White Privilege and Male Privilege

In her piece, Peggy McIntosh deals with a very current and pressing issue that has always been a part of our society--racial issues. She writes, however, about the opposite side of racial issues. Upon a closer look at her composition, it becomes clear that she is not only making a point about race differences between black and white, that blacks suffer in the face of white "supremacy," but that whites themselves are constantly making an active effort to ensure that their race does not make them appear to behold this superior status. In addition to this, McIntosh points out that the more whites make this obvious effort to ignore the benefits of their race, the more of an issue it becomes. Essentially, it is the fact that whites do not have to think about the things blacks do, do not have to worry about or consider the details that blacks do. In this sense, privilege has a certain air of obliviousness to it; the more we do not have to think about issues such as the ones listed in McIntosh's piece, the more privileged we are. 

One interesting parallel that McIntosh makes in her piece is that of men vs. women compared to whites vs. blacks. She points out that white people do not think of their whiteness as a racial identity, just as men do not see themselves as involved in women's studies, even if they endorse the practices. For example, while there are countless men who are either neutral of or in support of the women's movement, feminism, and female empowerment overall, there are essentially no men who would ever try to lessen the power of men. Likewise, most white people have been taught and would therefore never partake in racial discrimination, but at the same time do not go out of their way to promote minority interests within their society or community. The grander idea of these two paralleled concepts results in one conclusion that there is always a more superior figure or group in the binaries of human existence; in this case, white and black, men and women, and that nobody ever looks to the other side of what is happening. Whites avoid confrontation about racial differences for fear of offending anyone, but the effort to raise black social, economic, and political status within our society is extremely lacking and also un-thought of. McIntosh illustrates this again by saying, "Obliviousness of one's privileged state can make a person or group irritating to be with."

The image of the knapsack, in which white privilege gives whites special provisions such as tools, clothes, codebooks, passports, visas, and other items brings to mind a more materialistic point of view on the subject in which the author makes it clear that the corporate and professional parts of society also contribute to the existence of white privilege. 

The seventh item in the list, "When I am told about our national heritage or about 'civilization,' I am shown that people of my color made it what it is." This detail is a hardcore one--it goes back to the beginning of our country, and American history has not always favored blacks. Futhermore, the twentieth item in the list implies that those member of the black community who are successful and professional people are "a credit to the race," something different, special, or unique. This idea is also damaging to positive racial relationships. 

In the end, the racial barriers that exist between people can be forever analyzed and considered, but it becomes more and more clear that their true meanings can never be determined, and that the privileges of a race only worsen the issue. 

Put On a Happy Face

We live in a world of color. Wherever we look, we see color. We see color and it matters.The most significant place where we see this color is in ourselves. It separates us, brings us together, makes us hate some and accept others. It always has--it is in our history as a nation. One thing I noticed while reading this composition was the authors repetition of the word "between." This to me means that there are endless connections to be made about the racial issues that we deal with each day. The excerpt "...the connection between no schools for longer than a century and bad school performances now..." shows us that there are cause and effect aspects to the way we think, for the way our society is run. This same idea can be traced back to the early history of black and white relations, to the cruel system of slavery. This is the root for our social and racial problems today, just as the lack of schools from years earlier results in poor school performances now. 

 Demott also mentions physical, verbal, and mental violence as a part of discrimination. The white man who carries the horrific board sign over his neck is threatened with weapons by a group of young black men. The white male from the movie White Men Can't Jump is protected from physical violence by his black "chum." 

Another detail is the attention and influence that race relations have in the media. This is a means through which the world attempts to ease and clarify racial differences. For instance, the Victoria's Secret ads that feature women of different races posing together, as they do in countless other film and photography clips. The question, though, is whether this effort has become so obvious that we no longer see it as a positive and all-accepting attribute. Maybe it makes a bigger deal out of it than there has to be, or already was. We must be somewhat hardwired as humans to discriminate against others--as soon as we look at something we make judgements about what it is, its value, differences and similarities to our own lives, our own appearances. Most of us automatically accept some and disown others. There is almost an obvious physical reason for the groups we form among ourselves so naturally. 

