Raven McCormick argues that white privilege no longer exists based on three reasons: the wage gap between races is less than 0.5%, examples of black privilege in college admissions and programs, and discrimination cases tend to favor black plaintiffs over white plaintiffs. McCormick reviewed statistics on wage coverage and dismissal rates of discrimination cases, and examples of how colleges meet racial quotas in admissions to receive federal funding. Based on this evidence, McCormick concludes that white privilege does not exist today and that black privilege could be said to exist instead.
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00-White privilage
1. Raven McCormick
Professor Blanco
FYS
20 February 2016
Does White Privilege Still Exist?
While doing researchonthe topic of while privilege, and after weighing all of the
facts, I had to ask myself. Does white privilege still exist?For many reasons, and much
spasticallyproven evidence, it is my belief that white privilege no longer is a serious issue.
There is evidence to back up this conclusionthat I have made.
Three reasons that I believe white privilege no longer exists is because of “Wage
Gap” statistics, “Black Privilege”, and Black Lives Matter. Before beginning, I was to clarify
who we will be comparing. When statistics are examined, it is commonfor a black personto
be classifiedas AfricanAmerican or of African American decent. White men have been
commonlyreferredto as “WASP”.
One of the main reasonthat white privilege is no longer an issue is because of the
supposed“Wage Gap” between races. Accordingto the Bureau of Labor Statistics, published
in 2012 and updated in December of 2015, this allegedwage gap is less than .5%. Workers
of African American heritage have 74.8% wage coverage. People who couldbe describes as
“WASP” or “White Anglo Saxon Protestant” received75.1% wage coverage. So as you can
see, this “wage gap” that is so detrimental, is less thanhalf of a percent.
2. Another fine example that white privilege does not exist it the existence of Black
Privilege. One example of this takes place in colleges alot like ours. In the well-known
Supreme Court case Brown v Boardof Education, the Supreme Court overturneda previous
ruling. The new ruling was that colleges wouldnot be segregatedunder any circumstances.
Because of the low amount of mixed schools afterthis, states requiredcolleges to meeta
quota for racial students to be admittedin order to receive their state grantedfederal aid.
Because of this, African Americans will automaticallybe consideredbecause of their
color. Other programs do this such as the HSTA program. On the application, one of the
questions are “Are you African Americanor of African American decent?”It does not ask
about Caucasians, onlyAfrican American. Over 81% of the HSTA recipients are African
American.
The final reasonthat White Privilege no longer exists is because of the Legal Systems
way of handling discriminationcases. These African American are paying special attention
to the fact that specific things do not favor them. And specific things do. For example, in the
McDonaldv Sante Fe Trail TransportationCase, there was a ruling that blacks and whites
receive the same punishment for like crimes. Even so, the amount of cases where the white
personis suing for discrimination, yet the case is dismissed, it over 31%. That number is
twice as high as the number of black cases dismissed.
After reviewing all of this information, it is my conclusionthat White Privilege does
not exist. Many things that people claim White Privilege gives white people, actually is
given to black people. One could actually argue that we have Black Privilege in this country.
