White Privilege

The points that stuck out to me the most from the reading were numbers 12, 16, 17, 24, and 35.

Number 12 stuck out a lot to me because it represents how certain everyday wants and needs that we have can be very difficult to find if you aren't of the dominant culture. These things that should be easy to find can be difficult because everyone needs different things but all these needs can't be catered too. So the stores all cater to what is desired by the majority which just excludes many other groups of peoples.

Number 16 struck me because this is very saddening but its a reality for all parents who are of a minority. All children should have equal opportunity in America, its something that this country prides itself on, but in reality there are many individuals who don't adhere to this and treat children of minorities in a bad manner. This often results in a lot of stress in their parents because they constantly have to worry about the well being of their children simply because of the child's race which is something completely out of their control.

Number 17 struck me because it not only applies to just this example that she gives but to many other things as well. Often when a black person commits an act that is out of the norm or not considered to be polite, its often ignored or deemed acceptable just because of that persons race. This also applies to things like lateness because if a black person is late then its said to be ok or expected because that person is Black and therefore can't help it.

Number 24 also struck me because several times i've asked or seen people ask for the manager or person in charge and that person presented to me is white. And on the rare occasions where the person is not white i've seen surprised looks of disbelief on the faces of the person asking. It clearly shows that their is this expectation for the white person to be the one in charge since he is the one of the dominant culture. But this does not provide a lot of hope for equality because how can there be equality in the work place if the person in charge is almost always white and therefore can't identify with his employees.

Number 35 struck me since its something that is a very pressing issue that I will face in the work place as well as the schools and universities that I will be applying to for college. Often people who are of a minority may have their intelligence questioned and may not be seen as credible because its often assumed that the only reason they got the job was due to affirmative action. This isn't fair to the employees who are hired because they may or may not be hired due to affirmative action but regardless this shouldn't have an effect on how they're treated.

All these things often are taken for granted because they're so small and over looked by the majority of people who don't have to put up with not being able to have these privileges. Also many of the other points that McIntosh struck me simply because I'm black and often experience these things so it comes as no surprise that these points really resonate with me.

Visual essay assessment

1. In creative collaboration our group had some pretty good moments. We were very respectful of each other and listened attentively to what other members of the group were saying. This allowed us to have some pretty good ideas because we would have so many different ideas brought to the table and we could either use that direct idea or combine it with another. We did a good job of deep listening. This was a step in our journey to a shared vision. This was very key because since we each listened to each others ideas and stated our likes and dislikes the final resulting project that we had was approved by all of us. So since we all had agreed on the project and had a great enthusiasm about it mostly everything ran pretty smooth. the enthusiasm everyone brought to the table allowed us to think outside the box and come up with lots of great concepts to throw into the video. There wasn't much loathing of doing the work involved because we were all passionate about the presentation we were making. Maybe one thing i felt we could have worked on a little more was the equal participation aspect of creative collaboration. In this project I didn't feel there were many jobs to be done besides just taking the pictures, writing the essay, and putting it together in the video. So in some cases one person was assigned to a certain job but we all took part in looking over the material we came up with and making corrections as well as throwing in our ideas.
2. An area where I was trying to lead first came up on the first day when our group met. We were in the cafeteria looking around at the space we had to work with and trying to come up with ideas for our project. Every one kept talking over each other and putting out a bunch of ideas as well as shooting some down. So caused the tension to get really high in the group and people felt their ideas weren't getting heard. So I stepped in and told everyone to be quiet and told them that they could only speak when I pointed to them. That way everyone had to remain quiet while someone else was expressing their ideas. This worked out very well it brought some order to the whole process and people actually began listening to each others ideas. Another example of leadership appeared when Rachel took the liberty to start writing the essay. She went home on the second night and got the essay started by coming up with a strong thesis and intro paragraph as well as great points to touch on that would help flush out the rest of the paper. She then sent us what she had written through email so the whole group could look it over and provide feedback. This was a great move by Rachel because she stepped up and worked on a part of the project no one wanted to do but because of her efforts it turned out to be great.
3. I think some issues we had with Creative Collaboration were for one staying focused. Often in a project like this where we weren't given many guidelines and rules its hard to stay on task because often we feel lost. Also with commiments to self I believe one of my greatest challenges was ackowledging strengths and weakness'. But by the end of the project I was able to analyze what these were pretty well. Since I was the oldest person in the group and the only senior I had a certain power over the rest of the group which allowed us to get work done when I was able to tell people when they were supposed to talk. And one of my weakness' was not being very technological savy so I didn't work on the part involving imovie. With commitments to group it was very difficult to plan out what was the course for the day. if we had done a better job of this the project would've flowed better because we would have a strict plan for the day.