White Privilege

I am a woman, American, and white, but what does that mean to me..? Probably not the same thing as it means to an American woman who is Latino, Asian, or African-American. In the same way that a Latino, Asian, or African- American woman's perception of herself would be different than mine of hers. Before I go any further into this, I just want to say that I understand that a certain privilege does exist for people of white skin color, but I can't help but wonder who actually relizes that they are taking advantage of that privilege. I say this because if we know not what we do, and its affects on others, than how are we to change or even more is change even possible as a society? I say this because, if you take one of the core problems of this privilege like the differences of educational institutions between the white population and multicultured institutions, it is proven that the institutions as well as educations of the minority are not as good as the white (European-decent) school systems. This is a serious problem and that needs to be addressed, but many white people who are willing to help fight this are unsure of the means to do so. Just like with health care being harder to get and less quality for minorities than it is for white people...we do not know how to change this. I think if we were taught at a younger age that this problems exist and have it explained in grave detail as to how this emerged (meaning the full truth of U.S. History and its ramifications-- not the public school system's sugar coated version) then some of these barriers for the multicultured could be brought out in the open and therefore, have some solutions discussed. Also, I think that this is allow many white people to gain compassion and understanding for those who have had privilges taken away from them because of our history, and cause more of us to want to take action and provide more equal opportunties. I know that becoming educated on these matters has opened my eyes to a problems that I either usually choose not to see or didn't even know existed, so I think a more raw intellect on the problems of white privilege would be crucial towards a future with less selfish people, leading to a more others-serving world.
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/15_02/Int152.shtml