Blog #4 White Privilege

This week I read two articles:  "Why Talk About Whiteness?  We Can't Talk About Racism Without it?" by Chiarello and a piece of "The Unexamined Whiteness of Teaching:  How White Teachers Maintain and Enact Dominant Racial Ideaologies" by Picower.

Both readings provided more fuel to my understanding of White Privilege.  It also provoked me to ask my children some questions.  First, I will state the fact that I am white.  My children are white.  This means, by race, we are a White Privileged family.

I grew up in the 70's and 80's.  This is when I went to public school in the Northeast.  I grew up in the Middle class.  In my learnings in Elementary School, Middle School, High School, and College (graduating in 1993) there was no teaching of the term White Privilege.  I do remember learning about Slavery; not too much about the Civil Rights movement.  It was not included in my history curriculum.

My children are 22, 20, and 19.  My son is 22.  He has a high school education but has always been interested in history beyond the high school curriculum and constantly is reading about history and watching documentaries.  My 20 and 19 year olds are girls.  History is not their forte.  My 20 year old has had some College classes, but is on a break from them.  My 19 year old is a Sophomore at URI; going to school for Education.

I decided to ask each of my children separately what they knew of White Privilege.  My son answered: "Ma, it's that the Whites have created a society that provides opportunities for only Whites and suppresses opportunities for all other races especially blacks.  It's ridiculous."  I chimed in about Columbus and how he brought the slaves to the United States and that is where it started.  He added by using the term:  "manifest destiny."  I didn't know what he meant:

But, after he explained, I said, yes, you are absolutely right.  I said even today, the standardized tests are created for Middle Class White Students from the NorthEast.  If you do not fit into that classification, you are meant to fail the test.  He was disgusted but knew of this and said "exactly."  

Then I asked my daughters.  My 20 year old (about to be 21) is a Mom and her boyfriend is Dominican.  They took their baby to the hospital ER and he dropped her off at the door.  Julia explained, "when I was there, there was a Hispanic girl standing next to me with her baby and a woman came up to me and said "your baby is so cute." and she ignored the other girl."  Julia mentioned this to her boyfriend who said "She said that to you and not the other girl because you are White."  She went on to explain that White Privilege to her is about the inequalities of the treatment of white kids versus black kids.  She said "if there were two college boys who were accused of Raping a girl, one black and one white, the white kids would get off with a lesser charge or the charge would go away because this blemish on his record would ruin his future career."  She said "the black boy who had an equal crime would get the maximum sentence for the crime and deal with the consequences. "

So I found this when I googled "white privilege in young men".  Julia was close:  

Then, I asked my youngest:  Kayla, who is going to College at URI for Education.  She said, "Mommy, we learned about this in my Gender Roles Class."  She said "White Privilege is that Society is biased towards the success of White men." She said that "even the height of how door knobs are constructed is to benefit the White Man."  She said "anyone who is not a White Man, is not privileged.'  She furthered by explaining if you are handicapped, you can't access buildings or homes just anywhere, but if you are not handicapped you can.  She said that "job opportunities are more available for White Men."  She gave an example that if "you had sent a resume in for a job and there was a girl named Samantha who applied for a job and a girl named Sam, then Sam would probably get called back first because it could be a boys name."  So her thoughts (based on her Gender Studies class) formulated her definition of White Privilege to be based on Gender and Race.  I then talked to her about what I was learning.  She said, that makes sense.

I just thought this was interesting.  As I said, I grew up in the 70's and 80's and am just learning about White Privilege now.  Even though all three of my young adult children had different depths of knowledge or thoughts around White Privilege; they have more of an awareness than I did at their age; they are 25 years ahead of me on this topic.  I point this out because it gives me the message, that Society is changing.

One more point:  I heard the message in the reading of  "The Unexamined Whiteness of Teaching:  How White Teachers Maintain and Enact Dominant Racial Ideologies" by Picower.  I think the movement is in the right direction.  I am concerned about the statement that more Black people should be brought into teaching.  Opportunities should be made available for any person who feels driven to teach to have the opportunity.  Also, I am glad that they furthered this statement by stating if they do recruit more Black people to teach Black students, then they too need to be educated about White Privilege so they do not reveal it with their biases and experiences.  My caution with this is:  are they suggesting segregation?  And that white people should educate White People?  

What I think is long overdue is our Social Studies Curriculum in the school system.  I think our Common Core Standards need to teach about White Privilege and it should be tracked (in this curriculum) over time.  I do feel society is moving in the right direction.