Does White Privilege Truly Exist?

An often debatable topic among people of different races is the world White Privilege. White Privilege is essentially known as, if you are white, you are given special privileges that others do not enjoy. Things such as not getting pulled over by the cops as frequently, not being watched at the store, easier to obtain jobs because your white, and many many more. Many Caucasians dispute that, saying they have personally not enjoyed any of the privileges associated with being white. In essence, this is one of the key topics that is usually separate lines of racial divide. I believe this topic is a clear situation of people viewing an perspective solely through their own eyes.

Now, do I believe white privilege exist? Certaintly, but not as strong in some areas as some minorities claim. Due to AA, and just the changing of times in general, it's definitely not common for an individual to be turn down due to his/her race or gender. Does it exist? I believe so, even though it would be hard to gather proof. But I personally believe that for every one company that turns you down because your a minority, especially black or hispanic, there are seven other companies who would be more than willing to give you a chance.

Where I believe white privilege is rather strong is in the media, specifically televison and movies, fashion, and history. It is well known that very little history of minorities are dedicated in public schools. A constant and justified complaiment is the lack of information that is given to children about the history of minorities. Yet very little has been done about it. The majority of people who gather their studies of minorities do so during college in certain college courses. I believe this is partially why black history month was created, to sort of buffer the rather little amount of information we have towards black history. However, black history month was only suppose to be a temporary solution until more history about blacks has been added to school books.

BET was another temporary buffer that was meant to be remove when black individuals were given more prominent and main roles in general television. To this day, there are extremely few roles where a main role in either male or female is an minority within a multi-racial cast. Over 86% of main roles on television with multi-racial cast are filled by whites. Now again, the key statement here is a multi-racial cast. Meaning where there are people of all races but the main actor or actress is an minority. True, there are shows that are dedicated solely towards a minority life such as ugly betty, the bernie mac show. But in shows with different races all together, there is rarely a minority main male or female.

Further proof is by a producer who made the hot television drama called brother's and sisters. He was recently removed from his position as head writer due to conflict of interest with other producers. He originally started as a playwriter until he made it big with his show brother's and sisters. Read what a part of what he had to say among his dismissal.

Baitz, an accomplished playwright before trying his hand at creating his own show, says he was "ousted, not fired, an important distinction," in an article he wrote for The Huffington Post. If his article is any indication, he won't be longing for a return to mainstream television anytime soon.

"I can no longer argue for tone and can only watch as the demographic demands that have turned America into an ageist and youth-obsessed nation drives the storylines younger and younger, whiter and whiter, and with less and less reflection of the real America, which is made up, to the sorrow of the research departments, of people over 35 years of age and of many ethnicities and incomes,"

http://www.tv.com/brothers-and-sisters/show/58012/story/10645.html?tag=story_list;title;6

And of course, you have the quite clear news media bias that only seem to show minorities, especially black individuals in a negative light. Rarely do you see news articles showing black people doing anything good. The majority of articles are either black people doing crime, or pulling the race card against an actual or perceived injustice. In my honest opinion, the media is the strongest area that contains white privilege.

Another very strong area is fashion. I'm not sure if many of my caucasian brothers and sisters heard anything about the doll test that took place not so long ago, where almost all children choose white dolls as good and black dolls as bad. Fashion has always attempted to show as white being the clear choice of beauty. It is this belief as to why lighter skin blacks have an easier chance of making it in the fashion business in comparison to darker skin blacks. Because lighter skin are closer towards the white spectrum than their darker kin.

So there is three prime areas that contain a heavy dose of white privilege. But because it's so enwrap into society, it's hard to take notice of it unless someone thinks outside the box. It is clearly enwrap in our environment all across the USA, and only through awareness will people truly see that.

But, I will say that things has slowly but surely been balancing out. In my previous blog post, I discuss about trixton who was black in 90210. One excellent point is that he is the Main male role for a rich area. Certain shows such as grey anatomy has been applauded for their diversity within the show, and it will only continue to get better. Even with fashion, with tira banks being a role model for women of darker skin to show that you can make it in this business. So I believe overtime, (not sure how long), white privilege will cease to exist, and the media/fashion would truly represent the USA as a melting pot.