I would identify myself as a white man. I am aware enough to know that being a white man in the U.S. puts me in a better position than most people. The society we live in is designed for white people by white people. So, white people are going to get the most out of our society and the way its structured. Inherently, much of society and its functions think about race, whether conscious or not. The United States history runs deep with racism and discrimination against people of color, and although it has changed throughout the years, It has always remained. Whether that be the Jim Crow Laws back in the day, to today where doing the Trump/Clinton election, many southern states were putting forth laws that targeted people of color so that they couldn’t vote. My point here is that at some puts in history, the institutional racism has seemed more evident than other parts of history.
Today, the United States likes to think of itself as a country striving for equality. However, there are many instances, macro and micro, where we still see prejudice and discrimination exist. I want to acknowledges these truths about the United States because as a white man, I live in a society designed for me. For white people, we have the luxury of not thinking about race and not wanting to talk about it. However, for people of color, this is not their reality. Whether they want to or not, people of color are always forced to think about race because it affects them deeply. I read an article in my Seminar for race and ethnicity class that talked about these ideas. The fact that a black person in America can’t not think about race because it could mean life or death for them. White people are allowed to be oblivious to the fact of racial inequality in America because they are the one’s benefiting from it. For people of color, not thinking about race could mean death. This is why it frustrates me to an extreme when white people talk about color blindness and not seeing color.
By not seeing color, you are ignoring the systematic difference between races and how that affects people. By not seeing color, you are keeping the conversation of racism stagnate. I hate the concept of color blindness because just cause a person decides not to acknowledge color, doesn’t mean that racism and prejudice don’t exist. Institutional racism and prejudice still exist that target people of color, so to say you are color blind is quite frankly tone deaf in my opinion. It’s important to talk about race, because whether we like or not, it affects much of our society and its functions. It’s important to acknowledge how racism affects someone or how you may benefit from it, as a white person. By not talking about race, you are ignoring the problem. By not acknowledging racial disparities and prejudice, you are a part of the problem. As a criminal justice major, much of my studies at Wayne has had to deal with race and how racial prejudice affects the criminal justice system. If we are just discussing the criminal justice system, there are inherent systemic problems in the system that target people of color and harshly punish them to keep those individuals in prison.
