White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
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Posts: 6,651
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
Peggy McIntosh
1988
"I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring
dominance on my group"
Through work to bring materials from women's studies into the rest of the curriculum, I have often
noticed men's unwillingness to grant that they are overprivileged, even though they may grant that
women are disadvantaged. They may say they will work to women's statues, in the society, the
university, or the curriculum, but they can't or won't support the idea of lessening men's. Denials that
amount to taboos surround the subject of advantages that men gain from women's disadvantages. These
denials protect male privilege from being fully acknowledged, lessened, or ended.
Thinking through unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon, I realized that, since hierarchies in
our society are interlocking, there are most likely a phenomenon, I realized that, since hierarchies in our
society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of while privilege that was similarly
denied and protected. As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts
others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege,
which puts me at an advantage.
I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize
male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have
come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in
each day, but about which I was "meant" to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible
weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools , and blank
checks.
Describing white privilege makes one newly accountable. As we in women's studies work to reveal male
privilege and ask men to give up some of their power, so one who writes about having white privilege
must ask, "having described it, what will I do to lessen or end it?"
After I realized the extent to which men work from a base of unacknowledged privilege, I understood
that much of their oppressiveness was unconscious. Then I remembered the frequent charges from
women of color that white women whom they encounter are oppressive. I began to understand why we
are just seen as oppressive, even when we don't see ourselves that way. I began to count the ways in
which I enjoy unearned skin privilege and have been conditioned into oblivion about its existence.
My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfairly advantaged person, or
as a participant in a damaged culture. I was taught to see myself as an individual whose moral state
depended on her individual moral will. My schooling followed the pattern my colleague Elizabeth
Minnich has pointed out: whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and
average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work that will allow
"them" to be more like "us."
Daily effects of white privilege
I decided to try to work on myself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of white privilege in
my life. I have chosen those conditions that I think in my case attach somewhat more to skin-color
privilege than to class, religion, ethnic status, or geographic location, though of course all these other
factors are intricately intertwined. As far as I can tell, my African American coworkers, friends, and
acquaintances with whom I come into daily or frequent contact in this particular time, place and time of
work cannot count on most of these conditions.
1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
2. I can avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to
mistrust my kind or me.
3. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can
afford and in which I would want to live.
4. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
5. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
6. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely
represented.
7. When I am told about our national heritage or about "civilization," I am shown that people of my
color made it what it is.
8. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their
race.
9. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.
10. I can be pretty sure of having my voice heard in a group in which I am the only member of my race.
11. I can be casual about whether or not to listen to another person's voice in a group in which s/he is the
only member of his/her race.
12. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket
and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser's shop and find
someone who can cut my hair.
13. Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the
appearance of financial reliability.
14. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.
15. I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical
protection.
16. I can be pretty sure that my children's teachers and employers will tolerate them if they fit school and
workplace norms; my chief worries about them do not concern others' attitudes toward their race.
17. I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.
18. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute
these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.
19. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.
20. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
21. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
22. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world's
majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.
23. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without
being seen as a cultural outsider.
24. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the "person in charge", I will be facing a person of my race.
25. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven't been singled
out because of my race.
26. I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys and children's
magazines featuring people of my race.
27. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than
isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance or feared.
28. I can be pretty sure that an argument with a colleague of another race is more likely to jeopardize
her/his chances for advancement than to jeopardize mine.
29. I can be pretty sure that if I argue for the promotion of a person of another race, or a program
centering on race, this is not likely to cost me heavily within my present setting, even if my colleagues
disagree with me.
30. If I declare there is a racial issue at hand, or there isn't a racial issue at hand, my race will lend me
more credibility for either position than a person of color will have.
31. I can choose to ignore developments in minority writing and minority activist programs, or disparage
them, or learn from them, but in any case, I can find ways to be more or less protected from negative
consequences of any of these choices.
32. My culture gives me little fear about ignoring the perspectives and powers of people of other races.
33. I am not made acutely aware that my shape, bearing or body odor will be taken as a reflection on my
race.
34. I can worry about racism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking.
35. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having my co-workers on the job
suspect that I got it because of my race.
36. If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether
it had racial overtones.