In the end, we have to recognize that there are always going to be differences between the human race; it the the very definition of what we are, that no other exists who is exactly like us. Our past is our past, and of course it will affect the future. The essence of this composition is to say that the more effort we throw into the equalizing of all races, the more obvious we make it that there will never exist such a thing as total and consuming equality.

"What You Eat"

A very valuable idea exists beneath the harsh and unforgiving characteristics of the actual story called "What You Eat." More and more, the majority of our population places no real value in food, in what it means to eat, to truly understand the connection to what we consume. We take life, harvest it, to sustain our own. Fast food chains and microwaveable meals have brought us further and further from the reality of eating food that we were once connected to. 

I grew up on the Southeastern shoreline of Connecticut in a household with a mother who went into the kitchen each night and cooked a meal from scratch for the entire family. My earliest memories consist of her rubbing the herbs and vegetables we had grown in our own garden between her fingers, smelling them, holding them out for me to taste and touch. Each evening she went to the patches and came back with tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, and peas which she rinsed with loving care. Artisan pizzas, grilled chicken, turkey burgers formed with our own hands, salads assembled from the fragile plants that grew outside our screen door sailed out of that tiny kitchen for all the years I lived at home. I never considered it when I was young, yet now I realize how much I value the knowledge of exactly what goes into our food, where it came from, and the pride and pleasure we can take in its preparation, as my mother showed us from our earliest years.

Although the story "What You Eat" is not quite so pleasant and nurturing, the same idea exists underneath it. The father teaches his young son that life has a value to it--killing another living creature is done because it is time to use its life so that you can continue living. Killing for sport is wicked, it does nothing for anyone, it teaches us nothing about the order of life, what it means to live and die. The father in the story has a cruel yet to-the-point method for teaching his young son what it means to use life in the right way. He shows him that killing things is directly connected to what you eat, that our most basic and defined animal instinct, to eat, is simple and clear-cut. No slaughterhouses, and no fast-food restaurants needed.  

 

Inferences of Observations

Observation 1: In the female brain, there are more connections between the right hemisphere (emotions, spatial reasoning) and the left hemisphere (verbal facility). In the male brain, these two hemispheres remain more separate. 

This is a scientific observation that, I believe, can be attested to in everyday life incidences. Often we hear of how women are more complicated than men, more flighty and emotional overall. I once watched some heinous television show called Tila Tequila in which a bisexual woman explained the difference between dating men and dating women. She explicitly said to the audience that women were very complex; that their expressions were hard to read, their feelings multifaceted. There was always something unsaid right under the surface. She reported, however, that men were unimaginably more simple to be in a relationship with. I believe that this observation traces a scientific explanation for this difference between men and women. (Or at least one of them.) I feel now that it is a general consensus that men are, generally speaking, more straightforward in thought and action than their female counterparts. It appears that the person making this observation discerning men and women has studied the cognitive wiring of both genders. In addition to this, the observation shows little signs of bias, simply stating the difference between mental make-ups in males and females.

Observation 2: The sidewalk is disappearing as a feature of the American residential landscape. New housing developments have them only if a township requires them of the developer.

I think that one of the main ideas we can infer from this observation is the ever-expanding obsession in our country and in the world with making our stuff absolutely huge. The size of our stuff--our houses, our cars, is how other people judge us. And the way other people, our peers, feel about us is of the utmost importance to the modern human mind. Vetoing sidewalks as part of the classical neighborhood structure adds more space for expansion of the homes within those living communities. This observation infers a certain moving away from the well-known and accepted layout of the American neighborhood. This statement also touches on the issue of safety as a regular part of residential life. No one thinks much of a sidewalk--they are simply there, people walk on them to stay out of traffic. But their absence in newer communities leaves us wondering why there are no surely safe places for pedestrians to stroll. I think that this statement implies a certain change in values of the American life, that one of the most basic structures of our society are being eliminated.

