The Belief That Race Is a Social Construct, Essay Example

The belief that race is a social construct is not new. White people treat their race as the source of multiple privileges, while nonwhite people are bound to experience a multitude of discriminative attitudes as a result of their ethnic and racial backgrounds. Needless to say, racism produces profound effects on how people spend their lives. The advantages of being a white person are difficult to underestimate. They often serve the principal barrier to the society’s way to combat racism and reduce the social and economic gap between white people and the rest of the world.

The companion website of the PBS Documentary Race: The Power of an Illusion provides an insight into how the concept of race operates in the modern world. The “Me, My Race & I” section of the PBS website offers students to read Peggy McIntosh’s “White Privilege – Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”. I decided that I had to familiarize myself with the paper, which is fairly regarded as the classic example of anti-racist writing. What I learned from the article did not significantly change my vision. On the contrary, Peggy McIntosh further re-affirmed my belief that race is a social construct and white people take their racial privilege for granted.

That articles about racism continue stirring the minds and hearts of people around the globe means that racism is still a relevant issue today. McIntosh writes that where white racial groups are being “confident, comfortable, and oblivious, other groups are likely being made unconfident, uncomfortable, and alienated” (3). Thousands of white people keep to an erroneous belief that racism no longer plagues the global society. The reality, however, is quite different. Millions of people suffer the consequences of being nonwhite. In the meantime, millions of white people pretend they do not notice existing discrimination patterns in the society. This negligence is easy to explain: most of the white people’s oppressiveness is unconscious (McIntosh 2). The social norms of the modern society do not let the white people see and realize the scope of the privileges they obtain from their damaged society due to being white (McIntosh 2). That white people do not notice the most obvious things is partially because they learn to perceive their lives as normative, neutral, and morally ideal (McIntosh 2). As a result, the inescapable dichotomy between “us” and “them” continues to persist.

Race is undoubtedly a social construct. Racial discrimination is learnt. It works like a complex matrix of beliefs and attitudes which are passed across generations. These inter-generational norms teach white people to perceive their race as a unique asset and a privilege, which only few are lucky to possess. However, McIntosh’s essay reveals two essential things about racism. On the one hand, white people learn to use their racial privilege to meet their needs (McIntosh 3). On the other hand, racial privilege is a set of roles and behavioral reactions, which people do not earn, but have imposed on them against their will (3). People cannot change their race; nor can they change the allocation of the racial privileges in the society. While white people enjoy the benefits of the unearned “white” advantage, people of other races lack a single chance to obtain at least a share of these privileges. To me, McIntosh’s vision of the racial privilege has come to exemplify the central aspect of the racial discrimination in society. Simply stated, now I view discrimination as the reflection of the unequal and unearned privileges across different racial groups.

The question is in whether society can do at least anything to reduce the burden of racial discrimination issues. McIntosh is confident that contemporary social systems are in need for a profound redesign (4). Redesigning social systems could be possible if individuals acknowledged the unseen dimensions of the racial discrimination in society (McIntosh 4). Yet, based on everything I learned during this course and my personal experience, I do not think that racism is possible to eradicate. The problem is not in the social systems but in the humans, who are unlikely to give up their racially advantageous position for the sake of equity and justice.

Works Cited

McIntosh, P. “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” New York Models for Batterer Programs, n.d. Web. 07 November 2010.

PBS. “Go Deeper: Me, My Race & I.” PBS, 2003. Web. 07 November 2010.