Social Work - White Skin Privilege - Whiteness Inventory - Assessment Answer

Social Work Assignment

Assignment Task

“Whiteness Inventory”and written reflection

Regardless of your own background or skin colour, ‘white’ practices are often internalised and acted on as the norm. The purpose of this assessment is to interrogate this ‘norm’ and make visible that which is invisible; examine how ‘whiteness’ is privileged and constructed as the “norm” in Australian society through locating specific examples within the community that convey ‘whiteness is the norm’.

Part One: Inventory

A template will be provided for you to prepare a ‘whiteness’ inventory in your local or global community. This will involve identifying practices that convey that ‘white is the norm’ or ‘white is superior’. Your inventory might include examples from conversations, advertisements, mass media, public speakers, graffiti, public statues, and so on

White dominance seldom functions in isolation. Consider how the examples from your inventory intersect with dominant ideas about gender, class, sexual orientation, religion, culture, ability or age.Submit your Inventory to the assessment Drop box on VU Collaborateby Sunday 18thSeptemberInventory includes at least 10 examples of ‘whiteness’ with brief explanatory commentarythat indicates critical observations of the local/global community

Content:

Demonstrates a good understanding of critical social work perspectives and how they relate to the selected social issue and contribute to oppression.Can discuss the concept of ‘the personal is political’ in some depth, and has a growing awareness of the implications for people seeking social work assistance.

Introduction

There are several societal issues that exist in the world and one of the biggest issues is that of discrimination done among people based on their race, religion, ethnicity, color etc. White privilege also known as ‘white skin privilege’ is yet another societal issue observed in the world, which refers to the provision of special societal privileges to people with white skin color as compared to other people under the same existing circumstances (McIntosh, 2010). Picower (2009) has explained the concept of white privilege on the basis of critical race theory, which suggests that racism exists in countries due to different power structures such as that of white privilege and also white supremacy, which tends to lead to racism based on the skin color of people. An interesting discussion presented by Case (2012) suggests that white privilege leads to a perception in which white people are considered normal and other people are considered different-from-normal. White privilege has in fact become more of a norm in Australia. The study thus discusses the social norm of white privilege that is present in Australia and presents examples to confirm it as well.

White Privilege as Norm in Australia

Kowal (2011) establishes that white privilege is usually considered a social norm in Australia irrespective of the gender, wealth or any other factor associated with the people. As explained by Kowal (2011), these privileges include different unearned assets that white people keep leveraging upon and people who are not white do not have access to,

The existence of white privilege in Australia has been discussed by Walter et al (2011), who establish that racism is an integral part of the Australian societal culture and white people do possess higher resources as compared to people who are not white. Walter et al (2011) also argue that there the political system of the country is highly dominated by white people, which itself suggests the way white privilege has become a social norm in the country. The start of this social problem or norm is said to have originated from the establishment of the White Australia Policy, which included different policies that were established in the past and allowed immigrants only from the UK or European countries (Allen, 2011). Though these policies are no longer existent, Durey and Thompson (2012) argue that the roots of these policies are still very much present in Australian society and culture. As explained by Durey and Thompson (2012), white privileges can be divided into two distinct types, one is wherein the white people have privileges and the second is wherein the non-white people have disadvantages.

Jacobs (2009) has taken the example of Aboriginal people from Australia and established that Aboriginals are the non-white Australians and have faced severe brutality in the past wherein they were asked to leave their own lands and they are even considered as inferiors. Though Herring et al (2013) argue that the Australian government has introduced quotas and is taking measures to improve upon their societal status, Hollinsworth (2016) has presented a different perspective. Hollinsworth (2016) discusses that the fact that the country needs to make special quotas for Aboriginal people itself suggests that the white people are considered superior and with higher supremacy power as compared to the Aboriginal people. Herring et al (2013) also discuss that had the political and economic system of the country not treated Aboriginal and migrant people differently, the attitude of White Australians towards these populations would not have been changed and they would not have considered themselves to be superior.

The existence of white privileges has been found to be true in the case of organizations and workplace as well. Bennett (2015) discusses that there is a distinct hierarchical difference between the work structure and jobs given to white people and non-white people in Australia. According to Bennett (2015), most of the leadership and top roles in Australian organizations are held by white people and they are always preferred at the time of promotions and development and growth in comparison to others. In fact, Sobre-Denton (2012) has even discussed that there is a very little interaction between white people and Indigenous people and hence white people do not even have complete knowledge of them, thus making them feel superior even in the workplace. Even the Indigenous specific programs are usually head and managed by white people, thus demonstrating and establishing the norm of white supremacy and white privilege in the country.

