Why does society commonly believe that one ascriptive characteristic of your identity makes you privileged? Are not all people mistreated by society at least at one point or another, “With respect to the most basic moral values such as justice, ‘we should regard all human beings as our fellow citizens and neighbors’ (Nussbaum, 117).” Being a young white woman I have found no privilege in todays’ society because I have been treated unfairly at work, racially profiled, social profiled, and disrespected by my male counterparts in my everyday life.
To begin with, women are not treated the same way as males in the United States “Men’s unwillingness to grant that they are overprivileged in the curriculum, even though they may grant …show more content…
The one thing that really shows the deprivileged in being white in today’s world is that there are a wide variety of clubs and organizations catering specifically to African Americans and no organizations specifically for white skin that aren’t controversial. On top of that, there are no scholarships for being white or Caucasian. For example, when I was applying for scholarships to help pay for college I came across a full ride scholarship called the “Call Me Mister Program” and I qualified for everything they had on their checklist except for being an African American male. There are television shows and even whole television networks that are specifically designed for African Americans such as the Black Entertainment Network (BET) and a show called Back-ish that comes on the NBC network. While Black pride is considered a form of empowerment, I can’t boost about my white pride without being racist. Even more, most White people are assumed to be all part of the same group of people in America, no matter what part of the country they are in and where their origins really lie. This prejudice is also shown in most textbooks that students read in their high school textbooks. African-Americans are historically portrayed as underprivileged in history textbooks while ethnic whites who were historically underprivileged like the Irish and Italians are only footnotes. Being from mostly Irish decent I find hurtful that most my peers do not learn about the history of Irish immigrants in America because my ancestors were also mistreated. They were referred to as white slaves because they did the dangerous jobs that African American slaves could not do because the slave master didn’t want to damaged his property. “Even though slavery has long since been abolished, the issues of what it means to live in a society that believes all men are created equal, of how we treat each other (Bellah, 124)”, because we