Quema 1

Shelley Quema

Professor Prior

Sociology 1

16 June 2017

Project 3: Final Paper

Often times, one over looked aspect of discrimination is privileges that majority groups

enjoy at the expense of minority groups. We tend to concentrate more on racial discrimination

against minorities than the privileges of the White majority. Sometimes, their status is taken for

granted. So, what is white privilege exactly? White privilege is the level of societal advantages

that Whites have in Western countries. White privileged people usually experience more benefits

than non-whites. This status describes the majority of whites and is an ascribed status, however

white privilege is not something they seem to do on purpose. According to a conflict perspective,

they would see that white privilege manifests a numerous amount of advantages for someone

considered to be white. Since white privilege causes white people to have a superiority over

colored people, they have more perks than those that are not white. This privilege is also an

advantage because it eliminates challenges for whites. Lastly, through education, white privilege

ultimately affects our perception of the world and our interactions with one another.

Though this concept is not an obvious concept, white persons may have advantages that

they may not recognize which may help distinguish it from bias or prejudice. In a sense, white

people experience what we call blind convenience as a result of their privilege. For example, a

every day products such as band-aids are created to better suit white people, therefore making it

a convenience for them. Band-aids are created for everyone to use. But, the color of the band-aid
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usually suits people with a whiter shade (tolerance.org). Another example would be hair

products. Hair products are easily accessible for everyone, but are easier to find for people with

white hair types. People of color will have a harder time trying to locate a hair care product for

their hair type/texture. For colored people, their hair products can usually be found in the ethnic

products section, and sometimes, it may not even be found (tolerance.org). If you are looking at

these examples from a conflict perspective, they would see this as a competition for limited

resources. The conflict paradigm says that social classes who must compete for social, material,

and political resources such as food and housing, employment, education, and leisure time

(courses.lumenlearning.com). Whites are able to obtain and keep more resources than others

which helps them maintain authority and power over the others. If a white woman needed to

go to a store at the last minute, she wont have any problems looking for what hair care product

she needs. But for a woman of color in the same situation, her hair care product can be

considered specialty and may not even find it at the store. Unfortunately, this prolongs the

message the people of color are considered to be the others.

White privilege gives white people tangible advantages that they never even have to think

about. For example, having a name that some may see as a black name can be a burden,

especially when finding a job. An example of this happened in 2012 when a unemployed black

woman changed her ethnic sounding name and race on her resume and on her profile received a

lot of attention from employers. Insurance professional, Yolanda Spivey, took notice that the

diversity questionnaire on Monster.com was actually hurting her options for employment. She

changed her name to more of an Anglo sounding name, Bianca White. As a result of this, she

immediately received job offers (Mic.com).

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In regards to housing, African Americans are three times more likely to pay higher

mortgages than white people- 32% vs 10.5%. According to an ESPN commentator, he says,

"Discrimination in the housing market has been crippling to the attempts blacks and Latinos have

made to empower themselves economically" (Mic.com). the black-white wealth gap has been

affected by the inability to buy homes. Non-whites experience housing discrimination around 4

million times each year (henewprogressive.net). Under the conflict theory, people that are

fighting for the same resources may argue over housing or jobs and thus, creating hate like hate

crimes, especially if a person that is not white gets what a white person wants. A law has been

created to make housing discrimination illegal. A conflict theorist would argue that laws were

created to benefit majorities over minorities, that way more leeway is given to them when

deviant behavior is committed.

White privilege shapes our perceptions of the world and how the world perceives whites,

especially through education. This can be seen through the point of view of school textbooks,

specifically elementary school textbooks. Many of these textbooks mainly focus on white

history. The white race is mainly reflected throughout textbooks. Whites have always been the

majority, which is why they have the power to determine what is valuable, useful, important, etc.

in regards to education. For example, Greek/Roman mythology and etc. have all been seen as

critical information. Many questions why this is so critical but white persons never need not to

question the validity of these subjects. Also, since the textbooks mainly reflect the history of

whites, is creates the notion that only white people created great historical contributions. Indeed,

it is true that college offers multi-racial history classes, however, by the time a student reaches

college they would have already been taught to view history through the eyes of the white
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culture. This idea creates a greater social status for White persons in the subconscious of

everyone else, thus further exemplifying the concept of white privilege.

White privilege is difficult to talk about since many may disagree that it exists. But,

looking through article and data, it generates a sense of perks and advantages that white people

have which raises their social status, authority, and power. The conflict paradigm assumes that

within a society, there is an unequal distribution of power. The theory would say that since there

is inequality, it creates conflicts between social groups. Groups with more power, like White

people, have control over the valuable resources of society. Conflict theorists argue that whites,

as a group with considerable power, have found ways to justify systematic racial discrimination

by developing linguistic strategies of blaming the victim, in this case racial minorities, for the

problems they experience (Encyclopedia of Social Deviance).

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Works Cited

"Conflict Theory." Encyclopedia of Social Deviance, edited by Craig J. Forsyth, and Heith

Copes, Sage Publications, 1st edition, 2014. Credo Reference,

https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/sagesdeviane/conflict_theory/0.

Accessed 16 Jun 2017.

Emba, Christine. What Is White Privilege? The Washington Post, WP Company, 16 Jan. 2016,

www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/01/16/white-privilege-

explained/?utm_term=.117349b99049. Accessed 17 June 2017.

Maxwell, Zerlina. "7 Actual Facts That Prove White Privilege Exists in America." Mic. N.p., 22

May 2014. Web. 17 Jun. 2017.

"On Racism and White Privilege." Teaching Tolerance. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Jun. 2017.

Tucker, J.B.W. "The Ultimate White Privilege Statistics & Data Post." JBW Tucker. N.p., 28

Feb. 2015. Web. 17 June 2017.