Buddy Topic

My buddy and I come from two very different sides when we talk about the privileges we both have in the United States. As Americans, yes, we have the English language that gives us privilege against other people either traveling in the United States or an advantage as a universal language that if we go any where in the world that we could possibly communicate with other people in those countries. The other great privilege that we have is that we attend an amazing university, the University of Michigan, in which we have many, many great opportunities from our attendance at this university.

On the other side of privileges in which my partner and I had that are different is related to our races. As a white American I am granted many privileges in the United States. I personally do not boast about these privileges, of which ever sort they are because I do not have that mentality as a person. Yes, there are some privileges that I am granted that I do not even see that other races do see, as for me being white, and I now I am starting to notice these privileges, not take advantage of them, but just observe even in my own situation how I am treated because of my race. Another interesting situation in my case is talking about my race, or specifically people calling me 'white'. I understand that I am a white female, but until recently I had never acknowledged when a person would say my race to my face. I truly do not like the fact when I am called white to my face, not because I am trying to act like I do not know the privileges of a white person (not saying they are correct), but it is because I do not like how many white people represent the race at times. I will let you fill in the blanks with those comments, but those people are whom I do not appreciate very much.

On the other hand, I am not going to talk about my partner's views, race, or acknowledgements about this topic because if I were to do so, I would have to directly quote her out of respect and she is also making her own blog about this topic. We did agree on certain situations and what not between races, such as one race not taking advantage of situations that the particular race had fought for or the fact that there are ignorant people of all races, not just certain races, and prejudice against many different groups for different reasons.