...Running Head: BLACK AND WHITE PRIVILEGE IN AMERICA 1 Black and White Privilege in America Jacki Barnes Davenport University Diversity in Society – SOSC201 Professor Narketta Sparkman October 21, 2012 Black and White Privilege in America There are many definitions of “white Privilege” in text books, media, and on the internet, but all of those definitions include one common thread: It allows white persons advantages over non-whites and it is a form of social privilege. According to Akbar (Koppelman, 2011, p. 44), white privilege originated with the arrival of the white man in America. He states that, “They began to effectively eliminate any contradiction to the imposed redefinition of reality that they dictated.” White privilege has been referred to as rightness of white, meaning that white is normal and any deviation from that is abnormal (Koppelman & Goodhart, 2011, p. 189). It offers economic benefits as well as cultural benefits. Being white means you will most likely be paid a higher salary, receive promotions, and have loans approved. In classrooms, anything that happened prior to white people arriving in America is referred to as prehistory (2011, p. 191). Because of white privilege, there are many things that white people take for granted that people of color have no access to. For example, whites can choose to purchase a home in an area they can afford and want to live in. Researchers at Dartmouth, the University of Georgia...
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...What White Privilege?!! Explanation! I'm not saying that privilege doesn't exist, I'm saying that as far as White Privilege goes in Modern Society, it is an anthill being transformed into a Mountain to push an agenda. I agree with Black Conservative and Economist Thomas Sowell when he argues that moral condemnation of discrimination doesn't automatically make it causally crucial, that having a majority in any society is a given, that the idea of a homogonized "white" group in society that is accepted and given privileges is erroneous. The theory of White Privilege fails to give an accurate definition/ analysis of barriers in society and the idea that large amounts of minorities or lagging majorities (in other countries) is due to a privilege ethnic or race group, is flawed and racist. First, while the idea of condemning discrimination against members of our species is important, it is by no means causally crucial. People forget sometimes that there are other races outside black and white when it comes to this subject. Once other races are involved you start getting different results, stats and causes. What about the difference in test scores for Japanese and Mexican American kids for example. In his essay Race, Culture and Equality, Mr. Sowell writes: Japanese and Mexican immigrants began arriving in California at about the same time and initially worked in very similar occupations as agricultural laborers. Yet a study of a school district in which their children...
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...communities? What life experiences have led you to apply? Teach for America Essay help request Sorry for the long post! Okay, so I have rough drafts of both my essays for teach for America done! I have to revise them like tonight because the application is due Friday. But if you have a moment, look them over and let my know what you think. Ideas on how to trim them down to five hundred words would be very helpful. the first is a letter of intent, the second an essay about my greatest accomplishment in the past four years. ESSAY #1 I hope to join Teach for America for what seems like a simple reason: I want to teach. Specifically, I want to teach middle school social studies or history. What thrills me about teaching is the constant challenge of finding better ways to motivate students and make learning relevant to their lives. I want to teach middle school because it is a challenging age. Middle school students are trying to figure out their roles in the world and are facing many pressures from peers, society, and their parents to conform in different ways. I want to be a supportive mentor for children at that difficult point in their lives. I want middle school to be a pleasant experience instead of the bad memory it is for many people. This is much the same thing that motivates me to teach history: I hated history classes when I was in middle school. History seemed so irrelevant, all about dead white men. When I went to college, I started learning that there are many histories...
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...Essay Question 1: What did W. E. B. Du Bois mean by his concept of "the color-line", and how did it come to be defined so strictly over time? The idea of “the color –line” alludes basically to the part of race and prejudice in history and society. Be that as it may, of need, for Du Bois, it requires a multidimensional examination which recognizes and looks to comprehend the convergence of race and class as both methods of mastery and methods of resistance on the national and worldwide level. Du Bois connects with the inquiries of race, racial mastery and racial misuse with the understood recommendation that “the issue of the twentieth century is the issue of the shading line." In 1924, W. E. B. Dubois said this in regards to race relations in the United States. He said, "The issue of the twentieth century will be the issue of the shading line." That is, the overwhelming issue amid the century would be the racial clash in the middle of Blacks and whites. Today, regardless of the advancement our nation has made in race relations, despite everything we have an approaches to go. It was the line that held the best employments in the economy for one gathering of individuals, while denying them to another through both the law and private organizations, for example, organizations and, to its ruin, numerous unions who denied participation and occupations to those on the wrong side of the shading line. Also, it is the same shading line that would reject occupations to those on...