37. I can be pretty sure of finding people who would be willing to talk with me and advise me about my
next steps, professionally.
38. I can think over many options, social, political, imaginative or professional, without asking whether
a person of my race would be accepted or allowed to do what I want to do.
39. I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race.
40. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be
mistreated in the places I have chosen.
41. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.
42. I can arrange my activities so that I will never have to experience feelings of rejection owing to my
race.
43. If I have low credibility as a leader I can be sure that my race is not the problem.
44. I can easily find academic courses and institutions which give attention only to people of my race.
45. I can expect figurative language and imagery in all of the arts to testify to experiences of my race.
46. I can chose blemish cover or bandages in "flesh" color and have them more or less match my skin.
47. I can travel alone or with my spouse without expecting embarrassment or hostility in those who deal
with us.
48. I have no difficulty finding neighborhoods where people approve of our household.
49. My children are given texts and classes which implicitly support our kind of family unit and do not
turn them against my choice of domestic partnership.
50. I will feel welcomed and "normal" in the usual walks of public life, institutional and social.
Elusive and fugitive
I repeatedly forgot each of the realizations on this list until I wrote it down. For me white privilege has
turned out to be an elusive and fugitive subject. The pressure to avoid it is great, for in facing it I must
give up the myth of meritocracy. If these things are true, this is not such a free country; one's life is not
what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own.
In unpacking this invisible knapsack of white privilege, I have listed conditions of daily experience that
I once took for granted. Nor did I think of any of these perquisites as bad for the holder. I now think that
we need a more finely differentiated taxonomy of privilege, for some of these varieties are only what
one would want for everyone in a just society, and others give license to be ignorant, oblivious, arrogant,
and destructive.
I see a pattern running through the matrix of white privilege, a patter of assumptions that were passed on
to me as a white person. There was one main piece of cultural turf; it was my own turn, and I was among
those who could control the turf. My skin color was an asset for any move I was educated to want to
make. I could think of myself as belonging in major ways and of making social systems work for me. I
could freely disparage, fear, neglect, or be oblivious to anything outside of the dominant cultural forms.
Being of the main culture, I could also criticize it fairly freely.
In proportion as my racial group was being made confident, comfortable, and oblivious, other groups
were likely being made unconfident, uncomfortable, and alienated. Whiteness protected me from many
kinds of hostility, distress, and violence, which I was being subtly trained to visit, in turn, upon people
of color.
For this reason, the word "privilege" now seems to me misleading. We usually think of privilege as
being a favored state, whether earned or conferred by birth or luck. Yet some of the conditions I have
described here work systematically to over empower certain groups. Such privilege simply confers
dominance because of one's race or sex.
Earned strength, unearned power
I want, then, to distinguish between earned strength and unearned power conferred privilege can look
like strength when it is in fact permission to escape or to dominate. But not all of the privileges on my
list are inevitably damaging. Some, like the expectation that neighbors will be decent to you, or that your
race will not count against you in court, should be the norm in a just society. Others, like the privilege to
ignore less powerful people, distort the humanity of the holders as well as the ignored groups.
We might at least start by distinguishing between positive advantages, which we can work to spread, and
negative types of advantage, which unless rejected will always reinforce our present hierarchies. For
example, the feeling that one belongs within the human circle, as Native Americans say, should not be
seen as privilege for a few. Ideally it is an unearned entitlement. At present, since only a few have it, it is
an unearned advantage for them. This paper results from a process of coming to see that some of the
power that I originally say as attendant on being a human being in the United States consisted in
unearned advantage and conferred dominance.
I have met very few men who truly distressed about systemic, unearned male advantage and conferred
dominance. And so one question for me and others like me is whether we will be like them, or whether
we will get truly distressed, even outraged, about unearned race advantage and conferred dominance,
and, if so, what we will do to lessen them. In any case, we need to do more work in identifying how they
actually affect our daily lives. Many, perhaps most, of our white students in the United States think that
racism doesn't affect them because they are not people of color; they do not see "whiteness" as a racial
identity. In addition, since race and sex are not the only advantaging systems at work, we need similarly
to examine the daily experience of having age advantage, or ethnic advantage, or physical ability, or
advantage related to nationality, religion, or sexual orientation.
