Quarantine Discoveries.. “About “White Privilege”

He pointed to this study performed by Matthew Clair and Jeffrey S. Denis’s “Sociology on Racism.”

They define racism as “individual- and group-level processes and structures that are implicated in the reproduction of racial inequality.” Systemic racism happens when these structures or processes are carried out by groups with power, such as governments, businesses or schools.

They stated that, “As Racism differs from bias, which is a conscious or unconscious prejudice against an individual or group based on their identity. It was very evident following the twins tower attacks, even years after, anyone with a beard, brown skin or Arabian dressing, was at constant risk of being a victim of violence, bias, racism and harassment.”

They mentioned that “Basically, racial bias is a belief. Racism is what happens when that belief translates into action. For example, a person might unconsciously or consciously believe that people of color are more likely to commit crime or be dangerous. That’s a bias. A person might become anxious if they perceive a black person is angry. That stems from a bias. These biases can become racism through a number of actions ranging in severity, and ranging from individual- to group-level responses: 

• A person crosses the street to avoid walking next to a group of young black men.
• A person calls 911 to report the presence of a person of color who is otherwise behaving lawfully.
• A police officer shoots an unarmed person of color because he “feared for his life.”
• A jury finds a person of color guilty of a violent crime despite scant evidence. 
• A federal intelligence agency prioritizes investigating black and Latino activists rather than investigate white supremacist activity. 

Both racism and bias rely on what sociologists call racialization. This is the grouping of people based on perceived physical differences, such as skin tone or ethnicity.”

This arbitrary grouping of people, historically, fueled biases and became a tool for justifying the cruel treatment and discrimination of non-white people.

Colonialism, slavery and Jim Crow laws were all sold with junk science and propaganda that claimed people of a certain “race” were fundamentally different from those of another—and they should be treated accordingly.

This is also my personal opinion, that while the majority of white people did not participated directly in this mistreatment, their learned biases and their safety from such treatment led many to commit one of those most powerful actions which is silence. Passiveness is a well known and defined factor present in all types of social abuse.

It could escalates to Holocaust proportions, of systemic slavery, systematic extermination (like it happened in Germany during Hitler era), and under many other countries dictatorships. Never forget that history can be repeated.

And just like that, the trauma, displacement, cruel treatment and discrimination of non white people, inevitably, gave birth to the concept white privilege in US.

Collins continues offering a definition of white privilege stating that, -“White privilege is—perhaps most notably in this era of uncivil discourse—a concept that has fallen victim to its own connotations. The two-word term packs a double whammy that inspires pushback. 1) The word white creates discomfort among those who are not used to being defined or described by their race. And 2) the word privilege, especially for poor and rural white people, sounds like a word that doesn’t belong to them—like a word that suggests they have never struggled.”-

This defensiveness derails the conversation, which means, unfortunately, that defining white privilege must often begin with defining what it’s not. Otherwise, only the choir listens; the people you actually want to reach check out. White privilege is not the suggestion that white people have never struggled. There is a minority of white people that do not enjoy the privileges that come with relative affluence, such as food security. Many do not experience the privileges that come with access, such as nearby hospitals.

They need to understand that white privilege is not the assumption that everything a white person has accomplished is unearned; most people disregarding their race, ethnicity ,sexual preference, who have reached a high level of success worked extremely hard to get there. If correctly understood ,white privilege should be viewed as a built-in advantage, separate from one’s level of income or effort, and will continue to exist and expand, if that silent inactive white majority do not raise their voices.

Francis E. Kendall, author of Diversity in the Classroom and Understanding White Privilege: Creating Pathways to Authentic Relationships Across Race, comes close to giving us an encompassing definition: “having greater access to power and resources than people of color [in the same situation] do.” –

I strongly suggest that social scientists should step in, and perform scientific studies based on data that could be reproduce and verifiable, most important that could offer predictions, etiologies and sustainable solutions.

( From Wikipedia falsifiability or refutability is the capacity for a statement, theory or hypothesis to be contradicted by evidence. For example, the statement “All swans are white” is falsifiable because one can observe that black swans exist.[A]. Falsifiability was introduced by the philosopher of science Karl Popper in his book Logik der Forschung (1934, revised and translated into English in 1959 as The Logic of Scientific Discovery). He proposed it as the cornerstone of a solution to both the problem of induction and the problem of demarcation. Popper argued for falsifiability and opposed this to the intuitively similar concept of verifiability. Whereas verifying the claim “All swans are white” would require assessment of all swans, which is not possible, the single observation of a black swan is sufficient to falsify it.)

The following linked article wrote by Wayne Allyn Root ( https://townhall.com/columnists/wayneallynroot/2020/06/28/everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-white-privilege-n2571448) , clearly shows that the majority of white citizens do not acknowledge this concept of white privilege, or neither understood the fact that, or how their learned biases (while struggling and working hard), those biases were unconsciously growing while they were living in their safety zone, shielded from such biases treatments, as a consequence leading many to commit one of those most negative powerful actions, silence.

A corroboration of this silent attitude is unconsciously given by the same Wayne Allyn Root as quoted from the same linked article , he writes-“because my dad’s story is the story of most middle-class white Americans. We are the silent majority that supports President Donald Trump. We’ve never caught a whiff of “white privilege.”– So here is the question. Are those white majority voting for Mr.Trump as he said, the same “silent majority” of white citizens not acknowledging this privilege, or neither recognizing their silent inaction? Well he said it –“the silent majority ”