Cultural Competancy Recent Awareness About

Cultural Competancy

Recent awareness about the definition of racism arose during the Sotomayor Supreme Court hearings. Greenwood & Christian (2008) refer to the heterogeneity of women and illustrate some of the biases in the approach toward Sotomayor. Unzueta & Lowery (2008) as well as Cannon (2008) focus on white privilege and institutional racism. Greenwood & Christian (2008) note that political ideology mitigates gender. That is, a woman may feel differently even about her fellow females depending on her political stances in general. Being a woman might have a biological universal constant, but culture, religion, and politics play important roles in self-definition. Greenwood & Christian (2008) do not directly address the ways that gender and any other variable affects social status. On the other hand, Unzueta & Lowery (2008) and Cannon (2008) do discuss social status. Race and self-perception are keys to unraveling the problems associated with institutionalized chauvinism.

Unzueta & Lowery (2008) and Cannon (2008) focus on the concept of white privilege. White privilege is defined as "unearned group-based privileges," (Unzueta & Lowery (2008). The key to the concept of white privilege is not that the phenomenon exists. Rather, white privilege is important because it is so rabidly denied by those who would benefit by its power unwittingly, ie. Whites. Unzueta & Lowery (2008) claim that whites are uncomfortable with the concept of white privilege because it threatens their "self-image," (p. 1492). Cannon (2008) applies a similar concept of white privilege to what the author calls "learning organizations." Learning organizations are institutions that acknowledge white privilege and address the problems associated with white privilege. Among the problems associated with white privilege are denial and also perpetuation of social injustice. Although Greenwood & Christian (2008) do not explicitly address white privilege, the authors do indirectly approach the issue in their article "What happens when we unpack the invisible knapsack?" Instead of addressing the ways white privilege operate in a general way, Greenwood & Christian (2008) talk about white privilege specifically within the context of non-Muslim women's perceptions of the hijab, the head scarf. The study reveals the ways culture and religion intersect with gender, and in fact the authors base their research on the theory of intersectionality. White privilege, gender, and any other issue related to social justice and personal consciousness is situational. Each individual will experience race, class, gender, power, religion, and ethnicity in different ways.

When reading the three articles, I first note their similarities. All three articles address white privilege. The problem with white privilege is that it is built into the social institutions upon which societies are built. White privilege can also be extended to refer to gender privilege and patriarchy, which is why Greenwood & Christian (2008) note that women from whatever culture or religion tend to gloss over their differences to bond together in sisterhood. Sisterhood might trump experiences such as racial prejudice and bias. However, when faced with the problem of the hijab, women who are not from Muslim backgrounds have trouble accepting the cultural practice of the head scarf. Greenwood & Christian (2008) frame their explication of the hijab in terms of white privilege. White women scorn the hijab because they are projecting a cultural bias on Muslim women.