Personal Experience on Privileges, Differences, and Power - Essay Example

Critical analysis of personal experience on privileges, differences and power in relation to the other set members (Tutor) (Date) Introduction Within a social structure where people come to work together in a group, there are different classes of people who come together. These classes are of different structures in terms of some natural factors (Banks 2007). For example, there could be a difference in gender, race, and country of origin, sex and religion. These differences not only come from the way that we are made but also from the beliefs that the group has. Power, on the other hand, is the ability of gaining control over certain people or issues. It gives an opportunity to influence the actions of others without any rejection. Sometimes power can involve the application of power in order to acquire control (Fook 2002). This has made power to be viewed differently it can either be unreasonable or of a good course. Privilege is an out of the ordinary prerogative to some exceptions that a person was given in a certain situation. It comes by two ways either naturally by birth or under some conditions that may be given by the people in power (Banks 2007). The society has been constructed in a manner that ensures the occurrence of a hierarchy in provisions of social classes not basing on discrimination that shall ensure there is power conservation. These factors that determine the manner in which the hierarchy is aligned can be founded on gender, age, race, social classes’ etcetera (Banks 2007). The difference that separates this matter in our social institutions like our families, work places, government and religion, seem to be growing each year due to the way that the society has been structured or its structuring itself naturally (Fook 2002). The community and some specific people experience these aspects day after day due to their inconsistency in various modes. This article is going to analyze my experiences of privileges, differences and power to the other set members in which 4 members are black (Banks 2007). Power and work People always assume that all the processes of hiring, promotion and other issues that take place in any institution like schools, working place, hospitals and other organizations are based on the real worthiness of all the individuals, but this is not the case (Fook 2002). Power that gets to control all the factors in these institutions sometimes brings about uneven distribution of responsibilities and incentives for instance wages, resources, some prospects and funds (Gray and Webb 2012). For example, a research that was conducted was able to show that; 39% of the instructional staff is made up of females; full professors are only 24%, despite the fact that 51% of instructors are women, women professors are able to receive 81% of what the male professors take home and 86% of the staff associates are white (Gray and Webb 2012). In all the places, this difference in power arrangements is clearly visible and highly disadvantaging to the rest of the people in the society. All these is based on the factors stated earlier, race, gender, social class and some other forms of differences (Gray and Webb 2012). Power and privileges The consequences of having power and other privileges make one to be able to get some experiences of one’s private and normal aspects of their lives to a certain extent than being categorized in terms of their gender or race (Adams 2000). It has been stated that people are able to work and function well if they are in a good environment like that. Where there is peace of mind without the assumptions of the issues, brought about by the disparity (Gabbidon and Greene 2005). This diversity makes some of the privileges come into the lives of people. There are male privileges, class privileges, age privileges and some others. This mixture and uniformity have significant disadvantages in our lives. It ends up affecting our work relationships with these same people (Gabbidon and Greene 2005). Social categories According to Laird (2008) a race is taken to be an astonishingly outsized assemblage of citizens of distinctive populations either by ethnicity, religion, genetics, social relationships and so forth. In society, today, the institutions are classified as one belonging to a certain race or ethnicity. These differences make it difficult to get to share equally some of resources and the e positions that are available. We have several races like whites, blacks and the Indians (Dominelli 2006). This is a belief that some characteristics and facilities can only be accredited to persons on the account that their race and some of the specific groups within the social group are much better than the others (Dominelli 2006). This has been utelised as a structure of power taken as a weapon to inflict fear or some hatred on another group in times of war and also fiscal downturns. Racism during the colonial times was not considered to be something erroneous. The racial beliefs during those times were supporting the acts where the inferior races like those of blacks and the Indians could be taken as slaves and furthermore get discriminated (Kimmel and Feber 2010). Many people are living, but they do not think that racism is a problem. Some are also taking part in these acts, but they turn around and scold others over it. A lot of citizens are living in