In the book Privilege, Power, and Difference by Allan G. Johnson he talks about the different troubles and issues dealing with privilege, the differences in this society, power, gender and race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, social class, and disability standing. He talks about his own experiences backing it up with facts, memoirs, and other documents. 1. In the first chapter of this book, he talks about the proverbial term elephant in the room. I believe that this term to him means that race is always there, but it is a topic that people do not have any interest in talking about or bringing up.
People will avoid bringing up this topic at all costs because it is controversial and just plain old awkward. It will always be there and people know that, but it is better to say nothing at all then something. Many people wonder why everyone just cannot get along’ but it is not as simple as that. Whites believe that they are better than other people just because they are white and that is the superior race. But in reality, we are not better than anyone. We are the exact same as everyone else no matter if our skin color, gender, sexual orientation, social class, disability standing, and ethnicity is different.
We honestly have no good reason why we do not get along we just simply do not which is awful. 2. In the second chapter Johnson talks about the differences in people and how they make other people, feel uncomfortable naturally. People are all different, different races, genders, social classes, and sexualities. These natural differences make people feel awkward and no one wants to feel awkward. The difference is “socially” constructed because society creates different gender roles, roles that you should take on, and behaviors depending if you are a man or women. Two types of privilege can be white rivilege. White privilege means you get more benefits and have way more benefit of the doubt compared to other races. Heteros you are more of a “man” than if you would be homosexual. You are both men but being heterosexual, you are perceived as more manly. Both of these are unearned privileges, they come with the race and sexuality you are. I think that it is important to know how significant privilege is if we ever want to solve the trouble with racism in our world. We ourselves create privilege. What would happen if no one believed in people having different privileges? . Chapter three is all about capitalism, class, and the matrix of domination. Capitalism is an economic trade system where everything is completely controlled by rich private owners, not the states. Capitalism relates directly to class, gender, and race. The richest 40 percent of people in our world own 78 percent of all income (44). If they own that much that leaves the rest of us 60 present with very minimal. Johnson also states, “Capitalism distributes wealth so unequally that it produces conditions of scarcity for most of the population” (44).
Capitalists used black slaves to do labor instead of having whites do it for a small living wage (45). They would rather take advantage of black slaves than pay white’s minimal wage. Gender also relates to this because males are more wanted than females in the workforce. The matrix of domination is the unearned advantages or disadvantages that come with privilege. All the forms of privilege are related to each other and connect together. Yes, racism is connected with the dynamics of capitalism, white men are given more class privilege automatically compared to men of color. . Chapter 4 is all about privilege and what social identities are connected to form such a system of privilege and oppression. A system of privilege can be families, an entire society, workplaces, or schools. One type of a system of privilege is white-dominance. This means that whites have all of the power and hold all of the positions of power. But this is not true, one good way to show that this is not always true is by looking at who our president is. We currently have a black president and the president is known to be the most powerful person in our country.
The social identities that are connected to this are your gender, race, sexuality, class. All of the identities that people have can be connected to a system of privilege and oppression. 5. Dominant groups do not get in the middle of these issues because they are the dominant group and do not realize these are issues, feel like they do not have to get in the middle of it, think that it is not their problem it is just a personal problem, they do not want to risk losing the privilege that they currently have, they are afraid, and because some of them are prejudiced.
I can really relate to these reasons because before this class I felt the exact same way. When dominant groups decide that they will get involved with the issues of privilege it does not last very long and they do not feel the need to put much effort in because they do not see it as a problem because they are the privileged group. 6. An individualistic approach is problematic because it makes us blind to privilege and how bad it is (77). Johnson says, “It keeps us stuck in trouble by making it so hard to talk about it. ” (77). It makes it easier for women to blame men for being sexist and violent. We need to be able to overcome this issue.
Some ways that we can overcome this issue that are talked about in the book are by realizing that the whole model of individualism is wrong and that the social world duals it is about us all together. We need to realize that it is not just an individual problem, but it is our problem. 7. The path of least resistance is where you take the easiest path, you do not want challenges you want to do whatever will be easiest for you to do. This means different things for men and women. For men, it means showing that they are in control of themselves (93). For women, it means you more just sit back and listen to what people are saying.
This deals with racism, on page 95 it talks about how it is a man’s world or a white’s world. It also talks about how people of color feel like they have to talk, dress, and act like whites just so they can fit in and not get mad fun of (95). 8. According to Johnson both what we do and what we do not do are very important. But what we do not is the real problem. We do not want to face that there are real problems out there so we do not do anything about it. We do not think much about it because we do not think it is our problem and that it is just someone else’s problem.
But in reality, it is our problem and we are making it more of a problem by not doing anything about it. How do we ever expect this problem to fix itself when we are doing nothing at all to fix it? My Insights Sociology class and the book Privilege, Power, and Difference have made me realize so much about our society that I never knew was happening even know it was happening right around me. The biggest thing I learned about was white privilege, what it is and why it is a problem. Before this class, I never knew that white privilege was a thing or a problem.
I did not feel like I had any more privileges than other races, I was blinded by it. Over the course of this semester I learned that white privilege is completely unearned, if you are white you have it and if you are not you do not have it. Even if you do not want it and you are white you still have it. I know understand what white privilege is and how it is affecting our world. Why should I be given more privileges just because I am white? This does not seem fair at all to me. There are three different presumptions of privilege that include innocence, worthiness, and competence.
Presumptions mean that you know that when something goes wrong around you, you will not get blamed for it. Worthiness simply means that you know you are worthy and you are good enough of a person to get treated correctly. Being treated like you know what is going on around you and understand language is competence. It makes me sad knowing that I have all of these privileges on a daily basis that I take for granted and do not even notice when other people do not get them just because of their race. I think that if people did not believe that privilege did not exist it would not be a problem and not enforced.
Not only was I blind to white privilege but I was blind to color blindness. When we were first asked what color blindness just like everyone else in the class thought, I thought it meant that you could simply just not see color out your eyes. That everything was black and white. Yes, that is true but colorblindness means so much more than that. It means that you are blind to the problems dealing with racism because you do not believe racism or color is a thing. You believe that race is a thing in the past and that everyone now is on a level playing field.
There are four different colorblindness ideologies abstract which is we believe that we are all individuals are we can all successes if we try hard enough. Naturalization which is segregation. Cultural Explanations which means that we think that Mexicans do not have as much as whites do. The last one is the minimization of the significance and the importance of habits of whites. I feel as colorblindness relates to the ‘elephant in the room’ because in both you are blind to what is going on around you and if you do notice it you just ignore it and pretend that it is not there and you do not see anything.
This class as taught me way more than I ever expected to learn how our society and how it works. It has taught me that sometimes our society can be great and do great things but more importantly about what our society is doing wrong. No one stands alone and has just an individual problem. We need to look at the bigger picture when we have problems are figure out why these problems are happening and what is causing them to happen.
