Chapter 8

In chapter 8 Allan Johnson’s book Privilege, Power and Difference, a point about society’s problems is addressed. Johnson addresses the problem of inequalities between groups of people based on characteristics such as race, sex, sexual orientation, age, disability, and ethnicity. He writes this chapter encouraging people to stand up for underprivileged people. The less powerful people do not have the access to change their position and Johnson says that they need help from the powerful and the prestigious. This chapter is a call to action for the powerful. People from powerful classifications make excuses why they don’t help people who are less prestigious, and that gets rid of the possibility for these groups to equalize. The examples that Johnson gives are how powerful people blame the victim, rename the power struggle, claim that people like it this way, claim that they are joking it shouldn’t be taken seriously, and claim they are one of the good people in their social standings. He then goes on to show that people claim they hear about racism every time they turn on the television. The person speaking to Johnson says he is sick of all the news reports about racism and thinks it is an topic that is discussed too often. The man speaking to Johnson claims he gets uncomfortable when the topic arises.
I slightly agree with Johnson on this chapter because I have noticed both myself and other people around me making excuses about why they haven’t did their part in ending power struggles among men and women, different races, different sexual interests, different age levels, and whether they are fully able or have slight to major disabilities in some way. Some evidence that may disprove his excuse theory would be that the excuses may be true. In a culture with a history of racism, people have grown to live life by them without thinking, even if everyone decided not to be racist, there would still be a high percentage of racist people. To get rid of racism, one would have to go through several generations of socializing children into a non-racist society. This opinion conflicts with Johnson’s because he thinks racism and other power struggles can be solved overnight and frankly that’s very improbable if not impossible. Overall, the chapter was well written and it can be used as a great reading for people who want to learn more about the division of power among different kinds of people.