James Baldwin's 'White In America'

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1. James Baldwin writes, “To be white in America means not having to think about it.” What does this quote mean, and how does it help us understand what it mean to have privilege in American society? What is white privilege? What are three manifestations of this privilege? Why is white privilege less often “seen” or acknowledged? What can someone who has white privilege do about the privilege he/she has?
This is a famous quote and give me many thoughts about white privilege. This quote states that white people in America can avoid many troubles which non-whites will have, also white people in America can have privilege. White people in the America doesn’t need to be pay attention of the privilege they had for the reason …show more content…
“… the process whereby students are divided into categories so that they can be assigned in groups to various kind of classes.” (Oaks 2005) A very common example is school allowing students to take an honors class provided that they maintain an average of 90 or above. Standards for track placement are uniform in some schools; in others, each department determines the number of tracks and track placement. For example, in the high school where one of the coauthors taught prior to coming to Rockville Centre, any student was allowed to take AP English, but entrance to AP courses in foreign languages was determined by previous enrollment in the honors track and final averages in prior language courses. Tracking separated students into different groups. People who have better academic performances can get the tracking benefit most. Because they can have better communication with each other and get higher level knowledge for the reason that they already knew more knowledge and have better knowledge base than low achieving students. The students will learn more knowledge since they are surrounded by others like them. Also, teachers are better able to target individual needs which education process can be quick and more efficient. A student in a high-achieving group is seen as a high-achieving person, bright, smart, quick, and in the eyes of many, good. Students who are in the bad academic performances group or normal group have potentially harmful. According to Oaks. J. (1985) “Keeping Track: How schools structure inequality”, these groups which are low achieving, slow, average are not equally valued in the school. They are labeled quite openly and characterized in the minds of teachers and others as being a certain type students. Students who are in the low-achieving groups come to be called slow, below average, and often when people are being less careful—dummies,
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