Instructions are attached
Reply Post
Your reply post should read 500 to 600 words and should reference at least one citation from the article the other student read for their initial post. To receive the maximum points, your post should include a reference from all of this week’s readings along with an article other students read.
Prompt
Analyze another student’s initial post. Examine their application of an article to this week’s discussion topic and compare it to your own application.
Parameters
· Analyze one student’s initial post. What are one or two major questions you have after reading their post?
· Reread the section of the readings they reference, as well as the article they cited; then, use these sources to address your question(s)
· Your reply post should follow APA guidelines
Peer: Taylor
Helpful ways to engage in a conversation about privilege or power with someone experiencing white fragility is to first remember what makes the person fragile. Defensive positions arise for numerous of reasons, but guilt and shame are the strongest factors that underline many faulty attachment systems, communication issues, and divisive positions for many people.
The alternative to mere subconscious barriers that might
simply explain the issue, is that white fragility could be a feigning of fragility to avoid changing the beliefs that they are aware of; that they certainly benefit from. The only way to confront this seems to be with persuasion and exposure. Over time, as more educational systems, advertisements, and policies engage in said changes and discuss why such changes are necessary, the more normalized talking about anything race related will become.
A few persuasive measures might include basing conversations on the benefits that come with racial equality and acknowledgment of generational trauma. Identifying ways that benefit a white person to see their cultural neighbor empowered means that the white person too could be empowered. When power differentials shift, the more powerful likely empower the person with less power.
Faber et al. (2024) highlighted the barriers that exist for confronting fragility. Harnessing on the fact that misuse of power is a potential for anyone would make for a rhetoric device in unifying different people of different backgrounds. Identifying systematic enemies, if you will, could position the average man, with consideration to race, next to someone of different race for a purpose. This purpose, of course, could be presented as a theory or a story that overtime, becomes the norm.
Ideally, I would love to engage with anyone one the topic
without feeling as if I need to engage tools that seemingly win the opportunity for a person to not be defensive to the matter. However, oppression is compounded when we do not speak about it, so time is of interest. If it takes rhetor and strategy to get others to warm up to the conversation, then I hope that more folks become rhetoricians.
Reference
Faber, S. C., Williams, Monnica T., & Skinta, Matthew D. (2024). Editorial: Power, discrimination, and privilege in individuals and institutions. Frontiers In Psychology, 15.
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