Introduction
Racism and white privilege are topics discussed on different platforms when confronting issues of social inequality. Racism is commonly viewed as the discrimination practices that people from the minority racial groups undergo. On the other hand, white privilege is the benefits that a white individual obtains from others in the society due to their skin colour (Kendall, 2012). The two terminologies are used to mean almost the same thing as they describe inequality that originates from ones identity. On numerous occasions, white privilege is not mentioned when dealing with racial discrimination issues.
Topics such as police brutality, work place discrimination, and denial of certain rights are most prominent when discussing racial discrimination. The topic is commonly addressed by the people of colour (Kendall, 2012). The white society rarely contribute to the discussion as they often feel as if these issues do not affect them directly. They ought not to realise that they are privileged while others are discriminated.
According to Seaton and Tyson (2019), white privilege does not mean that whites are rewarded without working hard. Rather it is providing them with the rights that their fellow racial communities are deprived of. Hobbs (2018), notes that such privileges include ownership of property, quality healthcare, quality education, representation in leadership among others. Although the rights are entitled for every citizen of a country not every citizen is offered the chance to enjoy them.
Without doubt, white privilege is a silent form of racial discrimination. The two social constructs interact in such a way that when one is a gain the other is a loss. The gain, white privileges, more evident when the loss, racial discrimination, takes place. The privileged party pays little attention to the discriminated because they are not directly affected. However, for a revolution in the topic of social inequality, it is crucial that the privileged party, the white community, takes part in condemning racial discrimination.
White privilege should be added to the discussion of social inequalities and racial discrimination as a way of achieving societal change. It is one of the historical social injustices suffered by the minority races. For full review of the social inequality, the white community should be committed to help their fellow citizens from other races in the endeavour.
How Racism is Defined by the Society
On numerous occasions, racism has been used to refer to the social prejudice of the people due to their identity. The term is common when a race, mostly people of colour, faces social injustices from another, usually the whites. When topic is discussed, it raises controversial emotions of oppression and guilt among people of various backgrounds in society. However, racial discrimination could be a result of an individual or a group of individuals having less power in society for a prolonged period.
Police brutality is one of the topics that define racial discrimination in the current society. People of colour, the black and Hispanic communities, are more likely to suffer police brutality than the whites. According to statistics from credible sources, a black man is more likely to be arrested than a white man when found committing a similar crime in different instances (Kendall, 2012). Also, the black person may be denied the right to a fair judgement. On occasion the black man is presented in a court trial, they have higher chances of being imprisoned or penalised than a white man. However, white privilege is not discussed when a white man is not arrested for a similar crime in the first place.
One of the recently addressed issues of police brutality as a form of racial discrimination is in the case of Mr. George Floyd. The victim was reported to the Minneapolis police officers by a convenience store owner who accused him of buying cigarettes using a counterfeit bill of $20 (Fine, 2021). However, seventeen minutes after the arrival of the police officers, Mr George Floyd was laying down unconscious and lifeless. The police officers harassed him during the arrest where they laid him on the ground; one officer placed his knee on the suspect’s neck while another was pinning him to the ground. The police officers did not ease the force even after the man was unconscious (Fine, 2021).
The murder of Mr. George Floyd was charged as first degree murder and manslaughter. Fine (2021) states that the four officers involved in the case were fired and sentenced to various punishments. In this case, racial discrimination was evident when the victim was exposed to police brutality. The issue did not take the direction of white privilege that was evident when the police officers who committed the crime did not receive maximum penalty for voluntary manslaughter which is 40 years imprisonment. The officer in-charge, Derek Chauvin, was sentenced to 22 and a half years imprisonment for the murder.
