The question of racial prejudice always was one of the most problematic and striking all over the world. Three works I have read confirm this idea bearing the theme of advantages of the White and disadvantages of the Black. So, these works are dedicated to an insidious social and moral disease affecting single people and populations around the world that is called racism.
I have heard and read a lot of works written to help people to realize that distinguishable biological features according to which we identify any race cannot become the reasons of mental or moral superiority. This idea is central in articles by McIntosh, Tatum, and Dalton. They describe the question of race as a problem that was born in a society of individuals; as they say, this society consists of separate organisms being not able to live together in harmony and trying to show their superiority in different ways and one of these ways is racial prejudice. But the idea is that we are to solve the problem to live peacefully and this problem is not racism as it is, the problem is discrimination in all its manifestations which we meet in the relationship between men and women and in many others.
One more striking idea that was interesting for me and made me think over is that white people do not realize themselves as having a race (Dalton, 2005, p.17) in contrast to the black. And it can be explained by the influence of historical events and slavery.
Revaluing my position, I am to note that even though racial prejudice was not an obvious problem at my school it did not make it non-existent. And Harlon Dalton’s approach to the conflict of races in the work Failing to See reshaped my point of view greatly. The author says: “Of course, ethnic groups influence one another in myriad ways, and more than occasionally come into conflict. But they do not need each other to exist (Dalton, 2005, p.15). It means that despite my own observations problem of discrimination always exists. Perhaps, due to my position of non-interference deeply into this problem, it was beneath my notice. Now I understand that the problem of any discrimination starts at school and it must be solved there. To be more precise white pupils are to be taught that “Ethnicity … describes that aspect of our heritage that … shapes our values, our family structure, our rituals, our mating behavior, much of our daily lives. We embody our ethnicity without regard for the … other ethnic groups” (Dalton, 2005, p.15). Realizing any race the same way as ethnicity or culture will bring to the disappearance of any development of racism. And there will be no need to think over if you would like to be antiracists or racists (Tatum, 1994, p.462). To get rid of any diversity people are to realize that there is no light without darkness and if there are no black there would be no white, and vice versa.
In conclusion, there must be mentioned that the rights in the competition between the White and the Black are not truly equal as the White take “the driver’s seat” and they make their conclusions concerning the modern relationship between representatives of different races. Being taught to think over our lives like morally neutral, average as well as ideal, we work to benefit the others, and it looks like we let “them” be like “us” (McIntosh, 2005, p.109). Whites’ looking down upon Black is unconscious and the cause of it is historical background that cannot be cut out of the past. And such blots of the past must be viewed at school in most cases for the White feeling their superiority.
Bibliography
Dalton, H., 2005. Failing to See. White privilege: Essential readings on the other side of racism, 2nd ed., Worth Publishers, New York, pp.15-18.
McIntosh, P., 2005. White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack, in White Privilege: Essential Readings on the Other Side of Racism, 2nd ed, Worth Publishers, New York, pp. 109-113.
Tatum, B. D., 1994. Teaching white students about racism: The search for white allies and the restoration of hope, Teachers College Record, 95(4), pp.462-475.