Pre reading questions for week 4

To me, privilege is the same exact thing as having your own right; you are given the opportunity to do something by your own free will or choice. I don’t know if this counts as a privilege to other people in different societies but I think one of it is the privilege to practice your own belief, culture, or religion. Everyone has the right to practice it and not be told by the government or the authorities you can’t do this and that. I also think an example of privilege would be maybe the privilege to vote or like the privilege to sign up for the army. I think white privilege means the whites have their own set of rules or rights that they can do while others cannot. I think we talk about white privilege in ethnic studies because in some ways the things they can do and others cannot is racism. I believe structural inequality means the type of structure or government we have or had in the past was unfair and cruel. Others could do this and that, while others were unable to because maybe of their social status in government or they just didn’t have that much power, money, or labor. I think we talk about structural inequality in ethnic studies because like I said before with white privilege, it has something to do with racism. Advantage and disadvantage means like the same thing as pro and cons. Advantage means like having a positive or up side effect of something while disadvantage means having a negative and down side effect of something. I think we will talk about the advantage and disadvantage in ethnic studies because it probably has to do with white privilege, structural inequality, and racism and mostly the disadvantage it has towards the other racial groups and the advantage it has towards the white people. I would define racism as not being able to do something based on their color, gender, culture, belief, religion, etc. I also think it means not being liked for all of those same reasons too. I think my definition of privilege has somewhat something to do racism because I defined privilege as something to do with maybe your religion or belief and if someone doesn’t like you because of that, I think that counts as racism. Yes, I believe people of color can be racist because anyone can be racist. If you say no then I doubt that because everyone has their own good or bad opinions about other people. I think the white people have the most advantage in the U.S society because they are the most recognized. They hold the most power and if we were to say cause maybe some trouble against them, it would cause a major fight between them and the other groups. I think Lipsitz means by this quote is that the definition of racism changes over time because many people give their own definition and meaning to racism to the point where it leads confusion to some people in different eras. I think in the colonial America and I don’t know if this is right or not but I believe that racism was bad during that time. Not many had a say in their lives and the white people mostly had power and control. During the 20^th century and today, I still believe there is still racism out there but not as bad as it was before. Like the government today gives more people, besides the white, more rights and freedom then they had when they didn’t have any power at all.

 

 

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