Difficulties and angers surrounding the task of finding parallels are many. Since racism, sexism, and
heterosexism are not the same, the advantages associated with them should not be seen as the same. In
addition, it is hard to disentangle aspects of unearned advantage that rest more on social class, economic
class, race, religion, sex, and ethnic identity that on other factors. Still, all of the oppressions are
interlocking, as the members of the Combahee River Collective pointed out in their "Black Feminist
Statement" of 1977.
One factor seems clear about all of the interlocking oppressions. They take both active forms, which we
can see, and embedded forms, which as a member of the dominant groups one is taught not to see. In my
class and place, I did not see myself as a racist because I was taught to recognize racism only in
individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought
racial dominance on my group from birth.
Disapproving of the system won't be enough to change them. I was taught to think that racism could end
if white individuals changed their attitude. But a "white" skin in the United States opens many doors for
whites whether or not we approve of the way dominance has been conferred on us. Individual acts can
palliate but cannot end, these problems.
To redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions. The silences
and denials surrounding privilege are the key political surrounding privilege are the key political tool
here. They keep the thinking about equality or equity incomplete, protecting unearned advantage and
conferred dominance by making these subject taboo. Most talk by whites about equal opportunity seems
to me now to be about equal opportunity to try to get into a position of dominance while denying that
systems of dominance exist.
It seems to me that obliviousness about white advantage, like obliviousness about male advantage, is
kept strongly inculturated in the United States so as to maintain the myth of meritocracy, the myth that
democratic choice is equally available to all. Keeping most people unaware that freedom of confident
action is there for just a small number of people props up those in power and serves to keep power in the
hands of the same groups that have most of it already.
Although systemic change takes many decades, there are pressing questions for me and, I imagine, for
some others like me if we raise our daily consciousness on the perquisites of being light-skinned. What
will we do with such knowledge? As we know from watching men, it is an open question whether we
will choose to use unearned advantage, and whether we will use any of our arbitrarily awarded power to
try to reconstruct power systems on a broader base.
Peggy McIntosh
1988
"I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring
dominance on my group"
Through work to bring materials from women's studies into the rest of the curriculum, I have often
noticed men's unwillingness to grant that they are overprivileged, even though they may grant that
women are disadvantaged. They may say they will work to women's statues, in the society, the
university, or the curriculum, but they can't or won't support the idea of lessening men's. Denials that
amount to taboos surround the subject of advantages that men gain from women's disadvantages. These
denials protect male privilege from being fully acknowledged, lessened, or ended.
Thinking through unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon, I realized that, since hierarchies in
our society are interlocking, there are most likely a phenomenon, I realized that, since hierarchies in our
society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of while privilege that was similarly
denied and protected. As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts
others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege,
which puts me at an advantage.
I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize
male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have
come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in
each day, but about which I was "meant" to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible
weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools , and blank
checks.
Describing white privilege makes one newly accountable. As we in women's studies work to reveal male
privilege and ask men to give up some of their power, so one who writes about having white privilege
must ask, "having described it, what will I do to lessen or end it?"
After I realized the extent to which men work from a base of unacknowledged privilege, I understood
that much of their oppressiveness was unconscious. Then I remembered the frequent charges from
women of color that white women whom they encounter are oppressive. I began to understand why we
are just seen as oppressive, even when we don't see ourselves that way. I began to count the ways in
which I enjoy unearned skin privilege and have been conditioned into oblivion about its existence.
My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfairly advantaged person, or
as a participant in a damaged culture. I was taught to see myself as an individual whose moral state
depended on her individual moral will. My schooling followed the pattern my colleague Elizabeth
Minnich has pointed out: whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and
average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work that will allow
"them" to be more like "us."
Daily effects of white privilege
I decided to try to work on myself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of white privilege in
my life. I have chosen those conditions that I think in my case attach somewhat more to skin-color
privilege than to class, religion, ethnic status, or geographic location, though of course all these other
factors are intricately intertwined. As far as I can tell, my African American coworkers, friends, and
acquaintances with whom I come into daily or frequent contact in this particular time, place and time of
work cannot count on most of these conditions.
1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
2. I can avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to
mistrust my kind or me.
3. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can
afford and in which I would want to live.
4. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
5. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
6. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely
represented.