Additionally, provision of separate processes for different racial groups is a pronounced form of racial discrimination. Historically, various structures and processes were implicated towards the immigrants due to their racial identity. Policies such as the Jim Crow’s laws were introduced to segregate the people of colour from the whites. They were also deprived of some crucial rights such as the right to vote and public participation. The discussion about historical social injustices faced by people of colour is inevitable when evaluating racial discrimination. Although most of the policies that eliminate segregation by race have been enforced in the current society, there are several instances of the practice evident that define discrimination.
Racial discrimination also occurs from a biased belief that society places on people belonging to a particular race. An example of a social bias that could lead to discrimination is that black people are more likely to be noisy than whites. Such a belief could lead to a black person being denied an opportunity, for instance, a job position in preference of a white. On such an instance, white privilege is not addressed rather, racial discrimination is condemned.
When addressing the issue of racial discrimination, the society recalls the social injustices faced by the minority racial groups. Such injustices include but not limited to police brutality, segregation, unfair judicial processes, and unfavourable government polices among others (Bauman, 2020).. White privilege is rarely presented in the discussion as it is perceived as a separate social construct. Although it does not affect a minority group when a right is provided to a white, it exerts a feeling of discrimination when the same right is denied to them. Thus, white privilege gives birth to racial discrimination.
White Privilege is a Silent Form of Racial Discrimination
The term white privilege is a construct that tends to portray a white person as having an easier life than a person from other races. Some of the factors that lead to this construct include having a higher number of representatives in political and elective positions, domination most of the processes and structures in the country, access to resources, education, job opportunities among others. Bell et al. (2016) argue that the white privilege construct could rise from having simple commodities such as hair and skin care products of the whites placed on a more convenient shelf than a black person’s products in a supermarket. These factors may seem normal for an ordinary citizen in their country but they are the rights that the minority races are deprived from during racial discrimination.
In a country or particular society, citizens may face similar challenges despite of their identity. Such challenges may include unemployment, economic crises, unfavourable business environments, and government policies among others. In a socially unequal setting, the difference occurs in the ease of addressing such challenges for citizens belonging to diverse racial groups. It would be easier for a white person to navigate through the challenges since the processes and structures in the United States are dominated mostly by the white community.
In other words, Kendall (2012) takes an example of a public policy that affects the white community, their views are consider with ease as they are well represented in government positions. This case may not be addressed as racial discrimination because it is not, rather, it is white privilege. However, if the minority groups have an issue affecting them, their views would hardly be consider because they are underrepresented in government and in that context discrimination becomes evident.
White privilege is an in-built advantage that should be defined separately from one’s achievement or level of income. The white privilege construct does not mean that the government takes food to the whites while still in their houses. The whites are neither rewarded for work they have not done nor offered employment without proper training. However, although they work hard to achieve their goals, white privilege is portrayed through the in-built advantage that arises from their colour (Bauman, 2020).
The road to their success may be much easier than that for an individual from a minority race as they have systems to support them through the process. Such systems can be defined as the basic rights of citizenship such as security, quality health care, quality education, and legal systems (Bell et al., 2016). A person of colour needs to work extra hard to achieve the same level of success as a white person, thus discrimination.
Moreover, white privilege can be a biased belief same as racial discrimination due to the long term possession of power by the whites. For instance, in a scenario where an African-American man is harassed by the police, the public would view the act as a racial discrimination act. However, if the same harassment was imposed on a white man found committing the same crime, the act would not be judge as racial discrimination.
If the scenario changed where by the young black man was rewarded or recognized for a good deed, the public would perceive it as the right thing to do. While, if a white young man was rewarded from his black men peers, it would be perceived as white privilege (Nyborg, 2019). Hence, racial discrimination or white privilege could be a social contract based on biased prejudice because the white has occupied the position of power for a long time.
How Racial Discrimination and White Privilege Intersect
White privilege and racism are two aspects that root from one phenomena which is difference in racial identity. However, they have distinct meanings and cover different experiences. Racism stands out mainly because it is a severe form of discrimination over an individual’s skin color (Nyborg, 2019). White privileges come in on the focus of the benefits and advantages of the White Americans over other races and gender (Kendall, 2012). The common ground between the two aspects is that they both entail discrimination and oppress others.
