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Flip open Amanda Shaffer's high school yearbook, and you'll notice something that stands out even more than her classmates' earnest smiles and big hairdos.
Only a handful of white faces appear among the portraits of African-American students -- flecks of white on a canvas of black and brown. One of those faces belongs to Shaffer, who was bused to a black high school in Cleveland, Ohio, after refusing to follow her friends to a white, private academy.
This is a good article in that it discusses what people have to learn. It doesn't talk about white privilege, but it really is about how different our experiences of the world are.
This is one quote that stands out:
Quote:
"It shifted my point of view," Shaffer says. "It's like when you go to the optometrist, and they slap those new lenses on you -- you see the world differently."
It's hard to put much weight into the CNN article. A white basketball player on an all black team is still in an enviable position. I think the beltmag story does a bit better, but it's still coming from the white perspective, from a girl who had a choice to attend the school she chose.
I went to high school with a handful of black kids, there were none in my elementary school. I thought we got along well, but it was probably just a superficial relationship. We didn't intentionally mingle outside of school, but we didn't ignore each other if we met up either.
Most white people never have the chance to find out what it is like to live as a minority. These people did and it changed how they thought about society.
It's hard to put much weight into the CNN article. A white basketball player on an all black team is still in an enviable position. I think the beltmag story does a bit better, but it's still coming from the white perspective, from a girl who had a choice to attend the school she chose.
I went to high school with a handful of black kids, there were none in my elementary school. I thought we got along well, but it was probably just a superficial relationship. We didn't intentionally mingle outside of school, but we didn't ignore each other if we met up either.
Did you read the whole article? It also talked about a young man who was a freedom rider. And it talks about Rev. Curtiss Paul DeYoung who joined a black church and attended Howard University.
I read it. I still think it's " discrimination light", compared to the black experience.
They are NOT talking about discrimination against them. They are talking about learning about the black experience even though they cannot know the entire experience.
Most white people never have the chance to find out what it is like to live as a minority. These people did and it changed how they thought about society.
I went to a high school that was 6% white, and it didn't change how I viewed society. Relationships in that school were the same at the other high schools I went to (one without a majority race and two majority white). White people out here most certainly can experience being in the minority.
As I've mentioned before, I've since talked to people I knew growing up who aren't white, and they had mostly the same experiences we white kids in the area had.
The bottom line is expanding one's personal experience and awareness of points of view other than one's own, not white privilege. The latter is the belief that being seen as a normal individual human being is "unearned privilege"; it presupposes that racial discrimination should be standard, when what should be standard for all is how whites are seen today. The former is a learning experience and for the right person a positive adventure no different in essence than traveling to a foreign country, immersing oneself in a different culture, or learning a new language. Not just whites but anyone of any background can benefit from going outside one's own background and gaining a new perspective.
Also, it's presented from the white perspective probably because the author is white and the audience that could use the information the most are whites; the bulk of non-white Americans have been the only one of their kind in the room at some point in their lives, an experience much fewer white Americans have had. Even if America was completely racially integrated this would be the case, since whites are six times more numerous than any other racial group.
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