Blog Post #4

This past week I made the decision to start studying at the library on a regular basis. Late last week one of my friends asked me to study with her at the library. It is not necessarily silent in the library but it is quiet enough that you are able to be more productive in a shorter amount of time. From then on, I have done most of my studying in the library as I realize how beneficial it is for being productive. My choice to begin studying at the library comes from my desire to do well in my classes. I have always placed an importance on doing well academically since my parents always pushed me to do well in school. I believe education has the power to change everything about a person’s beliefs and opinions. An education is something that I have taken for granted far too many times growing up in the United States. However, travelling to my parents’ home country of Nepal every few years has shown me how lucky I am to have received an education at all. My aunt is very involved with young girls’ education in Nepal. Not only can education be expensive for families, many families still do not see the necessity to educate girls. Going back to Nepal every couple of years always seems to put into perspective the privileges I have as someone who was born and has grown up in the United States.

The privilege I have experienced in the United States has not always existed. The United States has witnessed a genocide of Native Americans, slavery, Jim Crow, and many other forms of institutionalized racism. In the podcast, “Imagining a New America” Ta-Nehisi Coates describes the impact of his father’s work as a librarian had on him as a child. He says, “I didn’t understand blackness and whiteness and white supremacy as central to American history. And I had people around me that said that. They would say, ‘This country is built on our back.’ But I would wonder, ‘Why? How do you illustrate that? What does that mean?’” Coates’ description of his exposure to the idea of racism at a relatively young age exemplifies how parents and communities of color are forced to explain to their children that they cannot act in the same way as white children of the same age.

Lori Lakin Hutcherson, the editor-in-chief of Good Black News, takes the idea of white privilege a step further in her editorial “What I Said When my White Friend Asked for My Black Opinion on White Privilege”. Hutcherson responds to her friend’s social media post about white privilege with a comprehensive list of situations people of color experience concerning their race. She foes through the first time children of color realize the color of their skin will make people think differently of them, when there is one person of color in a social setting, and finally that accomplishments are only due to a person’s race. She goes through many other situations, but these are the three I relate to the most. I am from a small, predominately white town about forty minutes north of Philadelphia. Until middle school, I was the only person from South Asia in any of my classes. In middle school, I was one of two. I have experienced being the only person of my race in a class or group setting, which would not be bad if people did not feel the need to bring attention to it. In the past, many people have tried to use my race as the sole explanation for my success and accomplishments.

The apex of white privilege is the white supremacist movement. Theo Wilson, a black male explored the white supremacist movement by creating a fake persona to specifically experience the online supremacist community. This is explored in Peter Holley’s article “A black man went undercover online as a white supremacist. This is what he learned.” Wilson learned that there are people who believe, “black people are not fully human and are lagging in terms of evolution.” Wilson says that social media has allowed white supremacist views to reach a larger audience, especially young people. He says, “We need to have courageous, face-to-face conversations with difficult people outside the security of our laptops.” The screens we hide behind make it very easy to spread hate without the fear of what the other side might do. Wilson’s experience online shows how the white supremacist movement is not made up of old white men who were part of Jim Crow lynch mobs. Social media has facilitated the spread of these hateful ideals.

Theo Wilson’s podcast connects to the podcast “The Power of Words to Save Us” as it deals with impact words can have on our society. Wilson’s experiment boils down to destructive language being spread through the Internet. Poet Maria Howe speaks about her belief in the soul as opposed to identity in this podcast. She explains how identity can change based on your own experiences and how others treat you. Your soul is something that is entirely untouchable by the outside world. As identity is a trait that is ever evolving, our experiences growing up affect it. Things like education, family, and community are all factors in our identities. In order to combat racism not only within the United States but also all over the world, we must start with changing what we can. We must start with teaching our kids that race does not make one person lesser.