When one is discriminated against, the right they are denied is provided to another for their identity, the feeling of inequality is derived. The right is perceived as a privilege where it could be merely a normal phenomenon to the privileged party (Bauman, 2020). Racial discrimination gives rise to white privileged society. The whites do not have to receive extremely special treatment for the feeling that they are privileged to occur. Rather it is the deprivation of a right from a minority group which is provided to the white that raises the feeling of discrimination and white privilege.
People from the white community feel the possession of some power over other racial groups. This is a fact that is merely admitted publicly. The power may arise from they believe that they are better humans than other racial groups which is implicated in them by the available systems and structures. On the other hand, minority racial groups admire and perceive whites as their superior (Bauman, 2020). They tend to imitate their culture and lifestyle to gain a feeling of superiority while trading their cultures. The feeling of superiority by the whites could be defined as a white privilege while the inferiority by the minority as racial discrimination.
Conclusion
Conclusively, racism as a social phenomenon tends to intersect with white privilege as a social construct with little recognition of such interaction. Racism refers to the discrimination of an individual or community based on their race or ethnic group. This is due to the belief that one race is supreme to the other. On the other hand, white privilege refers to the advantages inherent to a white person in this case because their race is supreme, leading to racial injustice and inequality. The two aspects tend to clash in understanding the communities and thus leading to instances of social inequalities. In today’s society, racism and white privilege have a significant influence on the identity of the citizens, thus affecting social relations and the race to domination.
When addressing issues of social inequality, racism and white privilege are topics addressed on different platforms. Racial discrimination is only perceived as the social injustices suffered by the people of colour which is separate from white privilege. Topics such as police brutality, work place discrimination, and denial of certain rights are most prominent when discussing racial discrimination.
White privilege is a construct that tends to portray a white person as having an easier life than a person from other races. Whites are supposedly privilege due to the provision of preferential treatment from other racial societies. The treatment does not have to be rewarding them without working hard. Rather it is providing them with the rights that their fellow racial communities are deprived from. Although faced with similar challenges such as unemployment, economic crises, unfavourable business environments, and government policies among others, the whites navigate their way out easier than other racial groups. The ease arises from provision of support systems that are unavailable to others.
Without doubt, white privilege is a silent form of racial discrimination since racial discrimination gives rise to white privileged society. The common ground between the two aspects is that they both entail discrimination and favism of one group from the others. When one is discriminated against, the right they are denied is provided to another for their identity, the feeling of inequality is derived. White privilege is more pronounced when the loss (racial discrimination) takes place.
For societal change, the silent beneficiaries of the system has to pay more attention to the pain points of the victims. Broadly, the white community should join hands with the minority groups to demand for equal systems and treatments. Often, the privileged will claim that they experience the same things as less privileged people. However, the oppressors should acknowledge the gap that is present in a society to fill it to achieve justice. Still, individual steps to promote equality in school, workspaces, or even in the general public are critical in effort to draw a group and the whole community to acquire social equality.
References
Bauman, Z. (2020). Modernity, racism, extermination. In Theories of Race and Racism (pp. 277-293). Routledge. Web.
Bell, L. A., Funk, M. S., Joshi, K. Y., & Valdivia, M. (2016). Racism and white privilege. Teaching for diversity and social justice, 133-183. Web.
Fine, M. (2021). George Floyd (October 14, 1973–May 25, 2020): Make Future Public Health Better Than the Past.
Hobbs, J. (2018). White privilege in health care: Following recognition with action. Web.
Kendall, F. (2012). Understanding white privilege. Web.
Nyborg, H. (2019). Race as social construct. Psych, 1(1), 139-165. Web.
Seaton, E. K., & Tyson, K. (2019). The intersection of race and gender among Black American adolescents. Child Development, 90(1), 62-70. Web.