Yenny Dominguez

Yenny Dominguez.

White Privilege

White privilege is a concept that had been present in our society for a long time. It had been a virus that our society had created and that is still present in our daily lives. Many people defined or think of it as opportunities that are only giving to white people based only on their skin color. For instances the role of white privilege in the lives of people of my social network is very visible, even doubt all of them have experienced it in a different level. By doing this interview I realized that within the Latino community the effect of white privilege is something that all of us have experience in different levels. In which white privilege becomes not only a concept of race but within the Latino community those that are whites or that have lighter skin colors tend to feel less the white privilege and had pass and achieve the white privilege more easier than those that have darker skin color. How they look outside had gave society permission to categorized them as white. Making those Latinos that are white such as my friend that I interview for this paper more favorable to achieve the white privilege. This is why even if we all belong to the same ethnic groups, there are people that have better chance to pass and it had have an effect on how they perceived white privilege. Perhaps those that tend to have darker skin color have to work double not only because of their ethnicity but also because of their skin color. White privilege as a social institution impacts individual identities because those that mostly denied of those privileges had to work even harder in order to obtain even a small portion of it. They have to work even harder in order to get a better education, in order to success and in order to progress in life. They had to fight even more for something that should be a right for them.

The three people that I interview were the following; Two of my best friends (one which have a lighter complexion and the other which have a darker complexion) and my aunt (which have a darker complexion). I mention their complexion because it is based on their skin color and how they had been treated by it that they had supported their opinions about white privilege. Even doubt all of them agreed with the idea that white privilege exist, there were some that saw it in more negative way than others. My friend who had lighter complexion believe that white privilege exist but she didn’t saw it as a big problem as the other two did. In which in one of her response she mentions the following “ We sometimes don’t know or don’t acknowledge white privilege until we become the target individuals of the white privilege.” Even doubt she acknowledge that she was Latina and didn’t hide it, people most of the time never question her identity because for them she looks white, therefore nobody question her identity or ethnicity. For her white privilege wasn’t that much a big deal compare to the other two people that I interview because she wasn’t stereotyped that much compare to the other two people that I interview. They all speak of white privilege in different ways, where my friend who have dark skin saw it as something very difficult to eradicate because as he mentions “ As long as we have differences of any type and power, there will always be someone or some group marginalized and there will always be people that benefit more than others from those advantages.” I agree with his view in the sense that in order to eradicate white privilege first we need to eradicate our social structure because as long as there are people on top and people on the bottom those that have more power will always marginalized those that are on the bottom. White privilege had serve as that, in which it have maintain those that are in power more in power and it serves to maintain those that are on the bottom in the same position. White privilege blocked people of color from progress and success, therefore it serves as a way to maintain the marginalized group in the same position. On the other hand my aunt also believed that white privilege exists but she saw the eradication of white privilege as something that could be eradicate as long as we gave opportunities to other groups to success. She saw it in a more positive way and believe that someday this will happen. We can observed here that even if we belong to the same ethnic group our ideas can be very different based on our own experienced.

At the end based on the information obtained from this interview and based on my own assumptions, white privilege will keep consuming our society as long as we keep ignoring the issues and blaming minorities for their own situation. Nobody choose to be born into disparities, those disparities are created by men itself. Therefore if they are created by men that means that we can also eradicate them but that will only be possible when we acknowledge it, when we change our ideals about race and started becoming more open minder to diversity. It is our own ideologies that prohibited us to advanced, as long as we don’t change our ideologies about race then nothing can’t be done to eradicate white privilege. It is a process that need to start first inside in order to truly be manifested outside.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 2nd, 2012 at 4:51 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.