I recently lost my work from a computer that stopped working while visiting family for thanksgiving. I have a deadline of Wednesday. can someone

I recently lost my work from a computer that stopped working while visiting family for thanksgiving. I have a deadline of Wednesday. can someone please help with this discussion?

The idea of privilege (including concepts such as White privilege, Male privilege, Able bodied privilege, thin privilege, heterosexual privilege etc)

tends to be one of the concepts that gets the most push-back, particularly from members of dominant groups. While most people are fairly on board with ideas of discrimination and poor treatment of minority groups they have a much harder time seeing the advantages that come for simply being part of a majority group.

What were your ideas of the concept of privilege before coming to this class? Is this a concept that you have struggled with?

Watch the examples below and read these articles explaining privilege(https://www.huffingtonpost.com/gina-crosleycorcoran/explaining-white-privilege-to-a-broke-white-person_b_5269255.html) White privilege unpacking the invisible knapsack

https://youtu.be/_cCQU0jt4cs

https://youtu.be/eLXCCcqnY-I

One of the reasons privilege is such a difficult topic is because we tend to see it manifest at the micro or individual level- because of this people tend to think they are being personally chided when they are told that they have privilege.

However privilege is actually a larger social structural issue

Discuss how privilege is related to the social structure-

How do stereotypes and prejudice create & reinforce privilege?

How do these examples help with the understanding of privilege?

Because privilege is often based on stereotypes how do we combat it?

How do we undo privilege for majority groups (and thus equalize chances of minority groups) without majority groups feeling they are being discriminated against?

Post responses to at least 2 other students to continue discussion and explore these ideas.

Student 1:

Prior to this class, my ideas of the concept of privilege were that it existed, but not to the extent that it is portrayed in the lectures and the readings. This is a concept that I have a hard time with. Everybody has hardships that they must deal with and overcome in order to be successful. Some people have it easier than others but using privilege as an excuse is not going to get you anywhere. Money is great and can help to lead a more secure life but having money is not the answer to all of life's problems. As long politics continues to divide people based on race, color, gender, and other differences, the politicians will find a way to keep us fighting amongst ourselves while they make the rules and take the money. My belief is that privilege is held by those with money and power and they use things like race and gender to their advantage.

I feel the way that Gina Crosley-Corcoran explains in the beginning of her article about white privilege, just because I am white does not mean I am privileged (2016). After reading that article, I can see how some of the things that I take for granted could be seen as a privilege. Also, I don't need to take any extra precautions when leaving the house (Ellis, 2016). This does not seem odd to me but that is because it is my normal, and my normal is not everyone else's normal.

"Stereotypes are oversimplified generalizations about groups of people" (OpenStax, 2016). This can be something as simple as black people are good at sports or white people can't dance. Those statements may be true for individuals but applying that broad statement to an entire race of people is not accurate and I think it is lazy. "A prejudice is not based on experience; instead, it is a prejudgment, originating outside actual experience" (OpenStax, 2016). I watched the "blue eyes, brown eyes" experiment that is mentioned in our text book a couple of years ago, and I was kind of shocked by what I was watching. The children were singled out based on the color of their eyes and basically placed in either the in-group or the out group. Those in the out-group scores went down on tests, performance declined, and they were angrier in general, all because they were told they were different and were treated differently. If enough negative association is built up about a certain group, or race, or gender, that can most definitely drive privilege, or lack thereof, for those involved.

These examples help with the understanding of privilege by pointing out specific examples of inequalities. It is hard to think of privilege if you don't believe in it or if you take the idea of privilege as a personal attack and don't look at the big picture. Pointing out things that people have to deal with or worry about on a daily basis, that I do not, made me step back and think. Understanding that I benefit from not having to think about where I go to eat or shop, where I can or can't live, or if I should walk down a dark alley alone is kind of eye opening. I have always been open minded and treated people the way that I want to be treated regardless of what they look like or where they come from.

