Many institutions, society, and cultures set rules and laws that keep individuals and other groups of people labeled under specific categories. Higher privileged people tend to have more benefits and things are done in their favor while the minorities live a life that’s considered more difficult. These environments show how there isn’t equality and fairness within people. One group of people have it easier while the others who are below have it much more difficult. Overtime, everyone sticks to these rules and laws and there is hardly ever change due to reasons like fear, lack of power, and control for the minorities. Examples of structural oppression at work: – Women don’t get paid enough compared to men – White people, especially white men have more power and they would see others as inferior. I personally would love to choose this article while talking about white privilege because the author is basically stating that her skin color/race gives her so much opportunity and she’s aware of it. The article is by McIntosh, P. and it’s named White Privilege it states, “I can turn on the television or open the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely and positively represented.” I like the idea in which the author had noted all of her privilege as a white person because it shows that she’s fully aware of the advantages she has and how she’s able to be represented well by the media versus how people of color are viewed by the media. That can be considered systemic racism as they’re only wanting to show the good in the majority of whites and overshadow the good of colored people by always portraying them as people who do bad. 

        Moving on from white privilege I’d like to discuss oppression and the exclusion of colored people(mainly black) during past times. As many people know the US has a dark history when it comes to slavery, blacks were excluded from having freedom and were not given a right to vote or to even decide things on their own. I’d like to include a quote whom this author had written that shows a beautiful illustration of oppression and being excluded. Lorde, A on Uses of Anger writes, “And Alice Paul had just refused to publicly endorse the enforcement of the 19th amendment for all women by refusing to endorse the inclusion of women of color, although we had worked to help bring about that amendment.” The quote beautifully illustrates how black women  were excluded even during times they helped white women and even when they fit under the categorization of being a woman, they simply did not want black women to be part of the equal rights movement and having the right to vote. This just shows that whites were viewed as superior and they only wanted the sets of laws to themselves and nobody outside of their color, this is a great example of oppression in terms of public policies.

        I’d like to finish this topic with the exact definition of privilege and those who were included into the definition of ‘privilege’.Garcia, Justin D writes, “‘Privilege’ refers to certain social advantages, benefits, or degrees of prestige and respect that an individual has by virtue of belonging to certain social identity groups. Within American and other Western societies, these privileged social identities—of people who have historically occupied positions of dominance over others—include whites, males, heterosexuals, Christians, and the wealthy, among others.” There’s a reason as to why I chose to end it like this, it’s very important for readers to understand the exact definition of privilege and include religions into this topic,countries into this topic, and even what you identify with into this topic. It’s not only about race, it has to do with everything that doesn’t fit ‘society’s norms’. Society norms are complete bullshit and I personally would love to see change in how humans behave when someone who is simply different steps out.

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