Exploring Race and Challenging Privilege

Adapting a multicultural perspective includes maintaining a unique understanding of one’s own cultural background and biases, and continuously striving to work through them. In the article, “White Professors teaching About Racism: Challenges and Rewards,” Smith and colleagues sought to address the challenges that white educators face when instructing multicultural courses, and to provide them with useful techniques to incorporate into their educational pedagogies. These challenges stem from their racial class orientation and can be summarized as fitting into one of three categories: (a) multiculturalism perfectionism, (b) multicultural impostor syndrome, and (c) multicultural projections (Smith, Kashubeck-West, Payton1, & Adams, 2017). Together

This has caused many problems and harsh feelings of unfairness and thoughts of reverse discrimination ever sense. Affirmative action in education was originally intended to guarantee people equally protection under the law for minorities in schooling. It was also designed to destroy discrimination in job fields based on ones color of skin. What this ended up doing however is called reverse discrimination. Now non-minority individuals who work hard to earn a spot in employment can easily be passed over simply because they are non-minority.

She explores integration in neighborhoods and feels it is indeed improving and will translate to schools remaining and becoming more integrated. Ellen’s interest is social segregation and believes “the ultimate question (is) why our nation’s residential neighborhoods are as seg... ... middle of paper ... ...ty education. As a nation it behooves us to make quality education readily available to all. The task is daunting as “To address the issue of resegregation is to assess public education in America” (Dangelo305-306). If we want our public schools to be integrated, we must first educate the general public.

Depending on the class structure in people’s societies, stereotyping will be a problem to some people until they face reality about racial equality, also how everyone is human and equal. There are some societies that will accept reality and do something to change that discrimination on racial equality. Flannery O’Connor’s story opened our minds to understand that 1960’s, racial stereotyping was used for safety and individualism. And still to this day, racial stereotyping is still used for that reason. With this story all three characters symbolized racial equality, and facing reality that we are all human; that there’s no difference among all of us and that we must accept each other.

Affirmative action is just because it gives a fair advantage to black Americans, women and other minorities who have suffered from the effects of social injustice in our country. Majorities have constantly opposed affirmative action because they view it as an injustice directed to them. In Grutter v Bollinger, one can say that affirmative action is just because it is a benign discrimination. One might say that the law school?s consideration of African Americans, Hispanics and Native American student?s (who otherwise might not be represented in the student body) is unjust. However, considering the facts of the case, the school?s policy does not define diversity solely in terms of racial and ethnic status and does not restrict the types of diversity contributions eligible for ?substantial weight.?

Affirmative Action as Discrimination Based on Race Affirmative action is geared towards providing solution to the long standing issu... ... middle of paper ... ...d not by their competence but by their race. Affirmative action is not ethical because it is against the law on equal opportunities. When it is supposed to help the disadvantaged, it instead suggests that people of color are inferior and therefore need special privileges in order to succeed. Affirmative action also offends the ethnic minorities on account that they are not allowed to compete head to head with the advantaged group. On the other hand, not all that is about affirmative action hurt the white.

America as a country consists of citizens from different races. The issue of racism has led to rise to many revolutions in a bid to promote equality in the country. Identification of an individual with their race without regarding the sovereignty and unity in the country promotes racism. Individuals from some races view their races as better and look down upon other races. Racism that involves treating some races as superior to the other in terms of their belief should not be used to gauge the identification of an individual.

Affirmative Action The Webster dictionary defines affirmative action as an “active effort to improve the employment or educational opportunities of members of minority groups…” This paper will discuss the history of affirmative action and its effects on education and the work force in our society. I will argue why affirmative action is necessary for minorities to gain equal opportunities educationally and economically and how affirmative action is morally required as reparation for past discrimination. I will also discuss why many people believe that affirmative action is a step in the wrong direction and point out several arguments as to why we should get rid of affirmative action and try to validate their claims. Affirmative action requires that supervisors in charge of economic and educational opportunities take into consideration a candidate’s sex, disabilities, and ethnic background when accepting positions, especially if the candidate’s ethnic affiliation has had a history of racial discrimination. These minority groups are entitled to special considerations, typically viewed as payments made by the government to settle past discrimination.

Like myself, many other African Americans believe this policy is one the most effective strategies for helping underrepresented minority groups gain access to education and employment. However, critics of affirmative action believe this kind of reform does an injustice to the idea of merit. Though no one can deny minorities and women have made significant steps towards autonomy and equality in America, there are still wide educational and economic disparities between minority groups and white males. While the issues and controversies surrounding race can not be resolved easily, the question remains: Do we still need affirmative action in America? I say yes, affirmative action was and is needed to help prevent unfairness caused by discrimination in America.

Henry Lewis Gates Jr. and Diane Ravitch would both argue that the best way to enforce multiculturalism is through the education system. They believe that through the instilment of these values from a young age, America has the potential to become a more accepting and diverse society. In Gates’ “The Debate Has Been Miscast from the Start” and Ravitch’s “Multiculturalism”, both authors take on the task of convincing their audience why multiculturalism is a positive addition to the curriculum in America’s schools rather than the negative policy that some make it out to be. Both articles are similar in that they use rhetorical questions to convince the reader that the pluralistic version of multiculturalism is a positive addition to America’s curriculum; however, Ravitch’s expansion of both sides of multiculturalism creates a more persuasive argument than Gates, who briefly discusses multiculturalism from his perspective. Gates utilizes the strategy of asking rhetorical questions in order explain why multiculturalism is a productive inclusion to the curric... ... middle of paper ... ...comes educated through data in order to arm his or her self with facts to debate this topic, and finally the reader becomes cultivated on the many aspects of multiculturalism as a whole.