The Method

1. exact repetitions- terror x4, great/ness x2, steel x2, light x2, attack x4, rescue x2, citizens x2, business x2, intelligence x2, shattered x2, security x2, power x2, freedom x3, justi/justice x2, foundation(s) x2

2. similar repetitions (strands)-

secretaries, businessmen, business women, workers, offices

moms, dads, friends, neighbors, children

burning, fires

sadness, disbelief, anger

attacks, murder, evil, death, enemies, chaos, despicable

nation, country, America, United States

beacon, light, shining

rescued, injured

institutions, business, economy

congress, military, intelligence

citizens, people

peace, security, prayers, safety, justice, defend, freedom, law

3. binary oppositions-

tonight/today/tomorrow

men/women

moms/dads

peace/evil

great/despicable

shadow/beacon, light

worst/best

strangers/friends

local/world

thanks/condemning

friends/enemies

4. The two most important of each:

repetitions- foundations. This category has both figurative and literal meanings within the contact of GWB's post 9/11 speech. The pride of our country is and always has been focused almost entirely on the building blocks on which it was created and established. The United States has pride; we fought for our freedom and the justice and life privileges that we have today--the very things that make us who we are, what we stand for. The foundations on which  America was built also involve all other aspects of the democracy on which our nation prides itself. Many of these aspects also appear in GWB's speech, and are all very emotionally effective and stirring subjects to touch on in a time of national unrest, at a time when a nation needs its leader the very most.

strands- citizens, people. The people who make up the United States are also the foundation of who we are and what our nation once was, became, and now remains today--a humane, moral, and influential world leader. It is this same attribute of our country that we must also focus on and remember in times of danger, tragedy, and national threats.

binaries- thanks/condemning

The thanks that President Bush expressed to the rescue workers and strangers who put forth the efforts to regain calm and peace within the borders of our country after September 11th showed American citizens and the rest of the world that those efforts are appreciated, that we recognize the fact that our nation has come together as a mass of strength and undying pride and support. At the same time, our leader openly grieves at what has happened while condemning those who are responsible for the acts, as well as those who harbor terrorism. In this way, our appreciation is shown, but our stance against terrorists and its enablers is made abundantly clear.

Mini

People use different voices when they talk on their cell phones than when they communicate with other people in real life. The voice they use depends on the person they are speaking to, as well as what they are discussing. It is more sing-songy and soft if they are having a conversation about a  simple and light-hearted subject with someone they know very well, whereas if the call is urgent and business-like with a coworker, their voice becomes loud and quick. People do not speak this way in face-to-face conversations with other human beings. I watched a girl outside the library who stood and picked at the brick walls of the building while she spoke absent-mindedly on the phone to her boyfriend figure. My friend Katie, who I walk by every by every morning on my way to classes in Hopwood, speaks to her mom without fail on her walk to the dorm. Phone conversations tell us much about the relationships people share with those in their lives, as well as how strong those relationships are. Alot of cell phone conversations on a college campus are quick, plan-making chit-chat between friends who are trying to meet up for the night. Cell phone conversations mold to their environment; a girl who was surrounded by her friends on the upper level of Schewel Hall spoke to her mom in a bratty and dismissive manner which she hoped her friends would approve of. She looked around several times to see if any of her friends noticed what she was doing.  

Thoughts

Today I would like to write about a few annoying and really very stupid concepts which I have recently chosen to take part in. The first one is hair dye and its consequences. It's a very classic case: quick and enjoyable results (granted nothing goes wrong as it did to me just now) with a fresh color, beautiful and glossy, making a statement, regenerating your entire look, the image of how you present yourself, also know as the most obvious object of human focus these days. You feel like you, except its the new you, improved, better, happier. BUT here's the thing. If it does come out horribly wrong in your opinion, well, then, you've got that to deal with. For a while. That is, unless your roommate can fix what the girl across the hall did to your hair the previous day. The next big issue is roots. Ew. Roots. Those buggers make your original and (gasp) natural and most likely fine-to-begin-with hair color look darker and more offending than ever, and there is the question, of course, as to what to do with them. How can the original magical experience of that first root-free hair dyeing experience ever be replicated now that you have these disgusting pieces of natural hair color coming out of the top of your head? Hmm? The only answer is to start again, buy a new highlighting kit from that Wal-Mart I hate so much, the box with the happy and smiling girl on it, with her perfect, root-free patrician blonde hair that will never grow out to her REAL shade. She can just go right on smiling about her hair in her little box while I suffer the consequences of being a real person, one who tried to make a change that was actually fake (rather than real) and never even worth it to begin with. I have found it to be a very vicious cycle, one I don't know how to get out of, and probably never will. Unless I go away to some remote island for nine years where no one can see me so I can get a chance to grow out the dyed hair...