Posted: October 27th, 2022

Privilege is the flipside of prejudice

The focus of Chapter 9 is ‘Prejudice’. The purpose of this assignment is to acquaint you with the flipside of prejudice and discrimination. This concept is referred to as unearned privilege. There are many forms of unearned privilege (e.g., white, male, American, rich, Christian, pretty, English-speaking, tall, etc.). Can you think of some ways that people who fall into the aforementioned groups have an easier time navigating the world? Some people suggest that systems of privilege are established acts of aggression against the downtrodden. What are your thoughts on the subject? 

You may have heard some discussion about this topic already (e.g., a recent song featuring MACKLEMORE & RYAN LEWIS FEAT. JAMILA WOODS – WHITE PRIVILEGE II: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_rl4ZGdy34

). For some background, please feel free to view one or both of these videos: 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/white-privilege-explained/2016/01/16/0173cba6-bbbc-11e5-85cd-5ad59bc19432_video.html

 or 

https://medicine.utoronto.ca/news/privilege-101-understanding-privilege-oppression

. 

For this assignment, I want you to take a privilege test and write a brief reaction to your scores and the related implications. There are 3 steps:

Step One: Take the privilege test: I have already took the test and uploaded my results below.

Step Two: Answer the following 5 questions in an enumerated list. Please do not copy and paste the questions into your paper. 

1) What were your scores?

2) Before this point in your life, which have you thought about more, having ‘privileges’ compared to other people OR not having privileges compared to other people? Explain.

3) In your life, which of these (having privilege OR not having privilege) has impacted you the most? Explain.

4) Comment on the types of things (e.g., employment, educational attainment, property ownership, involvement in politics, etc.) that could be predicted by people’s levels of privilege? Be specific and explain your answer(s).

5) Do you think that systems of privilege are established acts of aggression against the downtrodden? Explain. 

Step Three: Title the answers, “Privilege is the flipside of prejudice”.