Standpoint Theory

Life is all about status, social class, race and gender. But I feel that race is a person’s master status over all other statuses. For example, in the 1960s, race played a major role in how people viewed another person, especially in the South. Back then, to be racist was okay, and if you weren’t, you were considered an outcast to society. But all the situated knowledge the minority receives is from a weak objectively group (the characteristic of knowledge generated from standpoint of dominant group). George Hegel talks about the master-to-slave relationship, based on what group you are in, which determines who is the “knower”(the powerful) and also who controls who receives knowledge. What Hegel was saying still remains into today’s society. The government is the “knower” and it rations finds to public schools. The government knows which school’s funding to cut due to redlining— schools that always happen to be those in the inner city. The government gives inner-city children a basic education, which is just enough to get a job after graduation. But an inner-city education doesn’t even come close to those of other type of education, like those in the suburbs of America. In my opinion, the educational system is biased toward the minority, and for this reason the minority will always be oppressed and will never be the knowers in society.