these conditions. It takes place in schools, our society and our work places. Challenges are also experienced in the context of professionalism (Kimmel and Feber 2010). There has been an increased form of managerialism. Most of the actions of the workers lay in the hands of the managers or the bureaucrats. The ethics and qualifications of the employees are not the only aspects that matter in the professions (Kimmel and Feber 2010). This is because all the power and authority lay on the hands of the managers. They can choose to make a decision based on their own individual feelings (Feagin 2010). It has been deliberated that there has been some vulnerability in prisons and arrest of criminals and the people suspected to be having deleterious motives. It has been difficult to actually obtain the real information that regards the arrests. This difference in the intensity of patrolling could give a clearer account for the un-proportional number of the arrests of the black (Dei et al 2004). When the demographic degree is considered, it is found out that there exist a lot of biasnesses in the arrest process. Some of the results that were compared after some analyzation revealed that the number of whites that were arrested for rape, assault and other criminal activities were exceedingly rare compared to the number of the blacks arrested under the same charges. This has made the number of blacks in the prisons to be higher than that of the white s or any other race (Dei et al 2004). Victims and villains of drugs A large number of the people involved in drugs were considered to be the groups that were from oversees and some internal minorities (Gupta et al 2007). This was during the previous years. The media and the community so believed that this group of people from a different geographical area were the once who were dealing in these drugs and later on engage in criminal activities that was destroying their country. But recently the nature of opinion from the public has shifted tremendously (Webber and Bezanson 2008). The significance of this disparity lies in the aspect of people’s origin and races. It was also found out that a large number of young individuals were the once that were much affected by this involvement of drugs. The black individuals are facing rising trends in racism that has come to make their live hood to be terribly hard and more difficult than the other inhabitants of the same country (Webber and Bezanson 2008). Much of the violence has been directed to the dark people only because of the color of their skin. Some of them are being attacked and killed; they do not get the freedom of walking freely in the streets and socializing like the rest of the people. Their rights and privilege have been limited to some of the basics only (Webber and Bezanson 2008). Those that are trying to contest for positions in power or work places, end up getting no support from the rest of the group. People only prefer individuals of the same race. The whole community that is made of different groups could not manage to get along with complete love and trust with one another (Webber and Bezanson 2008). All kinds of people whether in their workplace or school do not feel comfortable and secure because they cannot defend themselves in case they are mistreated or undervalued in any matter. Everyone would love to feel valued, supported and respected (Piatelli 2008). In markets, the whites get served faster without any questions, but the blacks seem to do a lot of problems. Most of them are asked many questions and also are required to produce so many documents so that they can be served. These same things happen in a large corporation also the government institutions (Piatelli 2008). This has created a difference in the levels of the way some daily needs and other resources are supplied to the society. For example, wage riches, safety and health care. This difference promotes fear and sets people to be on one another like animals. It has the capacity to ruin everything that has for so long been build. It gets to affect everyone in every aspect in one way one way or another (Piatelli 2008). The society of this century has changed a lot. This discrimination not only arises from the fact that people have different colors but also because of the diversity of the different levels that they are. Others have much privilege than the rest of the group (Piatelli 2008). As it has been noted earlier that so much of the privileges had been attached to the whites. These groups like the disabled, women, lesbians, gays and the lower working class together with others are much powerless in trying to solve the problems that affect them. The state in which they are now cannot be resolved unless they are given some privileges and power (Piatelli 2008). Dimension of gender between the male and the female has been undermined so much. The female are given few responsibilities in the job market, and the male are throughout employed without any issue (Fine 2012). Those in power long time ago could posses the power from other people in the right manner that is ethical in nature. But recently people are creating their own power and using it for their own advantage by oppressing the lower classes (Fine 2012). They fail to listen to the minority because they exercise the power as the recent model has suggested from the top coming to the bottom (Fine 2012). Personal relation In our working