What Does It Mean to Be White?

What does it mean to be white? To answer this, we have to look at why is it considered a “privilege” to be white? It’s almost impossible to live your life without receiving a race demographic card that you have to fill out. I for one never knew what to put. Because I didn’t consider myself White, Asian, Hispanic, Black, or Native American. My dad always told me to check “white” because that’s what people would most likely group me as, even though I wasn’t. So I did, and I didn’t know why. I still do, and I still don’t know why. It’s something I’ll probably always do until “Armenian/Italian” shows up on there.

This being said, I feel that the concept of being white is actually pretty much like being any other race. Whites have a pride for their culture and sadness around parts of their past just like many others. As any race you are able to participate in your races social norms and slurs more acceptably then a differing race. So I guess that’s a major distinction. However, getting back to this “white privilege”. It’s true that it was once viewed in America that as a white man you were held to a higher status of credibility. In Asia it is considered “fashionable” to use skin whiteners because being “dark” isn’t as attractive. That begs the question to why are so many white Americans so obsessed with tanning if “being white is a privilege”? But looking towards the middle east the concept of “white power” isn’t really idolized there. It’s true that the men hold much of the authority, but if a white man showed up and tried telling a leader of the household what to do differently, do you really think that would go over very well?