What white privilege essay

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 ND Equality, Mr.. Swell 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 attended the same schools and sat side-by-side in the same classrooms found IQ differences as great as those between blacks and whites attending schools on opposite sides of town in the Jim Crow South. Swell goes on to reason that the reason for these differences is not so easily found as it involves “ so many cultural, social, economic, and other actors(geography and climate being very important as well) interacting that there was never any reason to expect equal results in the first place”. Swell argues that in the macrocosm, only cultures that can shed their previously unorthodox methods, those that can quickly adapt, can achieve. Swell discusses an example of when a group of Japanese people were given the gift of a train by Commodore Perry: At first the Japanese watched the train fearfully from a safe distance, and when the engine began to move they uttered cries of astonishment and drew in their breath. Before long they were inspecting it closely, stroking it, and riding on it, and they kept this up throughout the day. A century later, the Japanese “ bullet train” would be one of the technological wonders of the world, surpassing anything available in the United States. But, before this happened, a major cultural transformation had to take place among the Japanese people.

A painful awareness of their own backwardness spread through Japan. Western nations in general and the United States in particular were held up as models to their children. Japanese textbooks urged imitation f Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin, even more so than Japanese heroes. Many laments about their own shortcomings bathe Japanese of that era would today be called “ self-hate. ” But there were no cultural relativists then to tell them that what they had achieved was just as good, in its own way, as what others had.

Instead, the Japanese overcame their backwardness, through generations of dedicated work and study, rather than redefining it out of existence. Swell states that both the Japanese and British had become considerably dedicated to learning and imitating other cultures. The British in imitation of the Roman Empire(which they would transfer on to the Scots and Irish who lived on the fringes of European Civilization), and the Japanese adopting American ideas.

This is important because the success of these civilizations was due to exactly the opposite of what is being urged upon less fortunate groups in the United States today. It is here that I think Swell makes his keynote: Far from painting themselves into their own little cultural corner and celebrating their “ identity,” these peoples sought the knowledge and insights f other peoples more advanced than themselves in particular skills, technologies, or organizational experience. A significant number Black Americans and members of other races, if you let them tell, were the only ones who went through what they did. In some points through time it is true but not always the case. People forget that the word “ Slave” came from the “ Slav” as in Slavic people who were the top pick for peasantry and slavery for many in the Christian and Muslim world (in the Muslim world up until the 1 sass and as well as the continued institution n some parts of Africa and Muslim world).

Where was the Slavic people’s white privilege?! Was it White Privilege that allowed the likes of the Mongolia’s under Genesis Khan, The Ancient Egyptians under rulers like Rammers, Tutu etc, to rise to prominence?! Was it White privilege that enabled schools like M Street/Dunbar High school in DC, School No. 1 in Brooklyn, NY, SST. Augustine in N. Orleans (which were predominantly Black schools surrounded by mostly white ones) to be in the top tier of National test Scores over the white schools from the 1 sass up until the 1 ass’s?! Most of these hillier were the sons and daughters of laborers or parents with lower levels of education!! This is when Jim crow and racism were pretty much the law of the land. Even while we examine that the cause of some minority underachievement in America may not be due to discrimination, it is impossible to ignore the compelling evidence that it still exists. But institutional racism as we think of it today is nowhere near as bad as the past. Our economic factors in modern American drive us apart and separate us into classes much more than race.

For that matter, geographical location has much more to do with achievement than does race, but we rarely hear anything about “ Northeast privilege”. Finally, when discussing the idea of white privilege, there must first be a concise definition of what “ whiteness” entails. It is here that think that this idea in critical race theory is most flawed. It is not enough to just say that white is the color of someone skin, because not all whites are treated the same in society. In her essay “ White Privilege: unpacking The Invisible Knapsack”, Peggy McIntosh puts forth a few “ privileges” that whites enjoy on a daily basis but are absent to minorities among them are: 1. I can, if I wish, arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.

2. If I should need to move, I Can be pretty sure Of renting or purchasing housing in an area that I can afford and in which I would want to live. 00 3.

I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me. 4. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed. DC 5. Can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented. ;[] 6.

When I am told about our national heritage or bout civilization, I am shown that people of my color made it what it is. 7. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.