Experience of Being White in America
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This paper is an analysis of the experience of being white in America and the significance this has for white individuals across a broad spectrum of class, education, gender, and employment. This study is based on Andrew Hacker's book, Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal. Hacker contends that, even at the lowest economic level, being white offers advantages not available to black members of American society. He suggests that, despite the wide range of cultural, racial, and ethnic backgrounds represented within the United States population, the historical relationship between the former owners of slaves and the people they forcibly brought to America remains an insurmountable obstacle. He contends that immigrants from other countries, as well as the native population forced to surrender its land, have been able to assimilate into an white, Western, Eurocentric culture. African Americans, however, were abducted and brought to the United States against their will. This, more than the color of their skin, continues to set them apart within society, preventing them, perhaps permanently, from participating in the American dream. In Two Nations, Andrew Hacker (1995) states, "What white people seldom stop to ask is how they may benefit from belonging to their race . . . yet even for those who fall to the bottom, being white has worth" (p. 35). He begins his discussion with an attempt to define "white"; the term has undergone a gradual expansion from its
. . .
e meaning and function of racism. Without access to the power to actually harm the "other" as a group, one may be guilty of pre-judgment - believing wrong or negative information about that group - and of individual discrimination, but not of racism (p. 11).
White America may be unwilling or unable to admit its ongoing racism, yet its prejudice is evident in what it can do to those under its control. Joe R. Feagin and Melvin P. Sikes (1994) define racism, observing that it refers "not only to the prejudices and discriminating actions of particular white bigots but also to institutionalized discrimination and to the recurring ways in which white people dominate black people in almost every major area of this society" (p. 3). Essed (1990) differentiates among cultural, institutional, and individual racism (pp. 12-28). White America denigrates African culture, continues to put subtle institutional roadblocks in the paths of black Americans, and encourages seeing skin color as a symbol of personal inferiority. As Hacker (1995) frames the unspoken but always present question, "Might there be something about the black race that suited them for slavery?" (p. 16).
Thomas Kochman (1981) observes, "Black and white cultural differences
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Approximate Word count = 1660
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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