White Privilege

White Privilege

White Privilege
#4. The writers discuss the "invisibility of whiteness" in society, which they claim creates many issues and deserves to be studied and brought to people's attention. The writers describe the problem with whiteness to be its unspoken and downplayed role in its power over society and how people interact with one another. According to Dyer, "as long as race is something only applied to non-white peoples, as long as white people are not racially seen and named, they/we function as a human norm. Other people are raced, we are just people (Rothenberg, 2012, 10). Because white people are seen as people not representing a racial group, they become the norm and other races are seen to be different. When white people are seen as the norm, they are given the power to decide the standards and habits expected for all people. Deviations from what white people do are seen as strange and dangerous, reinforcing the idea that white people set the standard for what is expected and acceptable. Many white people do not see themselves as being part of a race, or they do not strongly identify with being part of the white racial group. Because of this, they do not emphasize their whiteness, strengthening the idea that they are people, not raced people. Dyer says that white people mostly speak about white people, and we are constantly being exposed to white people and white habits through "books, museums, the press, advertising, films, television, software" (Rothenberg, 2012, 11) . The frequent exposure to white people has created a standard set as the ordinary and because of this, they are not aware of their role as white people. They are often oblivious to things such as how race plays a role in people's lives and makes them blind to the privileges they get because they are white. People of other races struggle with questions of racial identity and are exposed to the injustices that are brought on because of their deviation from the norms set by white people. They...

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