Understanding My Whiteness Case Study
Understanding my Whiteness: A Study of my Socialization
Growing up, still unsocialized to the world, I was unaware how large of a role my appearance would play throughout my life. I was also mostly unaware of what race was, what race I was categorized in, and why I was placed in a certain category. This was mostly due to the lack of language I had to think about these concepts. Once words such as “black,” “privilege,” and “socialized” became apart of my vocabulary, I started to understand how the racial hierarchy controlled American society. The turning point, additionally, was in 2008, when Barack Obama became the first African American to be president. I was in fifth grade, and we just had our test on all of the presidents. When I compared the first forty-three presidents to Obama, my ten year old eyes were able to understand the differences, and acknowledge why American history was set on a new path. Fast forward to junior year of high school, where the curriculum was lead by social …show more content…
One can only choose to not see a system of disadvantaged if they are advantaged in the first place. Peggy McIntosh argues that “obliviousness to white privilege… is kept strongly inculturated in the United States so as to maintain the myth… that democratic choice is equally available to all” (McIntosh, 5). And thus by ignoring white privilege, we can also ignore color blind-racism. Privilege additionally, comes in many forms as well as race, such as gender, sexuality, religion, and socioeconomic class. Most of these hierarchies, as McIntosh note, are interlocking in American society. For instance, I am a female and jewish living in a male and christian dominated culture. So while I am privileged because of my whiteness, I am also at a disadvantage because of my biology and culture. This idea, of being disadvantaged by two categories, is termed intersectionality, and is often overlooked and
Growing up, still unsocialized to the world, I was unaware how large of a role my appearance would play throughout my life. I was also mostly unaware of what race was, what race I was categorized in, and why I was placed in a certain category. This was mostly due to the lack of language I had to think about these concepts. Once words such as “black,” “privilege,” and “socialized” became apart of my vocabulary, I started to understand how the racial hierarchy controlled American society. The turning point, additionally, was in 2008, when Barack Obama became the first African American to be president. I was in fifth grade, and we just had our test on all of the presidents. When I compared the first forty-three presidents to Obama, my ten year old eyes were able to understand the differences, and acknowledge why American history was set on a new path. Fast forward to junior year of high school, where the curriculum was lead by social …show more content…
One can only choose to not see a system of disadvantaged if they are advantaged in the first place. Peggy McIntosh argues that “obliviousness to white privilege… is kept strongly inculturated in the United States so as to maintain the myth… that democratic choice is equally available to all” (McIntosh, 5). And thus by ignoring white privilege, we can also ignore color blind-racism. Privilege additionally, comes in many forms as well as race, such as gender, sexuality, religion, and socioeconomic class. Most of these hierarchies, as McIntosh note, are interlocking in American society. For instance, I am a female and jewish living in a male and christian dominated culture. So while I am privileged because of my whiteness, I am also at a disadvantage because of my biology and culture. This idea, of being disadvantaged by two categories, is termed intersectionality, and is often overlooked and