and be part of this white group. They perceived that they lived in a low life such as contained a heavy job. They were suffered in working in labor. The agency did not help much about it that the refugees labeled in inferior ones. For example, the white community established the good heritage, made the good status, and owned the propriety but the others nationalities did not get treatment as them. They did not like to treat the immigrants in a good condition. They desired to be in a better pleasant place but it turned out that they were in hell. The white people were always having an image that they are violated their country, so they just gave them the nasty attitudes. According to the researched, there was (Chinese-American, Italy-American, Southern Europe, and Japanese-American) was also not welcome to the America. These were all come from the World War I and the daily bias in life. They had the hard time to be white people. They were struggling to fit into the white American society despite their white ethnicity. They had to compare over the high class white ones. They have to work their best to belong to good economic and best appearances. This situation makes me realize that how horrible the white people treated other in the past century and, yes there was still going on at the moment.
The idea of whiteness was created by society.Previously to the invention of this word or mores s o ideal, there was no such thing as a white black yellow or blue person. As there was no such thing as different colors to define a person before whiteness came to be then dictates that there was a time when whiteness did not exist thus whiteness is social constructed. One of the examples is “The history of Mexican Americans in the Southwest is thus more than the history of their “becoming” Mexican American or Hispanic; for many, especially those of the middle class, it is also the history of their becoming White.” (Pg55 Chapter four, Becoming Hispanic: Mexican Americans and Whiteness by Neil Foley) I examined this quote relate to my question. It shows us they want to be part of white American. Also, it refers to that it is not actually them physically becoming white but them becoming white in their actions. Their whiteness comes from conforming to the white dominated society of America and assimilating into the "white" culture. They changed themselves to fit in means they showed some fear on the most basic level. Plus the frighten toward the (Black Americans who experienced de jure segregation throughout the South before 1960.) There were inequalities of how they were handled by the society. Moreover, the white American were in a stable shell that did not know how their parents, grandparents acted toward the diversity ones. As I know, the difficult time still appear to the Mexican and African American. My prove was I watched the documentary that Latinos people had to walk out in order to fight for their right, and they were hurt by white policies. The reason was the Latinos people in Abraham Lincoln Height High School did not follow the regulations and against what they had in the late ninth century. They wanted to fix the horrible rule and made a change to their next Latinos generations, but I do not think it changes much because there was a few prejudice toward the Hispanic people like they are slackers, slut, and violent people as well as other racial groups.
“What then is privilege? We all recognize its most blatant forms. “Men only admitted to this club.” We will not allow African Americans into that school.” Blatant exercises of privilege certainly exist, but they are not what most people think of as our way of lie. They are only the tip of the ice-berg, however. When we try to look at privilege we see several elements. First, the characteristics of the privileged group define the societal norm, often benefiting those in the privileged group. Second, privileged group members can rely on their privilege with the societal norm and the implicit opinion to ignore oppression mean that privilege is rarely see by the holder of the privilege,” (112). I surprised how she talks about it because I did not know in this modern year even now had the dirty eyes to other ethnic humans. It is getting a big impact on the term of norm when it mentioned the word privilege for this matter. Additionally, I will not oppose to what she said and I just admit the way she spoke was righteous and powerful of the structure in the meaning of privilege.
In these three section chapters in these three authors discussed about how they enjoy as white people in the word called privilege. In my opinion, they are well spoken of this problem that white considered having benefit than others types of nationalities. They are giving the strong opinion and make some great personal stories to us. They are not arrogant and ignorant over how they have the advantages in most of things in. I am glad that they hope to change the obstacle of color people in state of inequality, but the reality will not be adjust of how they are belong to white category. I did not find any one of them more or less persuasive than the others. They address their styles of white privilege uniquely and interesting.I am agree to what they comment about it since their writing is extremely advocate, truthful by laying out many examples in their life.
In conclusion, whiteness is mostly an imaginary thing.You cannot touch, or feel whiteness.It is a social phenomenon that happened because of war.Some even say it happened because the rich tried to break up anyone trying to attack them.So they told the white poor workers that they were better than everyone else because of the color of their skin.So they were given jobs supervising other races.This compeletly broke up unions and allowed for the rich to become even richer.
YEah , I just upload the last assignment from my Sociology class. I learn things in that class XP SO GUILTY RIGHT NOw! YEaa I am such a failure that I can't speak English right. I don't know how to say it out . I am just not good at planning out the words. =__= ahh .. WHy am I nervous..when I have no idea what to say?! I am useless that I can't help my mother. THis is suck!! >0<>
