What Is White Privilege?

What is privilege? What does it mean? Is privilege inherited or is it earned? As I have learned of this theme in Unit Two, privilege is something that is inherited and something you were born with rather than something you worked for. In other words, privilege is defined as a favor or right to some people, but not for everybody. The privilege I speak is that White privilege. In all the stories that I have read in this unit, the authors always emphasize that one race is in power because they see themselves as superior while the inferior race has to suffer. Oppression is something that points toward the social forces that press upon people and hold them back, thus blocking their pursuit of happiness.

In the essay, “White Privilege” and “Male

He talks about how white people have privilege from Native America through the lenses of the characters conflict. The main character in the story is Arnold. Arnold’s own growth changes his perspective and relationship to communities he is part of. Arnold experiences his life in reservation; where it separated and alienated Native Americans from the rest of the world. The Spokane reservation where Arnold lives is impoverished and alcoholism is rampant. He grew up on the Indian Reservation and transferred to the all-white school in Reardon to escape the hopelessness of the reservation. He says that life is hard on the Spokane reservation, and that many hopes and dreams have been smashed on this reservation. It is inhabitants might dream of what they want to do in life, but they have way to achieve these dreams. Arnold moved out of a reservation where he had lived for years into a school filled with mostly white privileged Americans. The reason he want to move out to Reardan school is because their school have more resources then the school he went in his reservation. He wants to go to college after finishing high school, but if he stayed at Wellpinit he wouldn’t have any chance go to college. Arnold is characterized by his poverty and race. He has given himself the opportunity to make a better life that is what he is doing. Junior never gives up. All the Indians on the

His poor self-esteem is connected with the idea of being poor and even believing that he deserves to be poor. It is not until Mr. P points out that he deserves better and is worth more that he actually starts to believe it. In fact, he is so used to believing that because he is Indian he is inferior in some way to the people around him. Alexie had makes the point that Indians have not been loved in this country. The authors mentions the perils of driving in certain area off the reservation, where Indians are arrested for the “crime” of Driving While Indian to give an example of the racism Native Americans face in the white world. Another example showing the inferior conflict is when Arnold’s sister marries a Flathead Indian and moves to their reservation in Montana, Arnold says: “Can you imagine a place where the white people are scared of the Indians and not the other way around? That’s Montana” (p. 90). Conversely, the Indians on Arnold’s reservation seem to believe that if they go into the white world they will be hurt or even killed, as Native Americans have been in the