Pre-Reading Week 4

To me, privilege can be defined in two ways. The first way I look at privilege is something that you can work hard for and receive, like health care through your company after working for 6 months. Second I see privilege as something you do not work for, but rather it is handed to you, for example if you come from a family that can pay for you to go to college and you don’t have to work for tuition. Either way, I guess someone had to work hard at one point in order for that privilege to be passed down.

In today’s society, I see people of lighter skin color as being privileged. I also different privileges among people of classes, if you are considered to be that of high class because of the amount of money you make per year, you are offered more privilege in areas of health care, living in certain areas, and affording name brand clothes. In retrospect, if you are considered middles class, you basically, nowadays, looked at as lower class because of the gap between middle and lower class is almost no longer existent. Back then though, maybe about ten years, to be middle class was average and you were pretty at par with everything. Privileges were given to the middles class, but just not as fast as they were given to the higher class.

In my opinion, White privilege stems from the idea that if you are of lighter skin or considered “white” you are more pure and worth more. To me, it’s an idea of white people receiving things because they are of purity and say people of color having to work for it.

Just going off the two words of structure and unequal, structural Inequality sounds more like unfairness based on society issues rather than individual, referring to the idea that more people of color live in poorer neighborhoods than those who are not.

Then, the words advantage and disadvantage bring about two different definitions. Advantage means you have at least one thing above the next person. For example, when applying for a job and all you have is a high school diploma and your opponent has a high school diploma and a Bachelor’s degree, it is like which one will most likely get the job, the one with more. The person who only has a high school diploma then finds themselves at a disadvantage, or something less than their opponent.

When it comes to people of color being racist, I say absolutely, and in my view it is mostly within the race. I can say from experience, especially with my elders that they always have to say about Mexicans, even though we are Mexican. I think it comes from the idea of you can say things about your own race and it is ok, but when you talk about someone elses, it is not okay. It is almost like a hidden rule, but not so hidden.

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