Privilege And Entitlement Of A Dominant Group

Privilege and oppression are concepts that provides clarification on people’s experience. They both contribute to intersectionality which explain notion that people’s perspectives and experiences differ in term of the categories of identity. Each person may experience privilege and/ or oppression from institutional structures depending on their situations. It mean that systems of privilege and oppression can intersect and a person could experience privilege and oppression simultaneously. These systems are influence by the micro level and micro level of people’s lives and experiences. Privilege, oppression, and intersectionality affect people’s experiences of key social issues, such as rape culture and beauty norms and appearance standards. These issue will be discussed in this essay.

As an individual with an eclectic variety of European descent, I have experienced white privilege. White privilege, prevalent in Western countries like the United States, is a societal structure that puts those who are non-white at a political and sometimes economic disadvantage. Many who do not face these negative experiences are not made aware of the effects white privilege has on their life, unfortunately. Having grown up in Los Angeles, I naively thought I was well versed in racial injustice. It wasn't until I met my partner, and made a deep connection with an individual whose life is negatively affected by the same privilege that benefits me that I began to understand. By sharing their experiences as a non-white citizen of this country,

When the issue of disproportionality is seen with a critical eye, one that is attuned to the socio-political history of African-descended people in this country, the connection with institutional racism becomes immediately obvious. Profoundly, America is organized by race, with the dominant group (Caucasians) using different instruments of supremacy to maintain power and racial privilege. One such instrument is education. Knowledge is power, as one's potential or abilities in life are maximized with

My people regard themselves to being committed and having faith in a particular religion, but what does this mean exactly? To some people, it’s this expectation to take this leap into the unbelievable and if they didn’t they would be criticized or perhaps in less developed regions executed. Apprehension towards God is simply not even a question in some of these regions since their lives depend on it. With reasons like this, it seems to me that religion in itself is a sham to create this false sense of entitlement to the world as well as an unfair hope of an afterlife, so to me I can’t believe in faith based religion. In theory much like love, faith is this grand idea that someone could love something for no apparent reason other than to just to be infatuated with it. This couldn’t be farther from the truth though as no one in this world does something for nothing. There is always a motive to any one person’s actions whether for greed or self-comfort. It’s also possible that I have the whole idea wrong, since I’ve never been able to remove this discomfort that there is nothing more to life than to just be here.

In this country, a college education is still vital. For many first generation students it makes the difference between continued poverty or the means of a much improved life. Yet once these students reach the campus of the typical Historically Black Colleges and Universities they are likely to be faced with what might seem like an impenetrable wall of resistance in the form of classist practices commonly found at must universities. As Fulwood (2012) suggests that in order to counteract classism, changes must be made in the systems which perpetuate it. Some of these systems mentioned earlier are the media, “White Privilege”, the economic system, government, and education institutions themselves. We must look at those policies,

Privilege applies to certain people who benefit more than other people in the same social, political or economic spaces (Henderson, L., week 1, 2014). Somebody might be privileged only because that person is wealthier or more powerful compared to the others. Privilege is an advantage enjoyed only by a person beyond the advantages of most. “Privilege is expressed as an advantage based on status or rank that is used to maintain status quo” (Collins, J., et al., 2011). Privilege can applies to different concept, such as male privilege, white privilege and heterosexual privilege, all of which have implications for education. Although it is still taboo, with evolution, we have come far and we are now starting to accept equality between men and women, white and black and starting to acknowledge heterosexual.

In systems of oppression, power accrues to those who most closely approximates the mythical norm in the US which include: male, white, heterosexual, financially stable, young-middle adult, able-bodied, and Christian. Power is typically defined as the ability to coerce another’s behavior and also includes access to social, political, and economic resources. Power can bring unequal distribution of tasks and rewards such as starting salary, resources, such as time off for research or start-up funds/travel funds, research assistance, and service expectations. Unfortunately, I do not know what it is to have power and quite frankly, I may not ever know because of my race and cultural background.

