Response to "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack"

5, 6, 26, 39 & 46 are the five statements from the list that struck me.


6. "I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented."

This stuck out to me the most because after reading it it made me think about the distribution of races in shows and the variety within the shows that contain diversity. When you go through the channels on TV there is much more variety in the types of shows that white people are in than black people. There are also less channels which are generally thought of "black channels". Even with the channels dedicated to mainly showing black shows there is a trend in what happens. Usually the shows are comedies, show black people as aggressive, or in some other way portray stereotypes of blacks.

"Women and Bitches"

The title "Women and Bitches" stood out to me the most because to me women and bitches seem to be the main focus of a heavily male populated and dominated hip hop/rap world. The hip hop/rap world has put a label on women; that label being that they are bitches, or always exploits them in some other way. I believe that the way that male artists talk about females in their lyrics is awful. I feel that there is no reason for an entire gender to be classified under such harsh terms and exploited because it "sells" or "sounds good". I feel that the entire hip hop/rap industry has transformed from its roots of lyrics with a message into an industry wrapped around the idea of neggative connotations. I dont think that the portrayal of women as bitches through both the lyrics and images is a good reputation or association for the hip hop/rap industry to have, but new artists such as Lil Wayne come into the game trying to make a name for themselves and they copy what they see and hear. With that, talking about females as bitches and exploiting women seems to be the "it thing" to do and so as the industry progresses, the degree of exploitation increases.

AUTHORSHIP: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

I am not a big reader and do not have a favorite book but of the books that I have read, The Sceret Life of Bees  written by Sue Monk Kidd was one that I enjoyed reading from beginning to end. I enjoyed the book because of the setting of the book, the characters, and the meassages that are protrayed. Another reason why I enjoyed the book is because of the way in which the black female is portrayed. In the book Sue Monk Kidd has four black women that serve as the main characters and each of them is unique in some way, and none of them are chacacterized by the "sterotypical black woman". I felt good reading this book and having such strong, independent and determined women as the main focus.

It is obvious that Sue Monk Kidd is the author of the book, but besides her I believe that many others are authors such as: the readers, the people that turned the book into a movie, the laws and politics of the time period when the book was written in, and critics of both Sue Monk Kidd and the many issues that are raised throughout the book.

Leroi vs. Goodman

Race is definitely a difficult topic to discuss and an even more difficult word to define or explain. When it comes to the scientific viewpoints on race, things get even more difficult. As shown through the ideas of Alan Goodman and Marie Leroi, there are drastically varied views on race scientifically. Leroi believes that using race as a classification of biological variation is not necessarily accurate but easy way to give somewhat of a definition for it.Goodman believes that race should not be based on biology because as he shows in his article there are many problems with defining it that way.

I am not sure who I agree with more because after reading the two arguments there are both valid points made in terms of race and science. I believe that both Goodman and Leroi understand that there is no way for them to define race but they both are striving to bring some closure to what race means scientifically. Goodman says "Skin color would not predict other "deeper" human characteristics. Race was only skin deep." Leroi says "There is nothing very fundamental about the concept of the major continental races; they're just the easiest way to divide things up." I think that these two statements are key examples as to why there is so much discussion and also to why the question "What is race?" does not have a concrete answer.

Race isn't biological, but racism is still real.

9.Race isn't biological, but racism is still real. Race is a powerful social idea that gives people different access to opportunities and resources. Our government and social institutions have created advantages that disproportionately channel wealth, power, and resources to white people. This affects everyone, whether we are aware of it or not.

This point in the list really stood out to me. After reading this I immediately thought of the term white privilege. It reminded me of a discussion that took place  in the "Discussions About Race" lunch talks last school year. It is pretty clear that both the government and social institutions create certain boundaries where white can and all others can't. These unfair advantages cause people to second guess the race or culture they belong to and in the long run lead to problems in the development of the people who are not white and do not have the advantages due to race. I want to pay special attention to the ending sentence. From personal experience, I would have to say that everyone recognizes white privilege to some extent but those who are more heavily impacted in a negative manner have clearer views of the advantages white people have based solely on the fact that they are white. The term white privilege hits me hard personally because I am on the farthest possible negative end of the spectrum, the least privileged and I don't think it it either fair or appropriate that some have abilities that others don't simply because of the color of their skin.

My Blog Design

When I was trying to decide how I would design my blog I had no clue at first. I chose a couple different backgrounds to start off with but it was more random than strategic, or with reason. Then I came across the background with the colorful circles. This backgrond stood out to me because it was bright and I felt an energetic vibe from it. I thought if it caught my attention, it would also catch the attention of others that would look at my blog. I thought it was also perfect because the circles overlap and form different colors, or mixtures of colors and to me that reminded me of how in the world there are many people, and of those people no one person is plain, everyone has some part of them that is ordinary and a mixture of something else. From taking this class this year I hope to learn about race and gender in depth and learn about the different mixtures of people in the world.