Privilege and Denial

In the Chapter six article What It All Has to Do with Us it talks about individuals through a social system and how they interact with other people. The individualistic thinking has a distorted view of how the world works. Sometimes we blame a particular race solely on the actions of one person of that race. Individualistic behavior can make us totally ignore the existence of privilege.
Social systems are the systems that people participate in collectively. We have to see how individuals work in those social systems in order for that system to work sucessfully. We are shaped in two ways as individuals. First, we learn socialization through when we participate in life. An example would be schools, families, and religion. Secondly, we are shaped through the path of least resistance. For the most part we don't do anything really spontaneous that is against the norm. Individuals alone might have different responses or actions as time goes by. They might feel happy about something in the past but as they get older they don't feel that same enjoyment.
In the Chapter eight article Getting Off the Hook: Denial and Resistance talks about how people just dismiss oppression or even if they think it exists they basically say "just get on with it". Those individuals themselves believe that they are the ones getting the shaft and seeing power slip out of their hands.
Many times blaming the victim instead of blaming your race is a common way those people can shift the blame. Communication is key in gender differences. If a woman says something it might be taken the wrong way, or if they don't say anything at all there non-verbal communication might invite a male co-worker onto them a sexual way. Ideology is key in describing gender privilege. Ever since the beginning certain tasks have been performed by males and others by females. When something contradicts those tasks, or a female does work that a male has been doing since the beginning of time that can create tensions among the social structure. In a conversation if you are joking about something it might be funny for a male but it is not funny for the female. Even if the male did not mean it, it still has an effect on the social relationship between the genders. In all you should live on the hook because you are learning more about people and not judging them or hurting them. Your just going with the flow.
Why would someone want to be in denial about the events happening around them? Alot of people in the world are afraid of change and want things to stay the same no matter what the cost. Some believe that by demeaning other people it is raising themselves up showing them who the superior race is. As a society we have become more tolerant but we are not tolerant enough.
These two articles talked about privilege and denial in great detail. People try to sheild themselves of many of the injustices they see in there lives by demeaning people of other races or gender. The article talked about the different social systems. Many people do not understand the social systems and how they work. Individualism can sometimes be good but most of the time it is not. Many times individuals think of themselves as a superior race and do not sympathize with people of other races. As a society we have come along ways in our behavior towards other cultures but we still have a long ways to go.