Sociology Factors

“Privilege is a set of unearned benefits given to people who fit into a specific social group”.

For instance, white people or people who have privilege, meaning that they have a career and a job, are privileged. On the other hand, there are a lot of disadvantaged population that won’t have the opportunity to live as their white folks. Disadvantaged population can be a minority of Whites, African-American, Hispanic and other minorities that didn’t developed the tools and skills to compete with a privileged population. For instance, the educational system is one encourages privilege and disadvantage separating the population more and more, creating a culture of acceptance and low skills as a norm among

Privilege is an unfair distribution in which a particular group, goods, services and equity ratio is higher than another group.

In the chapter, Jim was white, tall male, he got football scholarships to go to college. Being a white tall male is a privilege. It made it so easy for Jim to work hard and get to higher potions in his career and make more money. When there could have been a white woman or a Black male that work as hard as Jim but did not get higher positions or higher payment as Jim. From the reading, I understood that it is difficult for non-privilege people to be where Jim is at. Because they are not as privileged as Jim. Privilege people would have to work twice or more than twice as hard than privileged people to show their leaders or bosses that they are capable of being in charge.

Thesis: In the United States, racial privilege affects societies everywhere. It especially has a large effect on young adults, such as those in the workforce, because it prevents them from obtaining and reaching their preferred professions.

White privileges is a phrase for societal privileges that benefit anyone identifies as white. For example. Those who aren’t white are treated unfairly they are always thought of as the underclass when whites are given the upper class because of their race. Whites have a hard time understanding that they have the privilege because they do not live the struggles other are living.

What other ways can privilege be identified with besides race and socioeconomic classes? With that, how do these ways that you listed interconnect with one another (for example, how can race privilege connect with socioeconomic class privilege, et cetera)?

Privilege creates dominance and dominance creates prejudice. A privilege is a benefit generally in wealth and social status, which is only given to a person or group. People who have privilege holds the capability to achieve what they desire because they have more freedom and access to resources they need such as, education. People have rights usually fall into believing that they are in control, and powerful than others, therefore resulting in segregation, disparity, and unfairness. Furthermore, prejudice is opinions of people or individual without reasonable feelings, knowledge, and thought especially of a hostile environment regarding an ethnic, social, racial, or religious group.

“Privilege.” What really is a privilege? Do you even consider yourself privileged? Well, the word “privilege” means “a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people” and whether or not you consider yourself privileged really depends on how you define the word and whether you take it for granted or not.

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.

This article provides a comparison of thorough privileges, economical standpoints and class politics, which can be altered by intersections of identities. Especially when speaking of gender, racial, class, political, and class differences. Privilege can never be earned; it is simply a chance at birth. If you are not born with it, you will never achieve it. Privileged should be considered an unfair advantage among a social, economical, and political context.

Monahan (2014), stated privilege is understanding in relation to some corresponding form of oppression. The concept of privilege can be amplify in other areas such as gender, class and heterosexual privilege. For example, when it comes to gender privilege, men may get offered more money than women or get a better position. When it comes to heterosexual privilege, we still have some states that do not recognized same sex marriages and it is difficult to obtain their spouse pension or have issues with health insurances.

Conversely, if people on whom privilege is conferred do not act on it to benefit from it, in my view it is a though they don’t have the privilege.

During this investigation I seek to explore the differences in privilege that males and females, of different race and ethnic backgrounds, experiences in their daily lives. My fellow Sociology of Race and Ethics classmates and I will conduct Peggy McIntosh’s White Privilege survey, in hopes to find any differences in privilege felt by individuals of varying age, gender, race or class membership.

Some social behaviors are so ingrained in people’s day to day lives that they would never notice them unless they were pointed out. One such behavior that is so often overlooked is the preferential treatment that certain groups receive over others. The privileges of the dominate social groups over the subordinate ones go so unnoticed at times that they are even seen as just innately how things should be. In the contemporary society of the United States, the group with these privileges is often White males, and the majority of them would disagree about that statement. Surprisingly, the group that gets the most treatment feels the most abused. This only highlights the obliviousness accompanying those to which this invisible power belongs. However, each person, at one point, has been advantaged over another without realizing it.