Privilege

Yes, completely, white people, especially white males have privileges that others do not, but I thought this was explained much better in the environmental racism chapter (I believe chapter 3) than in this article. The article stated that there are often many more contributing factors than race to the white privilege and I feel like "From The Ground Up" really hit on them. There is still segregation in our country, which usually keeps not white people suppressed financially. In our capitalist society, no money usually equals SOL.

I do think the article made some good points for a short article I was just expecting it to seem a little more profound...

And although I know that the points brought up were the most common situation around the United States, I found myself questioning a lot of points. I grew up in Queens, NY, which I believe may actually be the most diverse place in the world. I went to elementary school being one of the only white people. In middle school I was one of three white girls in a mainly latin american student body. My kindergarden teacher was black... after that I had mostly white teachers.

Once I was told by a "good" friend that I had only gotten an A in a class because I was white. I was really offended because I worked really hard in that class... but maybe she was right on a much deeper level than she realized.

I guess this article was a little hard to read because I don't want to be that subconsciously racist white person, but I guess I kind of will be until I start taking real action to help mitigate the negative effects on others from my privilege.

But we have to think about how white privilege works. The united states is mostly white people. As far as I know (and I could just be being completely ignorant), white being the main race is not caused by underlying racism. There is going to be a minority of people no matter where one goes.

So the attitude of the culture needs to change towards minorities. Minorities should be embraced and respected into the culture they are entering, and not just because they are a minority... and they shouldn't have to represent their race either. They should be embraced because they are a human being.

I don't think the bandage issue raised in the article was so terrible. Less people equals less demand. Yes flesh bandages should come in every color, but one also has to be realistic.... right.... ugh I don't know.

I think white privilege is more a cultural attitude problem than it is a factual problem, if that statement makes any sense. The fact is, yes there is affirmative action, but there was slavery and there is still racism, so why shouldn't there be an effort to balance out the injustices toward black people? And why should they be looked down upon for being helped out when most of their race has been put at an extreme disadvantage and white people have always had a power advantage? (Maybe my comment above wasn't quite true because people's attitudes effect facts of society...)

I think that in a predominantly white country, mathematically it is more probable to find a white person in any position, and I don't think that should be a bad thing... Of course, white people have gone over their fair share of probability in power positions for the number of people belonging to other races in our country, but when we talk about privilege if there were more black people in charge than whites, that would show that black people were superior in someway to have been able to outnumber the power positions in a predominantly white society.

I think once again this points to a flawed power system. People in power need to get off their high horses and realize they did not earn their privilege and that they need to make an effort to make things more racially fair. People also need to be more racially aware. A lot of black people don't act the same as white people. I think it would be stupid to assume that, but a lot of white people don't act like a lot of other white people. So, people need to accept each other for their differences and try really hard not to pass negative or delegitimizing judgements on people. We need to work together so that everyone gets what everyone needs, and it has to come from the people. If its not in the people's hearts it will never come true. There will still be institutionalized racism until people try to come together to make things truly just.