4-A-3+Group+A

=Home > Activity 4-A-3: White Privilege > Group A=

Instructions:

 * 1) Click the **Edit** tab in the upper-right corner.
 * 2) Use the Summary area below to collaborate with your group to create your summary of the connections between white privilege, the colorblind perspective, and social dominance theory.
 * 3) Press **Save** on the Editor bar.


 * Note:** You don't need to sign your work or indicate which sections you contributed; your facilitator can see your contributions in the history of the page. ‍‍Your group summary should demonstrate your collaboration rather than being a collection of unconnected individual ideas. ‍‍When your group decides that the summary is finished, have one group member remove "(Draft)" below so your facilitator will know that it is ready for review.

Summary
Peggy McIntosh addresses many priviliges that Whites have in our society. These priviliges are unearned and are available to Whites just because of the color of their skin. Many Whites are unaware that such priviliges even exist and the impact that they have on minorities. Sherry stated that these are the 5 that stood out to me from the article, which stand out to me because they affect how I feel about where I live which also affects my life: 4. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed 5. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widelyrepresented. 9. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can cut my hair. 20. I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children’s magazines featuring people of my race. 21. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, or feared.

According to John Marc, first, "I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time." This stands out to me because I feel as though I live my life with people who are very much like me in terms of skin color and socioeconomic status. Due to this, I feel a little out of place when I am in a group of people where I am the minority in terms of race. In reality, people who are not White in our country feel this often. Secondly, "I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race." This stands out to me because in American schools, outside of the month of February for African-Americans, I feel as though we do a poor job of including other culture's achievements and contributions to our country. The heavy focus on the contributions of Whites in some ways makes it feel as though other races are non-existant or at least less important. This affects my life because I believe we are creating a cycle of cultural ignorance by the methods we use in our schools to approach this topic. Another one of McIntosh's statements I could relate to was "I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured I will not be followed or harassed." This stands out to me because I have witnessed African-Americans shopping alone in the same store I am and being followed by employees as if they are expected to try to steal something. This affects me because it is a sad reminder that something visible, like skin color, overshadows the invisible, a person's character. "I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having coworkers on the job suspect that I got it because of race" is another one of McIntosh's priviliges for Whites that stood out to me. As a White male, this is even truer. I often felt that it was unfair that a person was hired for affirmative action reasons if a White person had better qualifications. I thought the more qualified applicant should always be selected. Learning more in this class, I realize that is my White bias speaking out. A final statement from McIntosh that stood out to me was "I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to "the person in charge," I will be facing a person of my own race." Again, as Whites, we get numb to the fact that our society is dominated by our own race and that we take this privilige for granted. This statement affects me because I just assume that this is the way it will be, and I don't take the time to think about how others in our society will feel.

Bain's Top Five

//Identify five of the privileges that Peggy McIntosh lists in her article that most stand out to you.// 11. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them. This is the one that hit me the hardest a couple of years ago when a colleague who is not white shared with me that they cannot arrange this for their children so that they have to teach them how to respond to those that are not appropriately behaved toward them when we were doing a line up activity based upon this article. I thought about how I define part of my role as a mother as their protector and how I might feel that I was a failure. This person's response to teach her children about it concretely so that they would understand how to respond was wise but it is tragic that some parents have to teach their children about what to do when someone doesn't treat them well so as not to make the situation worse. 14. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race. Thinking about this leads me back to the times in which I have worked so hard to learn something new or to complete a huge project. I guess I would be offended that my work was not seen as mine, but rather as a result of my race or that it was exceptional because of my race and not because of the work. 17. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider. This has become clear to me as different people discuss the upcoming election and when they have discussed the 2008 election. Because President Obama is African American, there are those who believed that would be reason enough for other African Americans to follow him and vote for him. As well, in my group of friends, we have very challenging conversations from very different perspectives about politics and the state of our country. I would be very offended if someone reduced my ideas or stances to my race alone. 20. I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children’s magazines featuring people of my race. As I recently watched the Doll Experiment played out on the documentary it became so real just how young our children understand the racial reality in our country. I wonder how children in other nations would respond, especially those African children who grew up in a majority non-white population. Regardless, the reality for these children is not just. 2. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area, which I can afford and in which I would want to live. My husband and I are constantly toying with the idea of moving our home so that they can go to my school. Because of this, we are always trolling for homes in the area closer to my school. If our reality was such that we need to be concerned about whether or not we would be welcome I am pretty certain that we would not move there. We have also had many new neighbors move into our community recently. Last week my husband noticed that a family was looking at the house across the street and after they finished looking inside they stood on the lawn talking for a long time, seemingly deliberating about coming over and speaking to him. Instead, he walked over and introduced himself. When I came out of the house, he introduced me and explained that the family had just gotten back from India and is considering buying the home across the street. They were excited to see that we had children and asked a number of questions about the neighborhood and the schools. As I read the article this week, I thought about this family and whether they might have been wanting to be certain that they and their children would be welcome. I can only hope that we made them feel comfortable as we answered their questions and talked about the kids playing together. Peggy McIntosh's theories of White privilege directly relates to the colorblind perspective. In the colorblind perspective, Whites take the approach of not even acknowledging or wanting to talk about different races for fear of being considered a racist. In this approach, they actually believe it is better to not talk about it at all than to talk about it openly and honestly. This avoidance approach actually complicates things in many ways. One example of the way that colorblindness complicates this is that it makes talking about race and identifying differences, even difference in power dynamics, taboo. This creates a situation in which we can never deal with these differences and their effects on the disadvantaged population. In some ways, it can actually strengthen the idea of White privilege.
 * Summary**

Related to this is Howard's theory of social dominance. In this theory, the "hegemonic groups" or those that are disproportionately represented at higher positions of authority are placed there due to a series of events throughout history. In our society, the White culture would be an example. Social dominance also states that the preferences given to these groups are "invevitable, immutable, and universal in human experience" (36). As McIntosh states, Whites tend to not even think about the positions of status they hold. They just expect them, as they have been passed down from generation to generation with little thought about why or the consequences of such decisions.

The idea stated above of the expectations of the white race, leads us to the question, how do we change the ideas of colorblind and social dominance? "White multicultural awareness must be mediated through actual engagement with "the other""(38). When we step back we can start to become aware of the other cultures. If we look at the what McIntosh states, "I can, if I wish, arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time." This significantly ‍‍‍fits ‍‍‍ something we all feel comfortable doing but, "authentic engaement with the reality of those whose stories are significantly different from our own can allow us transcend, to some degree, the limits of social positionality and help us see dominance in a clearer light"(39).

Each of our chosen five quotes, bar one, is unique, yet they all deal with the same reality that our privilege is invisible to us the majority of the time. Two of us chose the quote, "I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children’s magazines featuring people of my race." It is clear that McIntosh's observations and reasoning led us all to a new perspective of how our whiteness plays a role in our unearned privilege. A role that many of us were unaware even existed.