White privilege is an interesting concept. Peggy McIntosh wrote an essay on white privilege that shows how white people perceive it. White privilege isn't something that exists for them. It takes patience, time, and consideration to understand white privilege. However, sometimes, it isn't so subtle.
My brother got a concussion after a fall in elementary school. It was 2013. and we were living in a predominantly white and Asian neighborhood. My brother, 10 years old, had to help himself up for the most-part. One student came to assist him further along. The heart wrenching part is that he was in the lunch room, surrounded by adults and students alike who watched this happen and did nothing.
White Privilege is the source of the entire problem, though. The reason none of the adults came to assist him is because of a "hands-off" policy the school decided on when it came to dealing with my little brother. They adopted the policy because of an incident where my brother, who was black, defended himself from another student, who was white.
The white student kicked my brother in the back because he didn't give up his spot in line. My brother punched the kid back. My brother was promptly suspended for bullying another student. The principle himself suggested that the kid "merely" re-adjusted my brother with his foot, and did nothing wrong. After my parents raised a big stink, even going as far as getting the NAACP involved, the school ended the suspension prematurely. The response from the school, however, was to adopt a hands-off policy at all times.
The white kid was assumed to be the victim right away, and my brother was assumed to be the instigator. Right away, the white kid got the benefit of the doubt in a mostly white school inside of a mostly white community.
"Integration or Fragmentation" provides a source for the problem. Diversity and fair representation doesn't come so easily everywhere. Getting absorbed into a large majority as a minority can be problematic, and quite often, the cultural differences show. Fair representation doesn't always exist for a minority underneath a majority.
The cultural and social biases shown to one human over another can be dangerous.
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