White privilege means, for the sake of this essay, that because of your skin color, you will not experience the same injustices that a person of color will face. It mainly applies to those who are Caucasian, but it is also applicable to those who are people of color and are “white-passing” in which their skin is lighter, causing them to appear “white.” Examples of white privilege are very apparent, such as the lack of representation of people of color in the media, yet it is widely unknown or rejected by those who have it. In Octavia Butler’s Kindred, the author provides characters, such as the Weylins and Kevin, to make white privilege more visible and more obvious to us through the eyes of the main character, Dana.
The United States in the eighteen hundreds was, and still is, a disgraceful era in history. White privilege is enforced by society, as well as by the law. White people enslaved Africans and treated them in many inhumane ways on their plantations. Dana, a black woman living in twentieth century, is somehow taken back and forth from her era to the age of slavery. Butler introduces the Weylins as the slave owners of the time, as well as a symbol of white privilege in the nineteenth century. For example, education is strictly a white privilege because Mr. Weylin, and every other slave owner, doesn’t want slaves “talking better than him, putting freedom ideas in [their] heads” (Butler 74). Then, …show more content…
Weylin does nothing but complain and verbally abuse her workers all day. They are also privileged to have a decent home and not live with “[d]irt floors to sleep on, food so inadequate they’d all be sick…” (Butler 100). They do not see Africans as actual people. To them, Black people are objects that can be bought and sold for their advantage. White privilege in the eighteen hundreds means that you would be able to live without the fear of being raped, beaten, or sold because your existence had no
The United States in the eighteen hundreds was, and still is, a disgraceful era in history. White privilege is enforced by society, as well as by the law. White people enslaved Africans and treated them in many inhumane ways on their plantations. Dana, a black woman living in twentieth century, is somehow taken back and forth from her era to the age of slavery. Butler introduces the Weylins as the slave owners of the time, as well as a symbol of white privilege in the nineteenth century. For example, education is strictly a white privilege because Mr. Weylin, and every other slave owner, doesn’t want slaves “talking better than him, putting freedom ideas in [their] heads” (Butler 74). Then, …show more content…
Weylin does nothing but complain and verbally abuse her workers all day. They are also privileged to have a decent home and not live with “[d]irt floors to sleep on, food so inadequate they’d all be sick…” (Butler 100). They do not see Africans as actual people. To them, Black people are objects that can be bought and sold for their advantage. White privilege in the eighteen hundreds means that you would be able to live without the fear of being raped, beaten, or sold because your existence had no