Are whites racially oppressed?
There are 25-year-old White people that could never imagine or relate to how Whites acted in the 80’s far less back in Jim Crow or slavery days. Yet, just because they are White some people view them as the enemy. I wish they could come up with an official cut-off date for White people being responsible for slavery. I’m all for reparations and all that, but what generation of White people we be officially off the hook from the sins of their forefathers?
Yes institutional racism still exists. And some people are still prejudice against minorities and vice versa. However, people can function in spite of individual prejudices.
What we have to focus on is the racist systems that impact minorities and poor people. We must transform the public school system and the criminal justice system – both impacted by racism.
But I digress. This is an excellent article addressing the current state of White people.
Are whites racially oppressed?By John Blake, CNN
(CNN) — They marched on Washington to reclaim civil rights.They complained of voter intimidation at the polls.
They called for ethnic studies programs to promote racial pride.
They are, some say, the new face of racial oppression in this nation — and their faces are white.
“We went from being a privileged group to all of a sudden becoming whites, the new victims,” says Charles Gallagher, a sociologist at La Salle University in Pennsylvania who researches white racial attitudes and was baffled to find that whites see themselves as a minority.
“You have this perception out there that whites are no longer in control or the majority. Whites are the new minority group.”
Call it racial jujitsu: A growing number of white Americans are acting like a racially oppressed majority. They are adopting the language and protest tactics of an embattled minority group, scholars and commentators say.
They point to these signs of racial anxiety:
• A recent Public Religion Research Institute poll found 44% of Americans surveyed identify discrimination against whites as being just as big as bigotry aimed at blacks and other minorities. The poll found 61% of those identifying with the Tea Party held that view, as did 56% of Republicans and 57% of white evangelicals.
• More colleges are offering courses in “Whiteness Studies” as white Americans cope with becoming what one commentator calls a “dispossessed majority group.”
• A Texas group recently formed the “Former Majority Association for Equality” to offer college scholarships to needy white men. Colby Bohannan, the group’s president, says white men don’t have scholarship options available to minorities. “White males are definitely not a majority” anymore, he says.
• U.S. Census Bureau projections that whites will become a minority by 2050 are fueling fears that whiteness no longer represents the norm. This fear has been compounded by the recent recession, which hit whites hard.
You have this perception out there that whites are no longer in control or the majority. Read the full story at CNN.com