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Kristen Lopez Heather Hewett Women Images and Realities 15 November 2011 Racism in Womens Lives Over 300 years ago the fight to abolish slavery and grant African-Americans rights made a very rocky start in the United States. Slaves wanted nothing more than to enjoy the same luxuries and freedoms that white men enjoyed but white men would not hear of it. One would think that after experiencing oppression and being restricted in their actions the newly freed slaves would be sympathetic to the plight of women. However, men of all races still oppressed females and forced harsh restrictions onto them. In China, female babies are considered worthless and a waste of space, and are often disposed of as if they were trash. What is so different between people of various races or genders that we are not all treated the same? Although I am part Puerto Rican, my appearance is that of a white American female teenager. Because I am light skinned I was born with an unfair advantage over women of other races. It could be something small, like going to a store and not being prematurely judged by the workers there or it could be something on a larger scale, such as not being questioned by police purely because of my skin color. In Defining Racism: Can We Talk? by Beverly Daniel Tatum, we learn that Prejudice is a preconceived judgment or opinion usually based on limited information. (381) The major root of this white privilege is racism and prejudice, a system in which a persons race is the primary factor in determining ones superiority over another. Without even knowing someone we automatically judge them based on their race or skin color, creating inaccurate assumptions that can be very harmful.

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Peggy McIntosh, author of White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, writes in her essay that as white women we have it far easier than women of color. McIntosh further states that we carry this invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions (389) that contains privileges, rights, and abilities that women of no other race possess. She gives numerous reasons as to how she faces white privileges in everyday life, including the fact that my skin color was an asset for any move I was educated to make (390). She acknowledged that no matter what she wanted to do, she knew she would have no obstacles regarding her race. After reading her physical list, it got me thinking about my metaphorical one. When I think about it there are definitely some things that come to mind that cater to my race and my race only. For example when I was younger I went to Toys R Us with my mom and noticed that the majority of dolls on the shelf were white. Either companies wont put out any product acknowledging a black persons existence or they will create that one token black toy in order to appease their black customers and make themselves look less racist. Because I am white, finding a toy as a child that was made for me or in my likeness was never a challenge. You can tell that many places cater more to the white woman that anyone else. In supermarkets and department stores, hair products, clothes, and make up for light skinned women dominate every other market. There are usually a few dark varieties of foundation and cover up that are thrown into the mix while there are dozens of choices for white women to choose from. Some stores sometimes even have a black section, where certain creams and lotions or products for their hair are all thrown into one aisle. As a white woman, I am assured that I never have to worry about whether or not I will find what I need in a store. I know for sure that I am what most stores provide for. When I go to use my debit card or pay with cash when I shop, I am most likely not questioned about my money. Sometimes racist people assume that when a person of color has a lot of money it

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was stolen or acquired in an illegal way. Just a few days ago I was waiting on line to pay in Macys and the old white female cashier saw a little Mexican girl take a candy bar off of the counter and immediately she thought she was going to steal it. She then proceeded to start yelling at her. Her black coworker scolded her and told her she needed to calm down and stop making assumptions. I have never experienced someone thinking I would steal something based on my skin color. On an episode of the television program What Would You Do? on ABC, the stark difference between the treatment of white teenagers breaking into cars and committing crimes in a public park and of black teenagers doing the same exact thing was downright disgusting. Passersby were quick to call the cops when they saw the black teenagers vandalizing a car or trying to break in, but when they saw the white teenagers do the same they left them alone and continued on with their day. While they were correct in calling the police because the teens were in fact breaking the law, they decided that the white kids performing the same actions did not deserve a call to the police. This is probably one of the worst double standards with race that exist today. I was with a few of my Haitian friends near my high school and one of them couldnt get the chain off of her bike because the combination wasnt working, and people passing by gave her looks as if she was stealing it. However, when I have similar issues people dont even acknowledge my presence. I could have been stealing that bike for all they knew and they wouldnt have done a thing. Not only is being black considered to be a burden by many but in creating a binary in which the white woman is seen as pure and virginal and the black woman as sexual, exotic and seductive we are further separated. The truth is that we are all women, and in a male dominated world we should be focusing more on banding together to gain more freedom and equality instead of distancing ourselves from each other over trivial matters. White women are almost always seen as more wholesome, a family woman, or a professional. It is not very often that black women are painted in the same

