Chapter 4

Chapter 4 – Making Privilege Happen

Johnson begins by saying that privilege is attached to social categories and not to individuals. Well yes that is true, but only to an extent. I actually believe it is more or less the other way around. That privilege is more attached to the individual then to a specific social category. The children of famous, or rich parents have many more privileges then those children of poorer parents. Yes, that does describe a social category, but it is more or less categorized as the individual person than a social group. Johnson then goes on to almost contradict exactly what he says when he gives the example of giving admission preference to the children of graduates from elite colleges and universities. That is a privilege that is given to an individual over a social category. There could have been someone that was rich/poor, black or white that is going to that went to this university and there children are getting the admission benefits. This is more of a case of the university looking out for its alumni and giving them the perks of choosing their university over any other school in the first place.
Johnson does make a very good point in the following paragraph when he states that prejudice is a powerful force that provides fuel for discriminatory behavior and a rationale for justifying it. I think that is said perfectly and I completely agree. Prejudice does in fact give people a rationale to justify being discriminatory against a certain group of people. The prejudice arises from the people that this person is surrounding themselves with. They adopt the views of these people and believe them to be the correct views. Then when the opportunity arises to discriminate against a certain group of people they believe that their actions are the correct ones to take and they feel no sympathy. This is because they give them self a rational reason for the discriminatory choice that they made. The only area that I did not agree with was how one person could discriminate against someone’s spirit. The only rational I could come up with in this situation was that someone could bash or discriminate against someone’s excitement towards something, such as a religious view. In which case again, I agree with Johnson on that fact for the same reasons as previously stated.
The next area of the chapter deals with avoidance, exclusion, rejection, and worse. I have to say these topics that are being discussed are the most painful to all humans and the cause of all sadness in the world. Johnson gives us a list of things that we all do and don’t realize it as a form of rejecting someone. It is true though at one point or another that we all fall into this trap of either avoiding or excluding someone for some reason or another. Maybe we just don’t agree with that person, they aren’t attractive, or maybe for the simple fact that they are just boring. Johnson brings up the point that in some conversations we don’t use our regular speech and exclude some words that we would use if we were just speaking normally. For instance we may exclude certain curse words or words that regard to someone’s ethnicity. An example of this that I just loved, “instead of saying having balls, we should say having ovaries”.
I do agree with Johnson on most of his opinions, except for the fact that I don’t agree with how he says some of his opinions. He puts a bias sarcasm that really shows his point of view. Which is not always a bad thing, just he makes it feel like his way is the only way and he is right and there is no other option. For instance, his says, “To look at racism in particular, as subtle as it often is…” This part really does not need to be there and just gives a negative view on the subject. Johnson does this a couple other times throughout his writings. They are often suttle and not easily picked out, but I do get a strong sense of his views.