7. When I am told about our national heritage or about "civilization," I am shown that people of my
color made it what it is.
8. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their
race.
9. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.
10. I can be pretty sure of having my voice heard in a group in which I am the only member of my race.
11. I can be casual about whether or not to listen to another person's voice in a group in which s/he is the
only member of his/her race.
12. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket
and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser's shop and find
someone who can cut my hair.
13. Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the
appearance of financial reliability.
14. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.
15. I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical
protection.
16. I can be pretty sure that my children's teachers and employers will tolerate them if they fit school and
workplace norms; my chief worries about them do not concern others' attitudes toward their race.
17. I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.
18. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute
these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.
19. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.
20. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
21. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
22. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world's
majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.
23. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without
being seen as a cultural outsider.
24. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the "person in charge", I will be facing a person of my race.
25. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven't been singled
out because of my race.
26. I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys and children's
magazines featuring people of my race.
27. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than
isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance or feared.
28. I can be pretty sure that an argument with a colleague of another race is more likely to jeopardize
her/his chances for advancement than to jeopardize mine.
29. I can be pretty sure that if I argue for the promotion of a person of another race, or a program
centering on race, this is not likely to cost me heavily within my present setting, even if my colleagues
disagree with me.
30. If I declare there is a racial issue at hand, or there isn't a racial issue at hand, my race will lend me
more credibility for either position than a person of color will have.
31. I can choose to ignore developments in minority writing and minority activist programs, or disparage
them, or learn from them, but in any case, I can find ways to be more or less protected from negative
consequences of any of these choices.
32. My culture gives me little fear about ignoring the perspectives and powers of people of other races.
33. I am not made acutely aware that my shape, bearing or body odor will be taken as a reflection on my
race.
34. I can worry about racism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking.
35. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having my co-workers on the job
suspect that I got it because of my race.
36. If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether
it had racial overtones.
37. I can be pretty sure of finding people who would be willing to talk with me and advise me about my
next steps, professionally.
38. I can think over many options, social, political, imaginative or professional, without asking whether
a person of my race would be accepted or allowed to do what I want to do.
39. I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race.
40. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be
mistreated in the places I have chosen.
41. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.
42. I can arrange my activities so that I will never have to experience feelings of rejection owing to my
race.
43. If I have low credibility as a leader I can be sure that my race is not the problem.
44. I can easily find academic courses and institutions which give attention only to people of my race.
45. I can expect figurative language and imagery in all of the arts to testify to experiences of my race.
46. I can chose blemish cover or bandages in "flesh" color and have them more or less match my skin.
47. I can travel alone or with my spouse without expecting embarrassment or hostility in those who deal
with us.
48. I have no difficulty finding neighborhoods where people approve of our household.
49. My children are given texts and classes which implicitly support our kind of family unit and do not
turn them against my choice of domestic partnership.
50. I will feel welcomed and "normal" in the usual walks of public life, institutional and social.
Elusive and fugitive
I repeatedly forgot each of the realizations on this list until I wrote it down. For me white privilege has
turned out to be an elusive and fugitive subject. The pressure to avoid it is great, for in facing it I must
give up the myth of meritocracy. If these things are true, this is not such a free country; one's life is not
what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own.
In unpacking this invisible knapsack of white privilege, I have listed conditions of daily experience that
I once took for granted. Nor did I think of any of these perquisites as bad for the holder. I now think that
we need a more finely differentiated taxonomy of privilege, for some of these varieties are only what
one would want for everyone in a just society, and others give license to be ignorant, oblivious, arrogant,
and destructive.
I see a pattern running through the matrix of white privilege, a patter of assumptions that were passed on
to me as a white person. There was one main piece of cultural turf; it was my own turn, and I was among
those who could control the turf. My skin color was an asset for any move I was educated to want to
make. I could think of myself as belonging in major ways and of making social systems work for me. I
could freely disparage, fear, neglect, or be oblivious to anything outside of the dominant cultural forms.
Being of the main culture, I could also criticize it fairly freely.
In proportion as my racial group was being made confident, comfortable, and oblivious, other groups
were likely being made unconfident, uncomfortable, and alienated. Whiteness protected me from many
kinds of hostility, distress, and violence, which I was being subtly trained to visit, in turn, upon people
of color.
