Pre-Reading Questions: Week Six

To play the game of life as a white straight male is preached by John Scalzi in his blog Whatever as easy mode.  In other words, to be anything but is to raise the difficulty level for your life.  The darker the skin, the farther the slider goes from easy to hard on the difficulty scale.  The smaller minority you fall into, the farther you will be pushed away by the majority.

I see things a bit differently though.  In my opinion, to be a white male is to play life on the normal difficulty setting.  To be a minority is to try and achieve positions commonly held by white males in society is hard mode. Easy, on the other hand, is to be a minority, but to play the roles given to them by the others.

To explain, fitting into the puzzle is simple when you are the perfect piece for the spot.  It is change that is difficult.  To mold yourself into something society does not expect of you is truly hard.  To grow up in a ghetto with poor schools, lack of guidance  and terrible mentorship, it's easy to fall in with bad crowd, drop out, or resort to drugs as means to happiness.  It's a vicious cycle of life that spits out the same product it consumes.  Whites have had a head start in this country.  They conquered it with nasty tactics, and have been in control since.  As a result, they have been able to define themselves as the norm, while every other race has had to play catchup in a system created by whites, for whites.  Naturally, minorities are seen simply as supplemental to the process.  Not much is expected of them, practically cast off to carry menial jobs.  It would be easy to assume the role handed to them by whites, it's ultimately a cop out.  To break the cycle, and inject themselves into the system, become the round peg in the square hole, is hard.

So, if a minority can adjust his/her difficultly level, then could a white person?

I really do believe they can, in fact, I think a white person can possibly put themselves on the hardest difficult level of all.  This can be done by representing the minorities.  Not only are they becoming a round peg in a square hole in the only way they can, but they are immersing themselves with many people who are not like them at all.  This people may even resent them, be intolerant of them.  These people are social workers, whole hearted teachers in the ghetto,  supporters of civil rights that they are not apart of. These people hope to change the system, level it all out.  As of now, it may seem meek, but it had to start somewhere.

Cherríe Moraga was a feminist poet who earned a master here at SFSU.  She specialed in her free writing about her chicana heritage.  Her work has been widely recognized, even earning her recognition and monetary supplementation by the United States artists.

Audre Lorde was a writer and poet, she was also a lesbian.  known for her rigid stance and outlook, she was even known amongst other feminists as an outsider.  She would die of cancer, but not before creating one of her most well known works, The Cancer Diaries.

In terms of political organization, a minority must have as wide of an umbrella as possible to really gain momentum.  By this i mean that it shouldn't splinter off into such a niche that it doesn't have a good foundation.  Strength in numbers rings true.  OInstead of a gay asian men organization, why not a gay minorities one?

Yes, privilege can be gained through race.  That being said, one can give up this privilege by sending themselves into a society not built around them.

Some questions I have:  Do women feel different then man of the same race?  Also, what are some of the differences they feel in society?

Word Count: 665