All posts tagged: White Privilege

Repent of your white privilege: Is racism the original sin?

You have probably heard of “whiteness” the offense of being part of the dominant majority, that discriminates against minorities with different skin colors. If we consider the whole world, light-skinned people, whose ancestors came from Europe, including people who still live in Europe, form a large minority. In the world community, Asia and Africa have huge populations. I remember learning in school, about the explorers who sailed from Europe and conquered and settled North and South America, and Australia and New Zealand. The new nations that grew from this prospered and sometimes dominated the world. In the southern United States and Brazil, and the Caribbean, large slave populations were imported from Africa. From that division of society, Europeans and Africans, racism tends to be defined by skin color. The United States had a violent civil war, and many civil-rights protest movements. “Whiteness” and “White Privilege” were ideas that fuelled academic discussions. Now, with protest groups like “Black Lives Matter” that protest against “Whiteness” and try to change it, the argument has gone public, and onto …

Credit: Taema/Flickr/Creative Commons

White Privilege and Lido Pimienta

Are people with white skin privileged? Do we need to give special treatment to people with dark skin? People are talking about this. On October 19, 2017, a singer named Lido Pimienta went on stage at the Halifax Pop Explosion music festival to sing. Halifax is in Nova Scotia, Canada, and Lido is a woman, originally from Colombia, South America. Before she sang, she told white people and men in the audience, to move to the back, and she instructed women with dark skin to move to the front rows, close to her. Some people argued that this was racism, and a female photographer with light skin stayed near the stage to take pictures. She was ordered to move to the back several times, and then security removed her from the festival. Organizers have since apologized to Lido Pimienta for the photographer’s overt racism. RELATED: Halifax music fest apologizes for overt racism at Polaris winners concert Arguments have ensured. One quote from the discussion in the Global News article is: “I’m sorry but isn’t that …