Privilege

Following our discussion about privilege on the Friday before spring break, I became more aware of issues of privilege regarding the “privilege wheel” located in our textbooks. I looked over the privilege statuses and the devalued statuses and began to look at what characteristics could be associated with me. Last semester, I read the Peggy MacIntosh article in my Diversity in Elementary Education class, and as an assignment, we were to classify ourselves with different privilege categories that were discussed in class. We only went over a few, but now I see how many are under each category.

Throughout break, I took a more in-depth look at my surroundings trying to see if the “privilege wheel” was accurate. From my observations, many of them are true. For example, I had to make a trip to the Verizon Wireless store on Friday. Many of the employees were of the black race that were working in the technical support area, with just one employee working behind the counter that was white. As I sat back and observed, I saw the way the customers talked and treated the employees. The majority of the customers (all of which were white) continually talked down to the employees that were black as though they did not comprehend anything that was being said. You could see the frustration of the employees as they were being talked down upon.

With this example, I saw that people of color do experience the “devalued status” on the “privilege wheel”. Another prevalent example I saw dealt with people that were elderly. Personally, after seeing many different examples, I unfortunately do see this wheel as being truthful. However, I do believe that privilege is wrong. People who are seen as privileged do not earn it, but are given it due to the characteristics that they are born with and cannot be changed. It is unfortunate that we live in a society that relies on unchangeable characteristics in order to receive benefits from others.