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...Rape During The Antebellum Period The first African slaves arrived in Virginia, North America in 1619. As the plantations of the antebellum south flourished, the African slave trade gained momentum. Between the 16 and 19th centuries, America had an estimated 12 million African slaves (Slavery in the United States, Junius P. Rodriguez ). Enslavement of the African Americans formally commenced in the 1630s and 1640s. By 1740, colonial America had a fully developed slavery system in place, granting slave owners an absolute and tyrannical life-and-death authority over their slaves or 'chattels' and their children (Slavery in the United States, Junius P. Rodriguez ). Stripped of any identity or rights, enslaved black men and women were considered legal non-persons, except in the event of a crime committed. Documents and research on the slave era in the antebellum south are awash with horror stories of the brutal and inhuman treatment of slaves, particularly women (Slavery in the United States, Junius P. Rodriguez). Considered 'properties' by their masters, enslaved black women endured physical and emotional abuse, torture, and sometimes even death. By the 1800s, slavery had percolated down mainly to the antebellum south. While a majority of enslaved men and women were designated as 'field servants' performing duties outside the house, a smaller percentage, particularly women were employed as domestics or 'house servants', mammies and surrogate mothers. In the absence of any security...
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...Obama ultimately beat the social identity of black men that was by default laid upon him and his family. Like previously stated in this reading, middle class black American’s were at times flagged for drug use, welfare dependency, and other false stereotypical criticism. America had never seen an all-black first family, and here it was. This victory for president Obama marked a new post war America and helped a lot with muting racial discrimination. Hill Collins in the article first black American story (2012) declares, “Barack Obama’s campaign and subsequent Presidency provides a useful site for exploring changing conceptions of race, gender, economic security and American national identity” (Hill Collins, 2012, page 124). Not only did this help with race but also gender, and family. Hill Collins also states that there could not of been a better family to present a face to the public as the pinnacle American black...
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...been trodden without contact with thorns and thistles. While we take pride in what we exhibit as a result of our independent efforts, we do not for a moment forget that our part in this exhibition would fall far short of your expectations but for the constant help that has come to our educational life, not only from the Southern States, but especially from Northern philanthropists, who have made their gifts a constant stream of blessing and encouragement. The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremist folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized. It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more...
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...been trodden without contact with thorns and thistles. While we take pride in what we exhibit as a result of our independent efforts, we do not for a moment forget that our part in this exhibition would fall far short of your expectations but for the constant help that has come to our educational life, not only from the Southern States, but especially from Northern philanthropists, who have made their gifts a constant stream of blessing and encouragement. The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremist folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized. It is important and right that all privileges of...
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...EN105 25 January 2015 Racism For many years African Americans have been discriminated against, not as individuals, but solely because of the color of their skins. In her essay “How it Feels to Be Colored Me”, Zora Hurston relays to the reader that being discriminated due to your color doesn’t take away from who you are as a person, nor does it change the morals and virtues and pride that you have for yourself. Hurston speaks of her life experiences, and through those experiences she has became to know who she was, which at the beginning made her feel ashamed. The author didn’t realize or have ever been truly exposed to racism until the age of thirteen, when she moved from Eatonville, FL., a predominately black community, to Jacksonville, FL. Until then white people only differed to Zora because they didn’t live in her town. There in Jacksonville Zora experienced racism and discrimination; through all of this Zora never felt bitter towards those that discriminated against her. “But I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow damned up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood.” (Hurston 266). Though slavery was sixty years in the past, Zora understood that slavery was the price that was paid for civilization by her ancestors. Racism is alive and well. The past year many of us were stunned by the cases of racial intimidation and judicial bias, during the Michael Brown and Eric...
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...Strong Response On The Meaning Of Plumbing and Poverty Summary In her essay “On The Meaning Of Plumbing and Poverty,” Journalist Melanie Scheller examines the cultural identity of the rural poor. The author brings the readers attention to her call to action about poverty in America while using facts and personal background. While caring for a woman in a psychiatric ward, Scheller witnesses the woman’s obsession for flushing the toilets in her unit. This memory creates an opportunity for her to write an essay about growing up in rural North Carolina. In the 1960’s the author was growing up with her mother and five other siblings, moving from place to place in search of a home where the rent was affordable. Scheller mentions how she lived in a house with five rooms, with one room in particular for her and her siblings to gather in to complete homework or watch television. Furthermore, Scheller describes how “in the South” of her childhood, if a family did not have indoor plumbing they were labeled as white trash and strongly stereotyped at school. They often had comments thrown at them such as “White-trash children had cooties- everybody knew that”(321). When Scheller is granted a college scholarship, she describes the feelings of happiness and delight she encounters when given the opportunity to use as many clean toilets and take as many hot showers as she wishes. Having this newfound privilege is a blessing but she is ashamed to show her true feelings because she doesnt...
