Alan Johnson Privilege and power difference

 I found the reading by Alan Johnson to be interesting insightful and important to the future. In the beginning of the reading Johnson says "In some way this book cannot help having a white, straight, middle class point of view.  I thought it was interesting to start the book out this way almost as a way of saying that it might have some of the basis that he will later talk about in the rest of reading the writer also addresses that he could use this as bridge to reach people like him who might have a wall up about these things 


"People can't help fearing the unfamiliar-including other races" the author is using an example of the idea "Human nature" and uses it in away to disprove this idea he later states that you would not only have to ignore most of human history but also many of disciplines including psychology and many other to make this argument that racism is just human nature to make sense 

"the bottom line is trouble we cant talk about it trouble we cant fix" this is leading to the idea that people don't like to talk about problems including racism and privilege. especially when it comes to the idea of white privilege a lot of white people avoid talking about it 

Comments

  1. Malcom MonizSeptember 13, 2023 at 4:00 PM

    I appreciate your observation about Johnson's early admission that the "book cannot help having a white, straight, middle class point of view". It seems as though, when trying to change hearts and minds, it makes the most sense to start with those hearts and minds that closely resemble your own. Throughout the entire reading, I definitely felt a real honesty coming from Johnson's identification with some of the shortcomings of the subgroups that he belongs to. A lot of us belong to majority groups with a lot of power (whether we feel that influence or not), and it is so important to stay humble and regularly check our privilege. Thanks for sharing, Alex!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Intersectionality

Image
 The chart shows how different people might have been affected the farther you move away for the center less say you have in society.  I personally live almost completely inside inner circle wheel besides one or two characteristics. I can see how being a cisgendered white man can benfire me throughout my life. I can see that people seem to more willing to listen to what I have to say vs what women around me have had to say. While I know that this is not right it is just what I have witnessed in my everyday life 
Read more

Defining racism

 Defining racist looks away from the more overt side of racism you see in the news and instead looks at prejudice that is ingrained in many people. In the opening the author talks about a study done on pre schoolers where they were asked to draw a native american. When they drew this almost all of the students drew the native american with feathers and some type of weapon in their hand and an aggressive look on his face. As small child I definitely would have drawn the Native american the same way at that same age I would have also related to the students needing The person to be described as indian instead of native american.  The next section of the reading talks about how racism is based on system of avantages  
Read more

Amazing Grace

 The author starts the reading by setting the scene of where they grew up. using this time to show the reader what it was like. One of the first things that They pointed out was the elementary school where students who couldn't afford lunch didn't "qualify" for lunch. To really drive home the point about the scene the author points out fights in streets and the drug addicts that he sees everywhere. As You read through you maybe begin to believe that children will follow the sad area in become hopeless. From what I could tell that did not happen the children that were wrote about seemed very mature about their problems.
Read more