Racism
Racism has a variety of characteristics that make it inherently a terrible ism. Racism is caused by domination and power of one group of people over another. One of the most common examples of racism would be white privilege in comparison with the daily hardships and struggles that people of color encounter. White privilege is a privilege that is awarded to whites based on the color of their skin. White privilege is an innate characteristic that allows one that is white accessibility to all facets of life and to never allow oneself to encounter situations where ones skin color would deny access or disadvantage. As a white male in society I never can say that I have encountered any form of racism because of being part of the normal dominate class, racism never affected my life. In America the norm is "male, white, able bodied, heterosexual, Christian, and has access to wealth and resources." (Pharr, p. 7) For most of these descriptions I am the norm. The problem is that I do not attempt to execute my unfortunate inherent "power" of domination over anyone. For one to assert power and domination over a class of people than racism will occur. There is no such thing as a race of people, because "race is an arbitrary and m
eaningless concept" (Rivers, p. 2). Race does not exist among human beings because "if there ever was any such thing as race, there has been so much constant crisscrossing of genes for the last 500,000 years that it would have lost all meaning anyway" (Rivers, p.2). White privilege is something that will never go away. If the norm in society continues to be classified as "white", then one can expect to still be afforded privileges for being of that particular skin type. The racism that follows with white privilege will systematically continue. People have to realize that there is no such thing as being white, but the privileges that are afforded to this skin type are rampant. However, one should not feel guilty for being of a certain skin color, because obviously no one chooses what color that they would prefer to be. Individuals need to be socially conscious of their surroundings and attempt to not tolerate the societal and cultural norms that breed racism. Individuals of all colors need to work towards attempting to abolish blatant racism and "accept responsibility when it is appropriate, and actively work for change" (Rivers, p2)! As stated at the beginning, white privilege is a clear example of invisible racism. The privilege is invisible because white people do not think on
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Approximate Word count = 877
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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