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positive light. When you think of a black woman, you might think of her being on welfare, working a low paying job, or having multiple children with different fathers. What we all need to understand is that women of all different races and backgrounds have the capability to be these things, whether the white woman is a bad mom or the black woman is very career oriented and intelligent. Black women are not the only women who face bigotry and prejudice. Beverly Yuen Thompson, a biracial Asian American woman, dealt not only with alienation from people who shared her heritage but with internal struggles as well. Thompson did not believe she could fully identify with one race or the other, being both Chinese and White. Which racial category would she be put into? As a child in grade school she was made fun because of her Chinese ancestry and was in turned ashamed of her mothers culture. Aside from self-identity issues pertaining to her race, she also began to question her sexuality as a teenager. She always thought that you were either straight or a lesbian, and it wasnt until she turned seventeen that she discovered her bisexuality. What made matters so difficult for her were the fact that both sides of the spectrum told her to choose. She elaborates by saying that, As I had years earlier agonized between the choice of seeing myself as Chinese or white, I now agonized between the choice of lesbian or straight (461). It was almost as if there were no in betweens in this black-white dichotomy; there was no gray area she could fall into. This conflict is an issue that many women face regarding gender, race, or sexuality. She struggled with who she was, and felt that choosing one side of her heritage over the other meant choosing between her parents, a task she refused to do. As time went on, however, she accepted the fact that she was both a woman of mixed race and mixed sexuality. She states that, After I had come out as bisexual I began to embrace my Asian and heritage and accept it back into my life. (461) Once she was able to accept who she was, her life became a bit clearer.

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Although Palestinian, Lisa Suhair Majaj faced similar identity problems to Thompson in Boundaries: Arab/American. With olive-tinged skin, Majaj was able to pass as a typical white American. In a racism workshop activity she found herself to fall in the majority of Americans: she was straight, middle-class, born in the United States, and spoke English as her first language. However, she later learned that even light-skinned Arabs are people of color (465). Once people found out who she was, she feared outwardly expressing her Arab identity and wearing anything that displayed her culture. Having moved to Jordan and Lebanon and then back to the United States, she discovered soon enough that being Arab in the United Statesworse, being Palestinianoffers little in the way of reassurance. (465) Majaj found that when she told others who she was and told her story, peoples ignorance came out and she was soon the butt of hurtful and racist jokes and assumptions, such as terrorists and veiled women and camels. When in college she still faced an enormous amount of bigotry and ignorance from professors, from classmates, and even from strangers. No matter where she went, although she learned to embrace her Arab-American identity, she still faced people who couldnt. Carla Trujillo, a Chicana lesbian and author of Chicana Lesbians: Fear and Loathing in the Chicano Community, agrees that the existence of lesbians in the Chicano community does indeed pose a threat but not in the way they all think. The vast majority of Chicano heterosexuals perceive Chicana lesbians as a threat to the community (423), she explains, but follows up with her argument that Chicana lesbians are perceived as a greater threat to the Chicano community because their existence disrupts the established order of male dominance, and raises the consciousness of many Chicanas regarding their own independence and control (423). Part of this hatred the heterosexuals have is due to homophobia, the fear of homosexuals. Society tells us that anything other than heterosexuality and the cisgender identity is wrong, forcing anyone who does not fit into this rigid

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category to be considered abnormal outsiders who are to be looked down upon and who should be ashamed of themselves. When immigrant Latinas were asked about sexuality, it was discovered that a majority of them did not even know about their own bodies. Hispanics or Latinos are often considered to be low-class, uneducated and burdensome to society. Latina women are already suffering from that stereotype based on their race, but throw in their gender and sexuality on top of that and they are made as outsiders in their own communities. It can be very damaging and humiliating that simply because you have the capacity to love another woman in a romantic and sexual way you are an outcast. Trujillo further states that, As Chicanas (and Chicanos) We are all subject to the effects of a society that is racist, classist, homophobic, as well as sexist, and patriarchally dominant (427). She firmly believes that if Chicanas, regardless of their sexuality, fight for their rights as women, then as a culture they will be uplifted. Women of all races, sizes, and sexual identities all have one common thread- we are subject to oppression based on the sex we were born as. Women of different skin colors must endure this male dominant oppression on top of the many obstacles they face based on their race. Racism affects us all, whether we experience it ourselves or not. The implications of racism and prejudice are finely woven into all aspects of society, and even if we do not mean to, it is possible that we can have racist tendencies ourselves. It will take a great deal of time and effort to fully eliminate racism in the world. Works Cited
1. Kesselman, Amy Vita, Lily D. McNair, and Nancy Schniedewind. Women: Images and

sadasdsadaRealities : a Multicultural Anthology. 4th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, adssadsdas2008. Print.