I've blogged about a similar thing story on this site before. Fmylife.com. I came across this story:
Today, my mother was re-enrolling me in school so she was required to fill out some paper work. Later, she asks me, "What does Caucasian mean?". I ask, "Why?". Apparently she didn't recognize the word so she checked "other" and wrote in "white". FML
I remember us talking about this in class. I distinctly remember taking a standardized test in elementary school where we had to fill out that information. "white" was not on there and since there was maybe only 1 or 2 people of color, pretty much all of the 2nd graders did not know what to put. The teacher had to announce to put "caucasian". I only know of that word and use it in terms of standardized testing. Even though this web site is meant to be taken as humorous, I think it shows the ignorance that still exists today.
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I def. agree with jenna on how this shows the ignorance of "whites" in America today. I blogged on the white privilege so prevalent today and how that relates to a lot of negatives in society. Privilege doesn’t allow us to view ourselves as the rest of the world views us. A large amount of anxiety is tied to the privilege in that we, as whites, feel an intense anxiety like a mental dysfunction/emotional anxiety and distress because we are constantly afraid of who’s gaining on us. If we are the privileged ones we are always looking over our shoulder afraid of others coming to take what we have.
ReplyDeleteJenna, what would you suggest as a remedy. Do we change the test to more accurately reflect terminilogy people use and are aware of? Do we have a conversation about why "Caucasion" is used?
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