kozol chapter 9

Johnson explains that there are many things that we can do to change privilege. As he explains in this chapter he believes that changing privilege is a process and it will not be changed in his lifetime or more lifetime. On page 129 Johnson was talking about male privilege and he says the only way to change male privilege is "bit by bit, moment by moment." Johnson explains that in order for us to see ourselves as part of the change we can not use the human life span as a significant standard to measure process. Johnson says how male privilege has been around for seven thousand years and white privilege has been around for hundreds of years. Privilege can not be erased in a single life span; it is a process and it takes time. What I did really like about this chapter is that Johnson gave us many ways in which we can change privilege. The example that I liked the most is the one that is on the bottom of page 151 which says one way we can change privilege is by speaking out. Johnson explains how speaking out is risky because receiving privilege depends on being accepted by other members of the privileged group. It is funny that he mentioned this because something like this happened to me at work this weekend. I work at a banquet restaurant and this weekend there was a party and the majority of the people were gay. Some of the other workers were making jokes and saying how they hate gay people. Normally I would be quiet and not say anything to fit into the norm, but on this particular night I did not. I was not laughing and I asked them what is the big deal if they are gay or not. When I said this they stopped making fun of them, but only for a short time. Like Johnson says bit by bit and I hope that I had made a little bit of a difference by speaking out for gay people.