environment, today, people should be able to focus on the mechanism of the difference in the modes of power, privileges and other differences. The systems get to destroy the dignity; by the way it has destroyed the privileges of males and women. In most of the cases, men get to be dominating in many sectors. This explains the different perspectives that exist in the community of today. In the modern society women have tried to fight t for their various rights and certain privileges that they have been denied (Tarrant 2008). Over the years, they have been discriminated on their basic worth and their inner value. At work places, women have been earning less than men, and they do not get more opportunities of employment. Furthermore, it has been that, in any marriage, the woman gets to change their names to the husbands. This has denied them the privileges that they need and require according to their personal choice (Morris 2006). They are also an easy target for sexual harassment at work, and both the public and home violence are targeted to them. Their safety is much of a concern than that of a man. Men are able to enjoy power given by the society and many other forms of privileges. But the problem arises when the alienation causes women to be marginalized and lose nearly all their privileges at the same time (Kramarae and Spender 2000). In other situations, some men could not be able to measure up to the possibilities of being that relevant and useful to the society but still they get to be on top of women because e of the social internalization by the society (Lund and Colin 2010). Men have grown to take this power that they to be a form of imposing certain control on others. This means getting to control material resources and the women themselves (Lund and Colin 2010). In light with this, it can be observe that there are diverse forms of oppression that arises from sexism, racism, disabilities etcetera. These forms of differences have an effect on every person in one mode or another. The previous years had very limited aspects of this oppression other than today (Lund and Colin 2010). But due to the increased population and limited resources, people are fighting for their own only. There is much disparity between these groups (Lund and Colin 2010). It has been noted that these problems that are happening in every day’s life are increasing day to day. They have caused blacks to prefer to love among blacks and whites to live among the whites (Brock et al 2011). But if the truth is brought out it is the whites who want to stay with their own race alone. This will continue to drive away the unity that has been built for some time. Everyone is silent over these actions, and they are pretending that they do not exist around us. The silence and not taking action to bring us together will continue to drive these races, genders and other differences that some other groups have away from our own. The power that one group of people have has to be shared. The privilege that men have has to be given to the women too. For this disparity to be driven away, they have to be some equality and unity among us (Worell 2001). This problem affects everyone and the entire social l system this gives every person a good reason to stand up and take action to correct the mistakes and misunderstandings that exist. Every person has the right to utilize the resources that have been provided for us equally. No one is special more than another. The community has to accept that there exist these discrimination and differences and seek ways to eliminate them. Men and women have to both live as one and get to enjoy the facilities, resources, positions and power equality. The men are not supposed to treat the women as inferior and materials. The minority also have to be allowed to share in the resources and privileges that the rest of the group enjoys. Bibliography: Adams, M., 2000. 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Social work theories and methods. London: SAGE publishers. Gupta, T., et al., 2007. Race and racialization: essential readings. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press. Kimmel, M. and Ferber, A., 2010. Privilege: a reader. Sydney, Australia: Accessible Publishing Systems PTY, Ltd. Kramarae, C. and Spender, D., 2000. Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women: Global Womens Issues and Knowledge, Volume 2. Taylor & Francis publishers. Laird, S., 2008. Anti-oppressive social work: a guide for developing cultural competence Los Angeles: SAGE publishers. Lund, C. and Colin, S., 2010. White privilege and racism: perceptions and actions. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass publishers. Morris, T., 2006. Social work study methods: four choice paradigms. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications. Piatelli, D., 2008. Stories of Inclusion? Power, Privilege and Cross-difference Organizing in a Contemporary stillness and Justice system. ProQuest publishers. Tarrant, S., 2008. Men Speak Out: analysis on sexual characteristics, Sex, and Power. Routledge publishers. Webber, M. and   Bezanson, K., 2008. Rethinking society in the 21st century: critical readings in sociology. Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press. Worell, J., 2001. Encyclopedia of women and sexual category: sex resemblance and differences and the impact of culture on gender. San Diego, Calif.; London: Academic publishers. Read More