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Katie Lowry

Professor Peterson

Humanities 1010

28 April 2021

Race Assignment
Privilege is defined as a special right or advantage that others might not have. The most

prominent form of this is seen in white privilege. Now, white privilege does not mean that

those who are white, myself included, do not experience hardships in life. It just means that the

hardships we experience are not because of the color of our skin. White privilege is when those

who have a white colored skin get certain advantages that others do not get. We have seen this

a lot throughout history, especially in this last year. We have seen caucasian people get away

with far more than any black, asian, muslim, etc, could ever get away. An example of this is the

capital raiding that occurred this January. This event was mainly made up of caucasian men and

women, who were extremely violent, many armed, who were vandalising this government

property and out to hurt these officials. Only ten people were arrested, and police used very

little force when dealing with them. Compare this to the 2020 Black lives matter protests that

for the most part were completely peaceful, which ended in more arrests then the police

departments are willing to count, many injured and many killed. The inconsistencies between

these two events is astounding and quite honestly, infuriating.

I have experienced white supremacy in my life, probably more often than I even realize.

Once my family got pulled over by the police, we were going over the speed limit a bit but

didn’t really notice. The police officer was treating us very kindly and even joking around with
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us a bit, and we were able to leave minutes after with just a little ticket. It wasn’t until years

later that I questioned this encounter, what if we hadn’t been a caucasian family. Maybe this is

how this man always acted, maybe he treated us that way because we were white and would

have treated us much differently if we were black. I don’t know, but it does make me think.

Recent events in the world have made me rethink race. Before, I really didn’t think

about race. I didn’t really acknowledge the differences that we share. After this year, I have

come to realize that race is something to be proud of. After 2020, a line in one of my favorite

musicals, Hairspray, was changed. Originally it said, “Cause tomorrow is a brand new day and it

don’t see white from black,” which is a beautiful sentiment. But they decided to make the

change from that to, “But tomorrow is a brand new day and it sees both white and black,”

which I think is a much better sentiment. Race shouldn’t be ignored, we shouldn’t be color blind

and not see the differences in others. We shouldn’t treat people differently because of their

race, of course, but we should be able to celebrate them. As Audre Lorde, a famous African

American poet, put it, “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize,

accept, and celebrate those differences.”