Privileges can be gauged by how much a particular society takes for granted. I can go to the kitchen, pull food out of the fridge, look up a recipe online, cook the food on stovetop and enjoy it to an episode of Blue Mountain State that I pirated of the Internet.
Someone in a third world country, except perhaps the pirating, could do hardly any of this but they'd do that with guns and not keystrokes.
Yet I myself have seen the other side, at least to me, and been left dumb founded by how streamlined those who are more privileged then I lead their lives. No need to cook, there is a maid. No need to pirate, just pop in one of the DVD’s from box set that was received last Christmas.
It's all relative, and sadly, only during situations where you can compare and contrast to your own life are you able to have made the foundation on which we judge one another shoddy, unethical. How we stack up on a resume can be made or broken by our last name. This is the cut corner of personal perception. This can also play into an advantage; Smith may be favored to Martinez, Brown to Ng and so on.
Ultimately, racism is an attempt to oversimplify something that frankly has no common denominator. Yet, everyone I've gotten to know well has displayed a bit of racism at one time or another. I believe it to be human nature above all, we look for patterns wherever we can, even when it's not applicable.
I do believe that in the business world, being white is certainly a pro. However, at least in my social experience, being white is almost boring, safe, normal, and a cop out. I've had a few white friends that vie to be tan year round, have an ethnic background or culture, or simply wish to be more interesting.
I believe this to be the shift in viewpoints of our time. During early America and the reconstruction, to be white was to of the elite. Now, it's too standard, at least from my viewpoint. I truly believe that this is how racism will be muted, as cultures blend and mix. Once the distinctions aren't so cut and dry, assumptions can't be as quickly, thus justly forcing a deeper analysis as to how or why someone would do something.
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Hi Lorenzo,
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate your point about how a person can simultaneously be aware of their own privilege and disadvantage- the activity we will do on Wednesday will (hopefully) get you all practicing this very thing. I also think you bring up an important point about some aspects of being a person of color being desirable; skin tone, body type, certain cultural tradition, etc. A number of scholars would call this appropriation- white society wants these aspects, but does so without granting people of color equal rights or dismantling their own privilege. What do you think of this?
--eas