What It All Has To Do With Us

What it all has to do with us is a great title to this next chapter. The author discusses the “trouble” surrounding privilege, power, and difference for individuals. People fell awkward and discomforted to talk about these topics because they commonly mistake individuals as to having set privileges. They don’t want to offend others and put others down because they feel more privileged in a certain topic. That is where this all goes wrong.

People aren’t individually privileged or better than others. Groups are viewed as having privileges and groups contain the vast of the population. “Individualistic thinking, however, assumes that everything has only to do with individuals and nothing to do with social categories, leaving no room to see, much less consider, the role of privilege.” Everyone is on an individual judging basis. They don’t realize these social categories are way larger. The actual name for this is a social system. An example of a social system would be a university and the author states, “the people aren’t the university, and the university isn’t the people.”

This quote sums up what this all has to do with us. A university is nothing without faculty and students. And the students and teachers will get no where without a university. They both need each other and that’s how it has to be. The university can’t function with just and individual teacher or an individual student. Universities need groups and groups need universities. If only individuals can understand this. If they could realize this concept that privilege and power is assigned to groups than the world would be a better place. But they don’t they take the “path of least resistance” as Allan states. This is the option to judge people or act in a certain way that is accepted by most. When all males are talking about women in a sexist fashion an individual male in that group is not going to speak up for women because he would get too much “resistance” from the other guys. This all sums up the hardship people have talking about privileges amongst individuals or groups.

This chapter helped me to realize what everyone does. We judge people as if they have the upper-hand in things or the lower-hand. No one person has these individualistic powers or privileges or lack there of. People try to get by, by taking the “path of least resistance.” I am personally guilty of this charge. The path of least resistance gets us out of awkward situations and helps us to fit in the “norm”. Who knows if one day this will change and society will be less judgmental towards particular individuals.