One of the most difficult things to do in philosophy is to think objectively, and stand as strongly against irrationalities that benefit you just as much as the injustices of the world that negatively affect you. True philosophy in my opinion, is the unbiased pursuit of truth, reason and justice.
I really enjoyed the exercise Dr. J put us through in class, because it challenged us to notice covert inequalities that benefit the majority of our social structure at rhodes. I thought it was a healthy self critique exercise. Opening these doors only allows for progress to be made for our society, the first step of change is realization.
As a white person, being aware of the unfair advantages we have is a healthy self critique and I think is a good thinking habit to get into. However this way of thinking is one of the most difficult things to do, because naturally, we see the small picture first and we want to better ourselves, but usually we fail to see that fairness, equality, and being a team player is what is going to advance us further in the long run.
Since equality / equal opportunity is clearly the goal in any functioning society, why does inequality exist in the first place? Why is it even an issue still? What can we do on our campus to take back some of the unnecesary physcological stress we place upon race, religion, sexual orientation etc? How can rhodes be a smoothly functioning society with out discrimination being an issue, and having the campus not only open and tolerant, but supportive of all races, religions and orientation?
It's the little things that are the most effective. Racism still strongly exists, but it is just different from what it was 100 years ago or even 10 years ago, it's underground, covert and not easily noticible. I think the first step having the mind set to speaking out against any irrationality. Simple tolerance is not good enough I think, tolerance allows for segregation, but support, unity and team work is the next step.
I think we set up certain systems of privilege because they create a standard. Because we don't want to address a fear about another race, we set up a standard to benefit one race and its practices. This prolonged process leads to a common sense mentality that doesn't allow us to see privilege. The only way to remove this system of privilege is to embrace our fears and not base our standards on those fears. We also have to look at past decisions that have been made and correct them by removing the basis of fear.
ReplyDeleteGreat point! I think that it is good to become aware of the fact that genuine change is one that happens gradually through a process. I support your point here but I’d like to challenge it to go a little further in saying that acknowledgment is the first step of change. The difference between realization and acknowledgment is action, and it will be action that truly spurs change. The act of acknowledging systems of inequality allows one to actively engage with the system being called into question because one is forced to analyze their personal role in the system regardless if it’s good or bad. Anyone can have a realization, or in other words an epiphany, but that does not mean that her/his role is fully recognized nor are they prompted to act differently. I am not dismissing the point about the role of realization. In the act of acknowledgement, realization is included just with a more actively engaged mental process.
ReplyDeleteRacism is "underground, covert, and not easily noticeable" - for white people right? Surely "the gaze" still exists, and somehow I doubt that black students at Rhodes have a hard time noticing racism in their day-to-day campus life. Within the fact that many whites believe that the nature of racism has changed/become less overtly apparent (although there was a widely-covered KKK rally in downtown Memphis this past weekend...) lies another example of white privilege. We talked about this one in class, but white students at Rhodes have the privilege of only noticing or experiencing a fraction of the racist activities going on around them. Personally, I know that even having taken classes that fulfill my African American Studies minor, I have still been unfairly given this privilege- and that privilege certainly still manifests itself in my daily life.
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