The concept of white privilege can be considered as influential for discussing the barriers to the effective implementation of anti-racial laws and policies in the United States. The proposed policies and regulations that are formulated to decrease cases of discrimination in society and promote social action are often unsuccessful. Is it possible to state that white privilege is an aspect that influences the efficiency of the law and policy-oriented to promote equality for African-Americans? Case (2012) indicates that white privilege is important to examine cases from the Whites’ unexpected perspective that is often not clear to African-Americans.
Moreover, Jordan, Gabbidon, and Higgins note that ineffective policies proposed by White Americans often result in racial profiling, and they cannot be regarded as solutions to the problem of racism (Jordan, Gabbidon, & Higgins, 2009, p. 354). In this context, it is important to concentrate on the role of the white population’s vision of racism to address this problem effectively while developing efficient and adaptable laws and policies.
As a result, it is possible to assume that failures in attempts to maintain stability and equality in the racially diverse society are associated with failures in understanding the differences in identities of Whites and Blacks. References to only stereotypical opinions or personal anti-racist visions are useless to provide the background for the policy that should result in the social change and promotion of the idea of equality among African-Americans.
More aspects regarding the issue of white privilege should be determined and assessed in order to conclude about the causes of the policies’ failures. In this case, the focus should be not only on the Black identity but also on the White identity in order to understand the difference between these social lenses that can be discussed or ignored in society. From this point, the ineffectiveness of the past and current anti-racism laws and policies oriented to guarantee equality for African-Americans is a result of inappropriate evaluations made by the whites who promoted the idea of equality because of the role of White privilege and difference in identities and visions.
Review of Literature
Case (2012) affirms that Whites might not identify every aspect of white privilege, civilization, and power since they are members of the principal racial grouping. Through the enhancement of proficiencies to disrupt one’s racist views and perceive elusively racist conducts, they might progress to a greater evaluation of unidentified racism instead of being devoured by the dissatisfaction and fault that normally emanate from such circumstances. Encountering oppression entails constant sentiments of fault and failure when views and conducts oppose a person’s anti-racist principles. This is supported by Papish (2015) with the affirmation that black social identity offers African Americans the chance to assemble into a special social room. Thus, failure to focus on such an identity could signify that any distinctive good and resource that just African Americans can conserve will go unidentified.
Moreover, Case (2012) establishes that in the nonexistence of social backing, White anti-racists will probably be overpowered by their sentiments of segregation that could lead to the desertion of their push for social fairness. Groups such as White Women against Racism (WWAR) could offer a chance for the Whites having anti-racist principles to challenge deliberations, conclusions, conducts, and most significantly, the racial insinuations of their choices in an open manner.
Through communication with others in a similar position, White anti-racists could resort to the shared understanding and awareness of the other members and identification of the factors of racism that would otherwise remain undetected. Similarly, Papish (2015) indicates that an unevenness involving the resources held by the African Americans and nonblacks in the fight against racism could elucidate the strange valence that goes with the decisions of and anticipations for African Americans residing in racially unfair societies. Hence, black social identity could assist in the comprehension of the communication of black realism while maintaining the assertions that no racialized group has a unique moral responsibility to battle racist domination. Though black social identity is important, disregarding, it does not indicate an ethical failure.
On the concerns of racial profiling, Fischer (2013) establishes that the national security community plan has resulted in racial profiling. On top of dispiriting immigrant societies from reporting illegal activities, immigration enforcement worsens the extant difficulties via racial profiling. The police officers initiate traffic stops with the intention of discriminately applying immigration laws and propagating racial profiling, in addition to other abusive activities. In this regard, the course of deportation progressively starts with a wrongful arrest or traffic stop carried out by the national and local policemen.
On their part, Jordan, Gabbidon, and Higgins (2009) affirm that it is evident that racial profiling is not secluded to traffic stops. For instance, if company workers target buyers for inequitable treatment anchored in their race or civilization, that kind of racial profiling is known as retail racism or consumer racial profiling (CRP). A final deliberation associated with the importance of their study is prospective to comprehend the connections amid racial minorities and private security staff, as well as clerks. Taking into consideration that there is thrice the number of security staff as the public police force, the connections are perhaps influenced by the certainty that consumer racial profiling is common.
For clerks, studies affirm that they as well perpetrate consumer racial profiling. For instance, sales clerks have stereotypical opinions associated with ethnicity and criminal activities that they act upon through involvement in consumer racial profiling.
The question that remains is about the extent to which the views of sales clerks vary from the ones of security staff or the police force. On the face of it, it could be interesting to assess consumer racial profiling with respect to the opinions of racial minorities in accordance with procedural justice (Jordan et al., 2009). There are innumerable possibilities regarding consumer racial profiling. To add to racial profiling, Pickren (2011) states that regardless of their objectives, the efforts of social scientists were not successful in changing housing policy. In the metropolitans across the US, housing remained separated out, which acted as a proof that the vision of quality housing for everyone in the United States failed to incorporate the Blacks, in addition to other minorities.
Attributable to the push by Black Nationalism as well as the Civil Rights movement, the majority of inner metropolitans in the United States detonated into spirited, often hostile, struggle against the persistent racism (Pickren, 2011). This was not just in housing but also other discriminatory activities caused by structural inequities of life in the US, and this was termed as race riots by the Whites. In retrospection, possibly such occurrences should not have been anticipated.
Pickren (2011) closes with an unsettling quote generated by insights from good plans of well-intentioned Whites, “The dark ghetto’s invisible walls have been erected by the White society, by those who have power, both to confine those who have no power and to perpetuate their powerlessness” (p. 39). In conclusion, Case (2012) highlights that Whites might fail to identify every facet of white privilege, civilization, and power, but through the development of the means of interrupting and noticing racist notions, they might get a profound evaluation of unconscious racial discrimination instead of being devoured by frustration and guiltiness thereafter.
References
Case, K. A. (2012). Discovering the privilege of whiteness: White women’s reflections on anti‐racist identity and ally behavior. Journal of Social Issues, 68(1), 78-96. Web.
Fischer, A. (2013). Secure communities, racial profiling, & suppression law in removal proceedings. Texas Hispanic Journal of Law & Policy, 19(1), 63-82. Web.
Jordan, K. L., Gabbidon, S. L., & Higgins, G. E. (2009). Exploring the perceived extent of and citizens’ support for consumer racial profiling: Results from a national poll. Journal of Criminal Justice, 37(4), 353-359. Web.
Papish, L. (2015). Promoting black (social) identity. Social Theory and Practice, 41(1), 1-25. Web.
Pickren, W. E. (2011). Psychologists, race, and housing in postwar America. Journal of Social Issues, 67(1), 27-41. Web.