The Pros And Cons Of White Privilege

Privilege is a right, advantage, favor, or immunity specially granted to a specific individual, group, or class, and withheld from certain or all others. White privilege is a form of social privileges that solely benefits white people and excludes people of color. For some apparent reason many people become blinded, ignorant, and oblivious when white privilege becomes the topic of conversation. “White Privilege is the other side of racism” (Rothenberg, 53). Although we live in a country where we are constantly told all men are created equal, there is an overt contradiction to the ideology simply because of conspicuous white privileges. There are several amounts of studies that quantify white privilege into undeniable statistics. There is a …show more content…
The extensive notion that white people have access to specific privileges; of which people of color do not, because of their “whiteness” declares the actuality of white privilege. It can exist without white people 's knowledge of its occurrence. If one does not believe it exists, it is probably because he/she is enjoying the benefits of these given privileges. These are the same people who claim that white privilege is fictitious and people of color or anyone else who point out social injustice are just lazy and complainers. White privilege is seemingly invisible to those who enjoy it and grants white people permission to experience these benefits unconsciously. Peggy McIntosh elucidates the idea of white privilege as an “invisible backpack” of unearned rights and privileges that white people enjoy. "Privilege exists when one group has something of value that is denied to others simply because of the groups they belong to, rather than because of anything they 've done or failed to do." …show more content…
One might think that a criminal record matters more than race, but an online study found that resumes with white-sounding names spurred 50 percent more callbacks from a prospective employer than the ones with black-sounding names, even when all job-related qualifications and credentials were the same. Studies have also shown that a white male with a criminal record will more likely get a call-back for an interview than a black male who does not have a criminal background (Sanders). “White Americans are less likely to be arrested and jailed. While people of color only make up 30% of the total population, they are 60% of the U.S. prison population” (Sanders). People of color hold their minority status within the United States due to their income, wealth, and health outcomes. It is often challenging to extricate class from race. When mentioning “welfare queens” and/or “at-risk communities,” without any mention of race, the assumptions are automatically drawn to blacks and Hispanics. It is true that prosperous African Americans will have to deal with even more racial profiling. They are perceived as “looking like” they do not belong in their affluent neighborhoods and suspected of being in that particular neighborhood to steal expensive cars and break into