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I 've had access to a good education, was never the odd one out in my community, and never was denied a job because I was white. Never have I walked into a store and been followed around because an employee made the assumption I was a stealing criminal based on my skin color. I can 't deny the fact that I benefit from racism, I wish I could say I didn 't. Just being born white in our western society puts you in a position of power, and unfortunately there is not much you yourself can do to break the pattern of racism. Jane Elliott attempts to educate people on the discrimination minorities face everyday, to prevent certain harmful behaviors and break the pattern. However her approach is not very effective in my eyes, because it is based on the idea that every white person is inherently racist. Commonly in today’s society white people carry the racism of white people long dead on their backs like original sin. Personally, I think it is not effective to blame white people for issues like slavery because no one alive in our country has owned slaves or was a slave. Placing the blame and getting angry at all white people as a default is not effective because you can’t solve an issue such as racism, which is based on hate, by hating another group of people. In this way, my life has been effected by my race. No, I have not experienced anything near the discrimination of minority groups but it is not fair or solving …show more content…
Unfortunately, at my age I find I am at loss on how to fix the problems and differences that have been present for as long as anyone can remember. Every society has persecuted another group of people, no matter the race, but none of these problems have ever been resolved. No matter how much you educate your society on the damaging effects of systematic racism, there is always going to be people who believe they are superior to the other group. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to break the circle of discrimination involved with racism, however I find that if someone is a hardcore racist they always will be no matter what you say to them. Everyone wants to believe they are right and that they are superior to others, which I think is why racism still remains a significant issue in our society. Racism allows the low of the low to believe that they are better by far than minority groups just on the basis of skin color, but it doesn’t matter to such racists because in their mind they are better than someone. It’s easy to see why racism is perpetuated by looking at this point of view, because in all honesty, if you were a poor white southerner with nothing worthwhile in your life wouldn’t you be happy to believe that you were inherently better than a group of people, just to know that at least you’re not the bottom of the totem pole? I’m not saying racism is right at all, but unfortunately like previously stated I’m only a