Hastie and Rimmington (2014) have taken the example of recent attacks in Australian on migrants and has discussed that the attacks were mainly carried out against Indians or people from other non-western countries who were not white. Though Australia considers itself as a non-racist country, Hastie and Rimmington (2014) argue that the problem of whiteness and white privileges is massive there and is highly prominent in nature. Salter (2013) also discusses that the Indigenous population in the country is treated differently than the white people. Salter (2013) presents the example of when one dark skinned student was punished simply because of the complaint of a white student that the boy was staring at her, thus showing that the claims made by white people are accepted more readily. According to Kowal (2015), there are numerous examples of higher preference given to white people in education, health care and employment. It can be hence deduced that white privilege exists and is a norm in the social structure of Australia. Some of the examples that confirm and express the same are given below in the whiteness inventory collected for the same

Inventory to Verify Existence of White Privilege

The examples presented in the inventory above have established the way white privileges exist in the Australian context, establishing the presence of high levels of racism in the nation. Earlier discussions have established that white privileges have created significant demarcation between the white people and Aboriginal people in the country and the example of the basketball player, Patty Mills, has demonstrated the same. It has been found from the documentary that Patty Mills faced many more challenges as compared to a white guy because people would not consider him to be good, thus showing that white people are considered to be better than non-white people. The documentary also reveals that Patty had serious problems in establishing that he was Australian in other countries because people would not believe him because of his skin color.

Also, the fact that presented by Nakkiah Lui that the biggest universities in Australia showcase only the triumph and achievements of white people confirms the existence of white privilege in the education sector of the country. Levine-Rasky (2012) has confirmed the same and established that if one is to look at the dynamics of students in Australian universities it is found that white students generally are friends and hang out with other white people and Asians hang out with Asians, which is not the case in other western countries like the US or the UK. Levine-Rasky (2012) also argues that the research scholarships and professor jobs in Australian universities are first given to white candidates as compared to others because the universities consider white people to be more intelligent and suitable for the job, thus confirming the existence of white privileges in the country.

Lastly, the examples presented in the inventory reveal several examples of the way media also promotes the idea and concept of white privilege in the country and the way white people are given higher preference. The examples reveal that the advertisements and television series I the country are to a large extent dominated by white people. This has been confirmed by McGregor (2011) as well, who has established that the mainstream television of Australia is highly white dominated. Though there have been several debates surrounding the dominance of white people in Australian television, McGregor (2011) argues that it is a general belief that the white people would not watch television series and programs with non-white people in it. Miller (2009) in fact argues that there is a general notion that white people are much more attractive than non-white people and hence the Australian television is highly dominated by the white actors and actresses. However, there are efforts being taken to overcome this social issue of white privilege. While the general perceptions say that dominance of white people is a phenomenon that is existent in isolation, it is often connected and discussed with other social ideas like gender, sexual orientation, culture etc. and the same are being discussed below.

Intersection of Inventory with other Dominant Social Ideas

While white privilege has been established to be present in Australia, the inventory has revealed the dominance of other kinds as well. The white privilege as established by the inventory can be said to be highly related to racism and racism privilege. The interview by Sarah Dingle as

presented in the interview has established the existence of white supremacy in Matt based on race, wherein Matt wanted to Massacre Asians. Kendall (2012) has also established that white privilege usually comes with racism, wherein people from one particular race are considered to be superior to others. Such racial based privilege and discrimination has also been observed from the KFC advertisement, wherein the racial discrimination between people from Australia and West Indies was shown.

Another form of privilege or dominance that can be seen from the inventory is that of gender privilege. McIntosh (2010) explains the concept of gender privilege by establishing that gender privilege exists because people usually consider males to be more superior than females. Daiels (2016) explains that when there is a gender privilege, the men are shown to be more smart and intelligent as compared to women. This has been apparent with the example of Nakkaiah Lui, who has said that Sydney University hosts pictures of some of the great white men, not women. Even the Coca Cola advertisement and Qantas safety video have shown women to be more scantily dressed and pretty as compared to men. The Qantas safety video shows men to be the passengers primarily and women to be serving, which can be considered and established as gender privilege or gender based discrimination. Thus, while white privilege and dominance definitely can be said to be a part of Australian society and societal norms, these other types of privileges also exist and need to be eliminated for higher societal equality and growth.

Conclusion

The study has presented multiple examples in the form of articles, interviews, advertisements and videos to establish the way white privilege exists in the country. While people have definitely experienced and shared their experiences regarding white privileges and discrimination, even media has been found to suggest the same. The study has also established that white privilege is usually associated white racial privileges and the inventory confirms the presence of gender privileges in the nation. Australian government hence needs to take suitable actions to eliminate this social issue for higher equality and better growth.