Thesis on "White Privilege Understanding and Acknowledging My Own"
Thesis 4 pages (1227 words) Sources: 2
[EXCERPT] . . . .
White PrivilegeUnderstanding and Acknowledging My Own White Privilege in the Context of a Racially Imbalanced United States
Few would disagree that American history has been marked by periods and events that demonstrate severe intolerance towards others for a variety of reasons. Sexual orientation is a common cause for divisiveness and even the loss of certain rights and privileges enjoyed by other citizens of this country, most notably marriage and rights of kinship. Women have also been denied some of the basic rights of citizenship; it has been less than a century that the women of this country have been allowed to vote, and there are still measurable discrepancies in the rates women are paid and in the positions they hold in business and politics. There are also, of course, other major factors that were cause at one time or another for a designation as a second class citizen or even sub-human entity both in general cultural practice and official law here in the United States.
Immigrants have generally been the recipients of much of this ill will, at various times Irish, Jewish, and Italian immigrants -- and the native-born generations that followed -- were all among the most hated aspects of American society. But these groups all had something in common that in general has enabled them to assimilate, and has allowed their descendants in the modern era to "choose" their ethnicity. Though the Irish, Jews, and Italians that immigrated here might have considered themselves very different from each other, they were all white. As languages and modes of dress and behavior evened out, it became less possible to distinguish between these groups and "true Am
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African-Americans and other people of color in this country do not have the advantage of being able to blend in merely by changing their ways of behaving over time. Their skin color automatically marks them as different than the dominant class, and this forces them into a racially identity that whites do not have to contend with. Though a white person might choose to identify as Irish, or German, or Jewish, or quite possibly all three, any or all of these identifications would arise out of choice. When an individual doesn't have a choice of how to identify or be identified, they are put into the position of being forced to identify in a certain way based on the expectations and perspective of those they are dealing with. this puts them at an automatic personal disadvantage, which certainly helps to perpetuate their practical disadvantages as well.
This is not an issue that can necessarily be solved simply by everyone learning how to get along, tolerate, or accept other ethnicities. These solutions can deal with overt and conscious racism, and though it is almost certainly impossible to truly eradicate this type of racism such efforts can make a good deal of progress. But the type of racism being discussed here is inherent to the pattern of development that occurred in this country, as white privilege was consolidated by increasing influxes of white immigrants who, though initially mistrusted, were eventually accepted into the symbolically free and open category of "white Americans." As this occurs, the outer "outside" and "other" group delineations became more pronounced, to the point that even efforts at inclusion necessarily denote the supposed difference between races.
There is no small amount of irony in the fact that efforts on the part of the privileged class to assist, engage with,… READ MORE
Quoted Instructions for "White Privilege Understanding and Acknowledging My Own" Assignment:
“Read the article by MAry Watrers on symbolic ethnicity and the essay by Peggy McIntosh on white privilege (they will be faxed and these articles only). Then write about the concepts of choice and privilege in the context of being white in the United States, and given what you've learned so far this semester. Some questions to consider: Who gets to choose their race and or ethnicity? Does everybody have equal choice? Can you think of privileges that might accompany the ability to have symbolic ethnicity? HAve you seen examples of white privilege in your daily life, or been advantaged because your were white? What privileges might other racial or ethnic groups have that exclude whites?
I am a white middle class male who grew up in the suburbs of New Jersey. I attend an all male CAtholic high school that was ranked 5 in the country and very expense more expensive then some colleges. I was luck my parents were able to afford it. About 5 of my class mates were brought in from the inner city and were minority and under privileged. *****
How to Reference "White Privilege Understanding and Acknowledging My Own" Thesis in a Bibliography
“White Privilege Understanding and Acknowledging My Own.” A1-TermPaper.com, 2009, https://www.a1-termpaper.com/topics/essay/white-privilege-understanding-acknowledging/58340. Accessed 3 Jul 2024.
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