Kaitlin participated in a privilege walk activity where students were asked questions about their upbringing and race. She found that some questions had more to do with parenting and income rather than race alone. However, she recognized that white people do experience unearned privileges like not being denied jobs or judged solely due to their race. Kaitlin hopes to use this awareness to promote fairness if she is ever in a position to hire people.

1. Kaitlin Thompson
Privilege Walk
During the privilege walk we asked a compiled list of questions about how we were
raised, things we had or did not have, and about our race. This exercise was a real eye opener.
The person farthest in the front was a white female and farthest in the back was a black female.
While doing this exercise I had a variety of thoughts. But one was that some of the questions had
nothing to do with being privileged in society but more to how good of parents you had like the
question “If you were told that you were beautiful, smart and capable by your parents, take one
step forward.” Any parent of any race should do this in my opinion. Not only white parents, all
kids should feel loved and I feel like that is a personal thing, not a racial thing. Also the
questions that were similar to this one “If you had to rely primarily on public transportation, take
one step back.” That’s an income thing and what jobs they have and worked hard for. But there
were also other questions that were based on race such as being judged just because of your race
and being denied jobs because of it and such. That is just crappy and I completely agree that
would be white privilege. That’s what I have learned from this that whites are handed some
things just because they’re white but we are all equal. I will hopefully use this in the future if I
am in the position of hiring at a job and keeping the playing field even.