Eliminating White Privilege

We want our students to grow and develop into moral and intelligent people. But, in order to do this, it is necessary to eliminate---or, at the very least reduce---the concept of white privilege. You may have noticed an abundance of racist commentary on social networks lately regarding Ferguson and Eric Garner, I sure have. While these remarks are both racist and disgusting, they can be easily dismissed. Their words are hurtful but I believe they only represent a microcosm of a few terribly ignorant people. However, if we want real change to occur we need to start at the root of the cause: education.

The focus needs to be on social justice in the classroom. Specifically, as stated in this pdf, "a social justice curriculum must strive to include the lives of all those in our society, especially the marginalized and dominated." The people who are being mistreated are obviously the focus of social justice, but everyone else cannot be ignored. It needs to be a group effort. There needs to be a collaborative effort to destroy certain ideas regarding white privilege like the Columbus Myth. Students need to not only learn about social injustices but they should also be given the opportunity to actively participate and make positive change. And, this is especially true for Caucasians. Vinay Harpalani in his article "White privilege: a challenge for multicultural education" he states:

"Most of the time, whites are not even aware of these advantages. Many of them are actually things that do NOT happen to whites, such as not being stopped by the police or followed in a store; not being asked to speak for one’s race or treated    as a representative of one’s race; or not being questioned about one’s national loyalty. These “non-experiences” prevent many whites from understanding the everyday burdens that people of color face. As a result, whites usually take their advantages for granted and mistakenly attribute them to hard work and “'merit.'”

This is the mindset that we, as teachers, need to fix. Some may like to claim that racism no longer exists or that we live in a free and equal country; yet, this sort of thinking gets us nowhere. Racism still plays a large role in society and this ignorance can only be quelled through education. It is not an easy process but if this type of awareness is introduced at a young age I think we can see a brighter tomorrow. But, we need to work for it. We need to be socially active and promote fairness and communicate about issues (that are difficult to discuss in the classroom) everyday. Through awareness and communication, we can make positive change.