Privilege Power and Difference 1-3

   Privilege Power and Difference

By: Alan Johnson

        I chose my topic to be based on quotes throughout the three chapters I read. There were a lot of quotes that stood out to me but I chose to hone in on three.  

        The first quote is "Can't we all just get along" (Johnson 1). This quote was said by Rodney King who was a victim of police brutality in Los Angeles California. During his court date he said these words that have stuck through history. It is a valid point to make. If everyone in the country just got along and did not take race, gender, or sexual orientation into account when meeting a person then our country would improve greatly. Unfortunately some children are taught at a young age that some people are better than others. Which is not true and sets the child up for failure in the future. Children need to be taught that you are not better than anyone else and need that to be sustained in their home life as well.

Rodney King in court where he stated the famous words "Can't we all just get along"

        The second quote I chose was, "No Matter what privileged group you belong to, if you want to understand the problem of privilege and difference, the first stumbling block is usually the idea of privilege itself" (Johnson 23). This quote could not be more true. Most people do not really have an idea of what privilege actually is. If more people can be educated on what privilege is then we can get into the problems of privilege.

Graphic on how people get head starts who have privilege

            My final quote is, "Men generally assume that when they go out in public, they won't be sexually harassed or assaulted, and if they are victimized, they won't be asked to explain what they were doing there" (Johnson 33). The privilege of men, especially out in public, is much more than that of women. For instance, like in the quote women are more commonly to be victims of sexual assault. Women should have the same privilege as men to go out in public and mind their own business without any fears of being a victim. A stat from rainn.org states that 1 in 6 women have experienced an attempted rape or sexual assault or actually been raped or sexually assaulted. Which is much more than that of men.

        Throughout the reading we were given examples of privilege. Most occurrences in privilege are directed at straight white males. Due to their lack of problems in every day life due to the privilege they inherit. How could we instead narrow down the "straight white male" generalization to a more proper term or phrase.

Link: https://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-sexual-violence