Whiteness, And White Privilege - 1682 Words

‘Whiteness’ is a socially constructed category of race, where people who are not ‘white’ are racially designated while ‘whites’ escape designation as if their racial category is not historically and ideologically based (Puzan, 2003). Race is socially constructed (Dyer, 1997) and it is important to acknowledge this in order to address its impact. Unless whiteness is labelled and confronted, being ‘white’ is usually considered the ‘norm’ which acquires certain social privileges, while all other socially-constructed categories of ‘race’ are considered different or, as Puzan (2003) terms it, the ‘racialised Other’. Labelling ‘whiteness’ and white privilege and recognising how it has been institutionalised allows people to look beyond it to see how it has defined knowledge, membership and language in our society, as well as the way it makes and enforces the rules and regulations of life in our society. This allows the implicit standards against which people are measured to be revealed (Puzan, 2003). According to Puzan (2003), some whites make a conscious choice to raise their own awareness of skin privilege, but this is not considered obligatory by most whites and is not addressed through legal and social measures in the same way as the more-familiar ‘racism’ that is known by that label. RACISM AND WHITE PRIVILEGE IN NURSING White privilege embraces the behaviours, values, beliefs and practices of the dominant white culture (Puzan, 2003). There are often unnoticed advantagesShow MoreRelatedThe Inequality That Black Students Experience1330 Words   |  6 Pagesthe Black and White achievement gap must be viewed through other lenses opposed to the single view of Black students cannot perform as well as White students. Venzant-Chambers (2009) offered other avenues by which to examine the achievement gap such as school tracking, examining the experiences of students of color, and the school system as a whole and its approach to Black students (p. 417). Racism in the Classroom Unintentional Bias Colorblindness. Within education, many White female novice teachersRead MoreThe Readings White Privilege : Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack, By Peggy Mcintosh, White Women, Race Matters1425 Words   |  6 Pagesreadings White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, by Peggy McIntosh, White Women, Race Matters by Ruth Frankenberg and Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination, by bell hooks, all cover the issue of whiteness from different perspectives. There are many aspects of whiteness; in this essay, I will argue that the two most important features are the absence of knowledge of the issue on the part of white people and stereotype consequences. 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My goals within this paper are not an attempt to explore musicality or the powerRead MoreThe Black Imagination By Bell Hooks954 Words   |  4 PagesRepresenting Whiteness in the Black Imagination (1992). ‘bell hooks’ is written in lower case to convey that the substance of her work reigns more important than the writer. From a marginalized perspective, hooks argues that sites of dominance, not otherness is problematic and critiques the lack of attention that white scholars pay to the representation of whiteness in the black imagination. 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It’s a topic that came up a few times throughout the semester in and outside of class. Granted, this topic is based on a single blog post but a collection of comment and statements that were made on specific blogs and during class sessions. This topic I fin extremely important mainly because I felt as though there was some confusion around the topic being white. UnderstandablyRead MoreThe Heart of Whiteness- Analysis Essay988 Words   |  4 PagesThe Heart of Whiteness Confronting Race, Racism, and White Privilege Robert Jenson Comm-365-X01 October 5, 2011 Joshua J. Shepherd I. Introduction: In this paper, I will be reviewing Robert Jensen’s â€Å"The Heart of Whiteness. Confronting Race, Racism, and White privilege†, along with developing a critical analysis of this work. I will be comparing my analysis with the opinions of others that have reviewed this book along with utilizing concepts from James W. Neulieps textbook, InterculturalRead MoreWhiteness Of A Different Color1363 Words   |  6 PagesMatthew Frye Jacobson’s Whiteness of a Different Color offers innovative insight into the concept of â€Å"race† and the evolution of â€Å"whiteness† throughout American history. Jacobson focuses his analysis on the instability of racial identification over time and how race has been created and perceived throughout different stages of history. He states in his introduction that â€Å"one of the tasks before the historian is to discover which racial categories are useful to whom at a given moment, and why† (p