A Blog on Johnson

 "A Blog" on Johnson: Privilege, Power and Difference

"But as a sociologist, I also know that its possible to understand the world and myself in relation to it in ways that get past the defensive feelings and give us all a common ground from which to work for change." I appreciate this quote, I have always enjoyed sociology for this reason and it baffled me in my introduction to sociology class when people struggled. Just the concept of self reflection and empathy can be a challenge to people.  While there were moments I disagreed with Johnson, I enjoyed his introduction as a way of hope for white people. Especially thinking about white people who are likely already uncomfortable with the title of this reading. Johnson focuses on acknowledging this is a we/all problem and that there are solutions.

I like when Johnson gets into language and how many powerful words are just not in our (white peoples) daily vocabulary. "People don't want to look because they don't want to know what it has to do with them and how doing something about it might change not only the world, but themselves." Its crazy to me to imagine talking about our society and not using the words to define our problems like "oppression." Many say language and using the same words and definitions are the first step to solving our problems, because when we share the same language, we can have a real conversation and understanding. Johnson goes onto say that "racist isn't another word for bad white people...", but doesn't define racism/racist. I have been in trainings where all white people are racist because their definition revolves around power, if you have the power, your racist. It was hard for me to read parts of  Johnson knowing this and not knowing his definition. 

I disagree with "this historical roots of modern racism, for example, are primarily economic." Again, Johnson never provides us with his definition of racism so I understand that there may be a point of view that I'm missing. However, to me, racism is strictly a race problem and for black people in America, it really doesn't matter what your economic status is. There are many modern studies that have found that black children of wealthy black families are still significantly behind our other youth. And may only have a small step up in their socio-economic and educational outcomes compared to other, lower class black youth. If I recall correctly, Race, Equity and Inclusion (REI) training has data proving that a wealthy black youth with a high degree of education is still more likely to be passed over for a job for a less qualified white person, therefore economic status is not the root of modern racism and the unjust issues in our society.

When Johnson begins defining and explaining privilege, one question that came up for me as a side note was, what is the success rates for diversity training? He says they "produce limited and short-lived results." However, my personal experience has become my life. I participated in The People's Institute training at the Boston Federal Bank for work in 2018-19 and have been on the journey of race, diversity, equity and inclusion ever since. Even as I changed jobs, I have continued this pursuit and focused on an antiracist lens within our organization's structure, as well as my personal life. 

Johnson argues that, as we are all part of the problem, we belong to categories of privilege. Only by naming our privilege and understanding how power plays in our American culture can we identify solutions to a more just society.