Blog#1
It seems that white privileges and male privileges are real concerns in our today’s society
because many writers and scholars argue about those privileges. Peggy McIntosh in her essay
argues that white and male privileges exist overtly and covertly in U.S. Historically, we had all
kinds of racism and sexism in the United States. We had slavery, segregation, and men’s ultimate
power in society. But, in my opinion, Peggy McIntosh’s argument is more subjective rather than
objective. Peggy claims all sort of implicit and explicit white and male privileges without
supporting any evidence. Peggy has not done any research or experiment to support her claims.
Peggy just argues about her personal experiences and her ideal society. Therefore, I argue that
Peggy’s point of view is personal experience and more subjective.
However, Stulberg and Weinberg, in their book, Diversity in American Higher Education
argue that white privilege exist in schools in U.S. Stulberg and Weinberg support their arguments
by bringing many evidences. For instance, racial discrimination in schools and stereotyping can
dramatically change teacher-student interaction (Walker, 2007). They also argue that another
great deal of recent research suggest that racial stereotype are a part of everyday school life, and
this has a great negative impact for students of color (Ferguson, 2000). The disadvantage of
Black and Latino students take in many different forms, and Stulberg and Weinberg claim that
some teachers perceive low-income, Black, and Latino students as lower academic capability and
intelligence than white students. I assume that this book is more heavily contributes of liberal
and democrat point of view, and I believe conservatives have opposite and different point of
view from the writers of the book. Thus, I support those writers who support their point of views
by empirical evidences.
In my personal experiences, I have never felt or been in a situation to observe any kind
of implicit or explicit white privilege. In my all classes, I was treated equally. I am a psychology
student and a critical thinker, and I observe any social issues in society without judging people.
But I have never seen or felt white or male privilege, of course, being a male makes more
complicated to accept male privilege. I have been living in the United States for five years, and
sometimes it is hard for me to distinguish those privileges if they exist. I have born and rose in a
patriarchal society, however, I have always believed in equality. Back to my country, Iran, I was
strongly disagreeing about racism, sexism, and heterosexualism. And steel believe in equality in
all societies. I am familiar that how male are privilege in patriarchal society, but I need to study
more about male privilege in U.S. I really enjoyed and learned a lot from my classmates in last
presentation, but I was surprised to hear that some students felt that white privilege and male
privilege exist and they had some kind of experience about it. Furthermore, I hope this
educational journey teaches us how to prevent any kind of privilege, sexism, and racism.