Race and Poverty: The Power of White Privilege

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Recommended: Summary on the Pathology of “White Privilege”

The power of white privilege is something that quite frankly isn’t talked about enough but as a society many people believe that racism doesn’t exist. However, there is this unspoken advantage that whites are given called privilege, which is something that gives them a step ahead in society. Tim Wise talks about it in the video using specific examples to back up his point that white privilege is so prevalent and how others don’t even recognize that it is a serious issue. A study that was done in 2006, showed that out of 100 white people that were asked only 6% of those people thought that racial discrimination still existed in society. He also went on to mention that 2/3 of the white people who were alive during the civil right movement thought that Martin Luther King was doing too much at the wrong time, and that it was just not appropriate.
I agree with Wise because as an African American I can attest to the fact that as black male there is this invisible road block that you have to hurdle over in order to be considered in the same area as whites. Like Wise was explaining having that one thing to sweat in society what can determine whether one will be successful or not. If you are a white student who struggles in school it becomes a big deal and help is immediately needed to take care of the problem because you are said to have that potential no matter your class. But if you are an African American male it is different. In order to be talked about in those upper echelon students you have to perform exceptionally well and sometimes even better than those around you or at the top. When you have to worry about race and overcoming the barrier single handedly it can take a toll on you and sometimes even force your to show your full ...

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...cial connection to someone in a specific field.
I think that this is such a big deal because it just makes it so much more difficult for African Americans to succeed in society if there are basically starting from the bottom without any help. The root of the problem is also education because some of these black students only get the opportunity to go to these small charter public schools because some of their parents don’t emphasis the importance of education. The reason for this is because their parents were not enforcing discipline in the classroom for whatever reason and was something that wasn’t instilled in the mind of young black students as children. While some black students do actually understand that education is important they usually find out on themselves while almost all white students realize from kindergarten that education is the key to success.

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