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...It pained me that her final blog notice was titled, “To All Those Friends I Never Met.” I was one of those friends she never met. It would not be an exaggeration to say that I have been fascinated by Elizabeth Wright ever since I became aware of her many years ago, when Issues and Views was still a paper publication. I discovered that Elizabeth had a piercingly clear understanding of race, and wrote in an uncompromising style. We corresponded, and AR posted several of her essays—and yet I never really knew her. Elizabeth wanted it that way. We spoke on the phone only a few times, and she spoke as she wrote—clearly and vigorously. And yet she kept me at a distance. The last time we spoke I was in New York City, where she lived, and I practically begged her to let me meet her. She declined. She wasn’t keen on meeting people, she said. There was a great deal I wanted to know about Elizabeth Wright. How did a black woman arrive at a view of race so similar to my own? There is usually a story about how whites become dissenters. There must be a whole book about her. And who were her friends? What did her family think of her views? Whenever I asked in passing about her personal life in our e-mail correspondence,...
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...time, the Levitt’s believed segregation was necessary to ensure the success of a new suburb. However, Levitt’s decision not to sell houses to blacks was “an opportunity tragically lost (Kushner 198).” Post WWII increased the demand for houses so sharply that even if a portion of blacks moved to Levittown, whites still would have moved in. Levittown is the embodiment of how relations between different racial groups befit to dominance and subordination. Through ethnocentrism, competition for resources, and unequal power Levitt & Sons created ‘the most perfectly planned community in America’ (Kushner 61) where middle-upper class citizens enjoyed a utopian lifestyle, one that was completely denied to an entire race. If non-whites had been accepted into Levittown from the establishments of suburbia, the problem of racial segregation that still exists today would be subdued or non-existent. Ethnocentrism: Levitt’s white ethnocentrism reinforced a restrictive covenant that only permitted houses in Levittown to be rented or sold to a member of the Caucasian race. William Levitt explained the firm’s resistance to integration as, “If I sold to negroes 90% of the white now buying...
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...because before I wasn’t able to express my feelings openly, but through this class, I have been able to open up and search deeper within me for inspiration. Over the past three months, I have been stressed due to long hours in studio; writing papers for this class was always my way to vent my stress and get my mind of stuff in studio. Looking at racism and white privilege, I have realized that being white it is possible to be the little change I want to see in the world. Growing up with Africans, it has also helped me see that color is only skin deep. When I was in high school, I always used the MLA format for all ma papers and bibliographies, but this class gave me a challenge of changing that and using APA format, at first it was a bit hard because I had to teach the APA format to myself and then apply it to my papers. In the last two essays we had due for college writing, we had the opportunity to interview someone. These interview helped a lot because it made sure that just because you are righting a paper, its not impossible not to have people skills. It helped develop those skills. I have learnt that in America, it is acceptable to be different from one another. Its acceptable to have different values from your neighbors, and also...
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...1 Defending the Defenseless During the American Revolution, slavery was in the process of being abolished in Europe and in the Northern states of America. Even though parts of the world were willing to free slaves, the Southern states found ways to defend slavery. In Paul Finkelman’s book Defending Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Old South, Finkelman provides the writings of many white leaders from the South who believed that slavery was essential to America’s society. The white leaders who spoke about proslavery included a broad range of defenses to justify themselves because they wanted Americans to believe that slavery had a lasting impact economically, religiously, legally, and racially. One of the defenders in Finkelman’s book was Thomas R.R. Cobb. He justified slavery by arguing the effects of abolition in the United States. Cobb said, “The emancipated negroes do not enjoy full and equal civil and political rights in any State in the union, except the State of Vermont” (Finkelman, 79). He was convinced that those who became free of slavery did not live a better life. He believed that any African American slave who is free is not capable of living successfully and “His moral condition compares unfavorably with that of the slave of the South” (Finkleman, 79). This argument states that African Americans who are enslaved are in better hands with the slave owners and therefore they should remain as slaves. Cobb’s defense was justifiable because he...
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...History Essay Contrasting the Proposals of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois United States History 1828 - 1914 Instructor Stewart King Clackamas Community College February 7, 2012 Accommodation vs. Integration In March of 1895, Booker T. Washington delivered his now famous Atlanta Compromise Speech. In brief, Washington proposed that blacks accept segregation and focus on getting jobs rather than demanding equality. He also proposed that blacks concentrate on learning trades and how to work with their hands – not necessarily in becoming book smart. Perhaps even more central to his message, Washington argued that if blacks focused on equality they would never make it anywhere in society. In short, Washington’s policy was one of accommodation and not rocking the boat. (Washington) Washington was very clear about what he felt black intentions should be, stating that blacks should only be seeking opportunity – not for the right to integrate with white society. He wanted white society to see the good in all black people, and not as a threat to their way of life. Eight years later, W.E.B. offered a critique of Washington’s proposal. While DuBois respected Washington as a black leader, he felt that his policy of accommodation was holding back the black race. Contrary to Washington, DuBois felt that "the right to vote," "civic equality," and "the education of youth according to ability" were essential for African American progress. (DuBois) ...
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