Shamus Khan’s book Privilege looks at the boarding school of St. Paul’s and the lifestyle, mindset and actions of the students that come out of it. We saw privilege manifest itself in multiple ways. One of those ways involved gender, looking at the girls who were forced to follow strict clothing rules all to the benefit of the male students. He touches upon class and the discussion of the old elite (exclusion) vs. New Elite (Inclusion). In the end, Khan notes, “ I would like to think it is my wits that resulted in my job at an Ivy League university. But there is more to the story…”(198). While Khan lays the book out to show the reader how privilege seeps thru all parts of life, I think it can be argued that people like to vocally accept the notion of privilege, but do not truly believe it is the reason behind their success.

Whenever this course began, I was fully aware of white privilege, racism and sexism. What I did not realize was there are many other types of privilege and isms, and these things could impact someone’s life. I had never considered the fact that I have heterosexual privilege. While a few people may not approve of my boyfriend and I because our skin color is not the same, we have never once been discriminated against because he is a man and I am a woman. That is something we do not ever have to think about and yet those that are gay may have to defend the right to love who they love daily. Another thing I had not thought about was the fact that I never have to think about whether I can get in and out of a building. There are people that are

Innocence. The first presumption associated with dominant privilege is innocence (Cullinan, 1999). In contrast, people of a non-dominant culture may be assumed to be guilty because someone of their non-dominant culture was guilty in the past (Cullinan, 1999). In my education, I have been given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to innocence. In high school, my school library was having a problem with students stealing library books. As I was leaving the library one week, the alarm went off, but the librarian did not bother to check my backpack. Instead, she waived me on and assumed I was innocent because I am a small, blonde, white girl. She assumed that I would not be the culprit of stealing library books based on my appearance. On the other hand, she might have reacted differently if I was an African-American boy in this situation. The stereotypes and biases associated with non-dominant cultures strip people from receiving the same treatment (Cullinan, 1999).

Oppression occurs from the systemic existence of unearned entitlement and advantage for certain groups of people in societies (RWL 408). This notion contradicts what many are taught to believe: that power and disadvantage are awarded based on individual merit. It perpetuates the myth of meritocracy, that people deserve what they get—that those in power earned it fairly instead of based on their societal positions (RWL 407). As our readings point out, both white people and heterosexual people are systemically conferred privilege, though they work to remain ignorant of their power and maintain the myth of meritocracy (RWL 409-410). At the same time, oppression has become a diluted word, normally standing in for any form of “human limitation

Privilege always occurs at the expense of others. Allan Johnson states, “The trouble we’re in privileges some groups at the expense of others. It creates a yawning divide in levels of income, wealth, dignity, safety, health, and quality of life” (Johnson 7). Allan Johnson states this in Chapter 1 of his book Privilege, Power and Difference and it is one of the most powerful statements in the whole book. Privilege creates a great divide between people. This can have a negative lasting effect, if not under control. Society has divided people into two groups: superior and inferior. The superior groups are the ones that are privileged in society and the inferior ones are ones that are

Look at the suburban white school, and one will see the tragedy of white privilege. It is unfair that these suburban schools have brand new, shiny facilities, equipment, and learning tools as compared to the crumbling fortresses of the early Twentieth Century that are extremely expensive to renovate and maintain, and also beat up sports equipment and ancient computers. So many inner city school kids are robbed of their right to an excellent education. The wealthier suburban school districts tell their students that, since they perform better academically and on standardized tests, they are effectively “better” than their inner-city counterparts. And the inner-city districts tell their students that, since their report

I connected how these racial groups are treated to Domination and Subordination. In our reading it said that “some people or groups are defined as unequal by means of what sociologists call ascriptions… Criteria may be race, sex, class, nationality, religion, or other characteristics ascribed at birth” (pg 110). Black people, Middle Eastern Muslims, and Hispanic people are discriminated against because of their ascriptions. They are seen as the subordinates and white people see themselves as dominates. The passage also stated that, “There is no assumption that the goal of the unequal relationship is to end the inequality” (pg 110). The dominates do not strive to level the playing field and have equal privilege. Instead of doing that, they deny

Sociologists view power as a system of stratification that is based its ability to direct another person’s behavior, honor and prestige, which most of the times leads to patterns of social inequality. From this perspective, inequality means who gets what, how they get whatever they need, and why they need it in the first place (Diez, 2013). Power can either lead to social equality or inequality. In order to explain this in detail, the author of this paper explains two incidences, the first one in which the author was in power and the second one in which the author was a perpetrator of discrimination.