Abstract
Taking a personal perspective into what white privilege is and mean and how it does relate to people of different ethnic and racial backgrounds. How certain advantages vary in ways such as education, housing, and income between people of different ethnic and racial backgrounds who live within the United States. A fish in water is used an analogy to describe what it means to have privilege and how white people take advantage of everything.
“Ask a fish what water is and you’ll get no answer. Even if fish were capable of speech, they would likely have no explanation for the element they swim in every minute of every day of their lives. Water simply is. Fish take it for granted.” (Tim Wise) This analogy compares fish and water to the concept of white people to themselves, and it definitely intrigued me and made want to continue on reading.
“Yet few whites have thought of our position as resulting from racial preferences. Indeed, we pride ourselves on out hard work and ambition, as if somehow we invented the concepts” (Tim Wise) Tim Wise made the point in this statement extremely clear. The point is that it is rare that African American workers are described as hardworking or ambitious, but described as being lazy. Even though this stereotype is not even close to being true about this specific racial group, it is used in everything from applying for a job to the entertainment industry. White Americans mostly believe that they are given the advantage of already being seen as hardworking from the beginning in the first place. Such as when in kindergarten, when a white child finishes a puzzle or something of the sort, that child is then told that he or she did a great job and is then considered to be a hard worker. If an African American child does the same thing as the white American child, he or she is encouraged to continue, but applauded like the other child, and is then normally thought of as a “good for something”. This is all started so early in...