Reply To: White privilege

#42998

Rachel
Member

It is true that we live in a plutocracy and that racial tensions are exploited by the wealthy — keep poor whites angry at blacks, and keep blacks angry at all whites, and you needn’t worry that the exploited will turn on the exploiters. I am white. My mother and father both grew up in abject poverty. I grew up very poor. AT 27 years of age, I have attained a lower-middle-class lifestyle (my husband and I have one child and make 17K a year). I don’t look on my life, or my family’s history as one of priveledge — one of my grandfathers and three of my great-grandfathers died while working in the coal mines (one in Wales, the rest in the U.S.A.) Still, I believe that white privilege works in subtle ways. I have had a hard time ensuring that my daughter doesn’t absorb our culture’s message that White is the ‘norm’. Toys, books, and games do not represent multicultural America. (Though children’s books have come a long way.) Also, we see Black people in low-prestige, low-wage jobs more often than in high-wage jobs. The opposite is true of Whites. For example, the janitors at my apartment complex are all Black, but the maintenance workers and the property manager are white. My pediatrician is white, and the receptionists are black. I’ve tried to manipulate her environment to reverse this message, but the very fact that I have to make an effort points to some problems in our society. Too many people buy into the ‘us against them’ mind-set, and they pick the wrong ‘them’. When poor white people hear about ‘white privilege’ they don’t get angry at the wealthy exploiters, but at minorities, also exploited, whom they perceive as getting special privleges of their own. Minorities in America who shut the door in the faces of poor whites, assuming that they are ignorant racists, also serve the power elite. I have tried very hard to present a non-racist world to my daughter while she is very young, because once she is old enough to look about her, she will see so many people stupidly hating others for the color of their skin.

User Detail :  

Name : Rachel, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Society of Friends (Quaker), Age : 27, City : BAltimore, State : MD, Country : United States, Occupation : homemaker, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Lower middle class,