White Privilege Symposium - Thoughts and Reflection

Having attended the White Privilege Symposium at Brock University, I can safely say that my views on privilege and racism have been changed. However, this is not to say that I have suddenly become anything resembling an expert on these topics, I have just learned a great deal more than I previously knew. To begin with, the Symposium, as well as my classes with Chris D’Souza for my “Issues in Diversity in Schooling” class at Brock University, have taught me that “color blindness” is a method of interacting with racism and privilege that is not only ineffective, it is detrimental. This method of interaction teaches that the only fair way of considering race is to see everybody equally, but in reality this belittles the hardships and accomplishments of people of different races and assumes that racial privilege does not exist. A phrase often repeated by Chris D’Souza in class is that “When race is perceived, race plays a role.” In other words, race is a factor in modern life and to pretend to ignore it is to belittle the role that it plays, particularly from a privileged standpoint. People with white skin are privileged enough to be “color blind,” whereas people of other races are not, and cannot afford to ignore the roles that race plays in their lives. The replacement for having a “color blind” approach to race can be described as “color brave,” as outlined by Mellody Hobson in her TED Talk. Being color brave means that any person, particularly those with privilege, are willing to investigate the role that race plays in their interactions with others, and examine the consequences and effects of that role. Being color brave means not ignoring the hardships, discrimination, privilege, and societal power structures that make up a person’s racial experiences, simply to make an interaction easier. In short, the White Privilege Symposium really showed me the importance of not ignoring race and of respecting each person’s heritage by not simply pretending to not see color.