White Privilege Written by Rothenberg, Essay Example

White Privilege: Essential Readings on the Other Side of Racism

About the Author

Paula S. Rothenberg was educated at the University of Chicago and completed her graduate work at New York University. Throughout her career she has lectured and consulted on multicultural and gender issues at hundreds of colleges and universities. She has presented articles and journals of many disciplines including Invisible Privilege:  A Memoir About Race, Class and Gender and best selling anthology Race, Class and Gender in the United States:  An Integrated Study.

Review of Book

The book is based on the concept of ‘whiteness’ or ‘white privilege’ and how Americans focus on this social issue as a distinct discrimination to biracial individuals of our society. The book also examines that those in the position of ‘white privilege’ often do not recognize or view themselves as such, but that gives more rise to why the most uncomfortable nature of the situation needs to be addressed. By choosing to term the discrimination and gains that one race projects from society as a whole is the first step towards understanding who benefits from racism and how these benefits are ascertained. “Once we understand the concept of ‘white privilege’ we can only then begin to take steps to dismantle it on both a personal and institutional level.” (Rothenberg, S. 2004).

Depending on our race, we will see the effect or whiteness differently.  Whites may see it from a guilty standpoint that they never knew they were supreme to other races. Other races may seem quite confused when they are posed with the issues that white racial supremacy has actually guided the norm values by which things have been guided in our culture. The book explains the ‘whiteness’ has gone unnamed for many centuries and with that there comes an assumption that white cultures have simply been accepted as ‘norms of society’. “As Alice McIntyre, Harlon Dalton and others have pointed out, an adult asked to recollect memories of his childhood from a biracial background may remember situations where he/she had to play with a white doll, but whites will not recall such situations because whites have no such situation to ‘recollect their first time that made them realize they were white’”(Rothenberg, S., 2004). The white culture has enforced a system of values and power and privilege. Invisibility has been part of their power of being white. This has fostered an invisibility towards success of what they believe to be superior of knowledge, hard work and determination rather than considering it may be in part due to their ‘whiteness’.

Who is considered to be of the White Class? At one time, Italians, Greeks, Jews and Irish were not considered to be of the ‘whiteness’ group, but through the years this has changed.  It should be pointed out that whites enjoy certain simple privileges of going to the store without being followed by store owners for suspicion of theft, where biracials might automatically be kept an eye on for suspicion of theft based upon their colour alone. It is often easy to decipher discrimination based on the colour of skin when you are black.  Have you ever been discriminated against as a white person? Well perhaps you walked into a predominantly black store one day and the black cashier had a ‘prejudiced mind’ against white people and put you to the back of the line. Yes, that is racial discrimination and you know how it feels to be on the ‘other side of the fence’.  This might happen once a year in your white world.  But for biracial people, this happens almost daily because these thoughts live with them and they are constantly reminded of their colour depending on their race.

Ridding the notion of ‘whiteness’ is to ensure all people are treated with fairness and justice.  Yes, the whiteness values are tightly woven into our society. Hence what can we do to rid our society of these indirect discriminatory values? We can go to town meetings and discuss our point of views, we can challenge admissions policies at universities and as whites we can speak out against racism and other social inequalities. Why would a white person want to disadvantage himself of the ingrained advantages? Because it is unjust and unfair to society!

Conclusion

It is evident that ‘whiteness’ is present in today’s society and has developed and transformed over many generations. Rosenberg’s book, White Privilege focuses on ‘stating and defining’ the nature of ‘whiteness’ with importance on realization of whites coming to grips with the term and social issues associated with it and how addressing the issues are important to changing the stigma associated as such for the benefit of the biracial peoples.

Reference

Rothenberg, Paula S. White Privilege:  Essential Readings on the Other Side of Racism. 1^st ed. New York: Macmillan, 2004.