Combating stereotypes is difficult because "new stereotypes are rarely created; rather, they are recycled from subordinate groups that have assimilated into society and are reused to describe newly subordinate groups" (OpenStax, 2016). These things are passed down within societal groups and are believed as facts by many people. One way to overcome this is to treat everyone as an individual as well as an equal. No one person is better than anyone else. There are some people that are misunderstood or different but that does not mean that they need to be singled out and treated poorly because of it. I went to a Native American History Observance this week and the guest speaker said something to the effect of, "we are all unique individuals but we are all related, and if we treat each other as family, we can overcome anything." I really liked that and I believe that is a true statement.

Undoing privilege without making people feel discriminated against may not be possible. Once a person lives a certain way for a period of time it is difficult to change. I think that treating everybody the same is the only way. I do not believe in a one world government, but I do believe in a one world population. We are all just people trying to survive and make a better life for ourselves and our families. Continuing to do that by taking from one group to give to another is a losing battle. As long as we continue to point out differences, and use those differences for political gains, we will be stuck.

References:

Crosley-Corcoran, G. (2016). Explaining white privilege to a broke white person. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/gina-crosleycorcoran/explaining-white-privilege-to-a-broke-white-person_b_5269255.html

Ellis, R. (2016). Social construction of gender. Retrieved from https://prezi.com/iqft-cwfginx/social-construction-of-gender/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

OpenStax, Introduction to Sociology 2e. OpenStax CNX. ‎Feb‎ ‎26‎, ‎2016 Retrieved from @6.14.

Student 2:

The Idea of Privilege

1.) What were your ideas of the concept of privilege before coming to this class? Is this a concept that you have struggled with?

Growing up as African American and being a minority (any group of people who, because of their physical or cultural characteristics, are singled out from the others in the society in which they live for differential and unequal treatment, and who therefore regard themselves as objects of collective discrimination.)(11.1 Racial, Ethnic, and Minority Groups) I understood at a young age that life was never going to be easy. That I would not receive the same privileges and opportunities due to my race. This is a concept that I still have to deal with anytime I am back in the states and a concept that I have to accept knowing that Institutional racism (refers to the way in which racism is embedded in the fabric of society)(11.2 Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination) will never change in America.

 2.) How do stereotypes and prejudice create & reinforce privilege?

Stereotypes and prejudice create langue that reinforces inequality. A perfect example of this is from our text from this week.The death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO on August 9, 2014, illustrates racial tensions in the United States as well as the overlap between prejudice, discrimination, and institutional racism. On that day, Brown, a young unarmed black man, was killed by a white police officer named Darren Wilson.(11.2 Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination.) This along with endless accounts of African Americans being shot to death at routine traffic stops by white police officers. This langue of discrimination, prejudice, and stereotypes creates a label upon minorities such as "Black Thug" which does not relate to all of the individuals within the race. This reinforces Institutional discrimination and promotes, in such cases white privilege (which is the benefits people receive simply by being part of the dominant group.)(11.2 Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination)

3.) How do these examples help with the understanding of privilege?

With Social Stratification within the United States, we see the cast system at work. We see how the privilege has an advantage over those who are not given the same opportunities due to race, gender, and ethnicity. As Americans, we like to say that we have an open class system and with the class system that we have as Americans it is easy to ignore the structural factors that influence class standings.

4.) Because privilege is often based on stereotypes how do we combat it?

I believe the only way to battle stereotypes is by education. Society as a whole has to learn from its mistakes and learn to teach that stereotypes are all bad. Stereotypes categorize race, gender, and ethnicity feed onto those who are privilege.   

5.) How do we undo privilege for majority groups (and thus equalize chances of minority groups) without majority groups feeling they are being discriminated against?

Races along with gender and ethnicity aren't fixed by immutable categories, they are defined by society. I believe one way of doing this is by Feminist sociologist Patricia Hill Collins (1990) developed intersection theory, which suggests we cannot separate the effects of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and other attributes. When we examine race and how it can bring us both advantages and disadvantages, it is important to acknowledge that the way we experience race is shaped, for example, by our gender and class. Multiple layers of disadvantage intersect to create the way we experience race.(11.3 Theories of Race and Ethnicity).

Here is a video I found called the Privilege Race to $100 dollars it is a great example showing the social structure of p..>@6.14:sa__n8SF@3..>@6.14:pVynETUs@2..>@6.14:0xCpCOuT@5/Stereotypes-Prejudice-and-Disc