Privilege

After watching the Tim Wise video on privilege I reached a better understanding of exactly what privilege is. For the most part I find the majority of Wise's comments to be true. I believe that privilege plays a big part of people's everyday lives and white males tend to receive the most privilege. Perhaps the most obvious supporter of this accusation is the fact that most supervisors, administrators, CEOs, etc... are white men.



I think the way media represents privilege the most is through movies, TV shows and commercials. All of these mediums tend to portray the boss, principal, etc... (person in charge) as a white male. Rarely do you see a non caucasion male or even a female playing the roll as the head authority figure. When this is the case it seems as if the that person is the bad guy and not very effective in the authoritative position.



Daily Observed Privileges:



1. The president of the University of Oklahoma is a white male and has never been anything but a white male it the history of OU.

2. More females get accepted into OU than males.

3. When a college person gets pulled over in a weekend night in Norman they are almost always questioned for driving under the influence and adults are rarely ever questioned.

4. Males are issued more tickets than females in relations to the amount of times each gender gets pulled over.

5. Recent studies show that women make 72% of their male coworkers salaries.

6. Land lords discriminate against males when in search of renters and prefer female renters.

7. Last night at the bars I was served faster than any ethnic person or female, assuming I had money or my daddy's credit card. (perhaps the most commonly used stereotype of young men in college)



I strongly believe that society believes in the one drop rule. Take famous icons in the U.S. today such as: Barack Obama, Tiger Woods, Jimmy Hendrix. All of these men are considered black when in fact Obama is half black and half white, Tiger is half 50% black, 25% Chinese and 25% native American, and Hendrix is half black and half Jewish. This to me is the definition of the one drop rule.

When Wise talked about identifying new information and changing behaviors in relation to this information. He was referring to the fact that most adults recognize the fact that privilege is a real thing. Further, he encourages people to change their behaviors based off of this recognition to attempt to eliminate privilege. I think that he is a little naive in this regard merely on the fact that people recognize privilege but the most recognizable privilege is when it is not working in your favor. I think that people naturally victimize themselves and shut out the fact that they may not be the victim. If everybody from all races and both genders recognized that privilege is everywhere and favors all different backgrounds than we could eventually begin to eliminate but we will continue to go no where if we just focus on white male privilege although it is the most apparent privilege.