Robert Jensen's "The Heart of Whiteness" is an eye-opening book, delivering hard facts about the differences between the treatment of white people from that of African American individuals. Through statistics and personal stories, Jensen informs and challenges our misconceptions regarding the in-balances of respect, privileges and acceptance between the two races. .
Growing up in a wealthy caucasian community, I couldn't help revert back to my early years growing up in the planned community in which I lived; made up of stay at home soccer moms who were the wives of wealthy business men. However, despite my affluent surroundings, I am not from a wealthy family. I was a poor girl who was raised in a privileged community. I saw my peers receive things which were merely handed to them by their parents. Everything seemed to come easily to them. But not to me. I had never thought about it in a privileged way or saw this as an issue of skin color. I just believed that those people had worked hard for what they earned. Jensen's book was a bit of a revelation to me.
We live in a society where it's hard and or uncomfortable to start conversations about race. Thinking back about it now after reading Jensen's book, I realize that our society has been conditioned to think this is so. Whether or not it is truly uncomfortable depends on the situation of the person within our white supremacist society. It seems that white people are uncomfortable acknowledging their privilege because it is easier to be ignorant of privilege and not think about it, otherwise one must deal with why they have these privileges and potentially give them up. To acknowledge white privilege is to acknowledge that it is unjust or unfair and in doing that, people realize that injustices must be fought and changed. This in turn means we must change our entire society because it is based on inequalities, even though we pride ourselves on the founding of our society as being the epitome of justice and equality.
