Acknowledgement, to some it may mean nothing, but to others it may mean the world to a lot of people. Being acknowledged means so much to people because it shows them that people are actually listening to their ideas. Being acknowledged is a very important thing to experience, but yet there are some people in our past and present that deserve to be acknowledged. The articles, Understanding Integration, White Privilege, and Learning to Read, (by Gerald Early, Peggy McIntosh, and Malcolm X, respectively) are connected in that they talk about how different people have reacted in the situations and how they were acknowledged or not acknowledged. Acknowledgement is the one thing that all human beings crave.
Acknowledging differences between people can be a good thing and a bad thing. It can be good when you are acknowledging the differences in your religion or the persons ethnicity. I think that it can be bad when you are pointing out differences in their appearance, by this I mean like skin color or facial features. In the article Understanding Integration by Gerald Early, Gerald talks about how it is important to know the differences in human beings because it will help other human beings to acknowledge and become informed of the differences. And maybe this will make them have a different point of view on their backgrounds and want to become better friends with them enabling them to learn even more about them, and maybe find similarities in there differences. In doing this maybe in the end it will Not a victory of white over black or white over black, but rather it was black and white lying down side by side as equals(57).
Acknowledgement may be important but in some cases acknowledging differences in people is wrong. Like when you are using it to have an advantage because you are of another race. White privilege is a term where the definition is in the word; it is when a white person is given special treatment due to the color of their skin. This is the one case where I think that it is important where we should not acknowledge these differences in human beings because it is causing a lot of major problems and it could be solved if people could just see through the differences on the outside of other human beings. In the article White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh Peggy talks about how whites have had things easier than people of other races and Whites are taught not to recognize white privilege, as much as males are taught not to recognize male privileges. This quote I feel was true a while a go but know I think that people do recognize that we as whites did have it easier than blacks. But even though we have changed Many doors have been opened for certain people through no virtues of their own(121).
In the article Learning to Read by Malcolm X it talks about Malcolms life and how going to prison was actually the most important thing in his life. It changed his life from being a street hustler to a Black Muslim priest. I think that it really important to acknowledge that an African American hustler went into prison a drug using thief and came out a well educated Muslim. And in a country that was the sight of the worlds most shameful case of minority oppression (178). That later became a very important man in the history of segregation and was involved in speaking out against black oppression. And I think that he is well deserving of acknowledgement for the way in which that turned his life around.
All of these articles show that acknowledgement can be very important to be shown in some cases and in some it is imperative that it is not shown. In all of the articles there are different situations that an African American has been put into and it has shown that have prevailed in any way possible. And shown that acknowledgement, to some it may mean nothing, but to others it may mean the world to. Once again I go back to the quote from Understanding Integration in which it states The end of history was not a victory of white over black or white over black, but rather it was black and white lying down side by side as equals (Gerald Early 57). I hope that this quote holds to truth and that differences that cause problems can be put aside and we can do what that saying tells us to do and just get along.
