Quiz #3

In the article Don’t Be a Hypocrite in the Fight for Equal Rights, Sarah Barnes was trying to get across the message that minority groups who vocally draw attention to themselves for want of appreciation and recognition is unnecessary, and ends up resulting in more inequality than equality. She states, “Just don’t go around complaining that you got dealt a bad hand in life, when it is the individual that can make or break the situation”. What I understand this to mean is that people solely make/choose their destiny and racial discrimination does not play a role in that at all since “everyone” is now equal. The ideas that Johnson talked about in chapter eight Getting Off the Hook: Denial and Resistance can be directly related to Barnes’ article. Her article shows many examples as to how the privileged people deny that they have anything to do with racism. Barnes is denying that she plays apart in the effects of how other ethnic groups are treated. However, by her being silent and accepting the privileges that comes from being white results in other ethnicities receiving less. She writes that she does not go about telling everyone that she is a white heterosexual woman verses a friend of hers who does but is a homosexual male. She is not acknowledging the daily privileges that she receives. Johnson is trying to get across the message that the privileged must recognize the benefits to being privileged, and that others who are not from a privileged social group are not receiving the same treatment. There were many other things throughout Barnes article that was a great example of Johnson’s idea with the privileged people of society not recognizing their benefits, as well as denying their role in the negative effects that different social groups experience daily.