For this reason, the word "privilege" now seems to me misleading. We usually think of privilege as
being a favored state, whether earned or conferred by birth or luck. Yet some of the conditions I have
described here work systematically to over empower certain groups. Such privilege simply confers
dominance because of one's race or sex.
Earned strength, unearned power
I want, then, to distinguish between earned strength and unearned power conferred privilege can look
like strength when it is in fact permission to escape or to dominate. But not all of the privileges on my
list are inevitably damaging. Some, like the expectation that neighbors will be decent to you, or that your
race will not count against you in court, should be the norm in a just society. Others, like the privilege to
ignore less powerful people, distort the humanity of the holders as well as the ignored groups.
We might at least start by distinguishing between positive advantages, which we can work to spread, and
negative types of advantage, which unless rejected will always reinforce our present hierarchies. For
example, the feeling that one belongs within the human circle, as Native Americans say, should not be
seen as privilege for a few. Ideally it is an unearned entitlement. At present, since only a few have it, it is
an unearned advantage for them. This paper results from a process of coming to see that some of the
power that I originally say as attendant on being a human being in the United States consisted in
unearned advantage and conferred dominance.
I have met very few men who truly distressed about systemic, unearned male advantage and conferred
dominance. And so one question for me and others like me is whether we will be like them, or whether
we will get truly distressed, even outraged, about unearned race advantage and conferred dominance,
and, if so, what we will do to lessen them. In any case, we need to do more work in identifying how they
actually affect our daily lives. Many, perhaps most, of our white students in the United States think that
racism doesn't affect them because they are not people of color; they do not see "whiteness" as a racial
identity. In addition, since race and sex are not the only advantaging systems at work, we need similarly
to examine the daily experience of having age advantage, or ethnic advantage, or physical ability, or
advantage related to nationality, religion, or sexual orientation.
Difficulties and angers surrounding the task of finding parallels are many. Since racism, sexism, and
heterosexism are not the same, the advantages associated with them should not be seen as the same. In
addition, it is hard to disentangle aspects of unearned advantage that rest more on social class, economic
class, race, religion, sex, and ethnic identity that on other factors. Still, all of the oppressions are
interlocking, as the members of the Combahee River Collective pointed out in their "Black Feminist
Statement" of 1977.
One factor seems clear about all of the interlocking oppressions. They take both active forms, which we
can see, and embedded forms, which as a member of the dominant groups one is taught not to see. In my
class and place, I did not see myself as a racist because I was taught to recognize racism only in
individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought
racial dominance on my group from birth.
Disapproving of the system won't be enough to change them. I was taught to think that racism could end
if white individuals changed their attitude. But a "white" skin in the United States opens many doors for
whites whether or not we approve of the way dominance has been conferred on us. Individual acts can
palliate but cannot end, these problems.
To redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions. The silences
and denials surrounding privilege are the key political surrounding privilege are the key political tool
here. They keep the thinking about equality or equity incomplete, protecting unearned advantage and
conferred dominance by making these subject taboo. Most talk by whites about equal opportunity seems
to me now to be about equal opportunity to try to get into a position of dominance while denying that
systems of dominance exist.
It seems to me that obliviousness about white advantage, like obliviousness about male advantage, is
kept strongly inculturated in the United States so as to maintain the myth of meritocracy, the myth that
democratic choice is equally available to all. Keeping most people unaware that freedom of confident
action is there for just a small number of people props up those in power and serves to keep power in the
hands of the same groups that have most of it already.
Although systemic change takes many decades, there are pressing questions for me and, I imagine, for
some others like me if we raise our daily consciousness on the perquisites of being light-skinned. What
will we do with such knowledge? As we know from watching men, it is an open question whether we
will choose to use unearned advantage, and whether we will use any of our arbitrarily awarded power to
try to reconstruct power systems on a broader base.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
this is exactly what all these racists do not understand.
if they ever had to live a DAY like this they just might.
dirty their hands, it comes right off.
RED ROCKS 6-19-95
AUGUSTA 9-26-96
MANSFIELD 9-15-98
BOSTON 9-29-04
BOSTON 5-25-06
MANSFIELD 6-30-08
EV SOLO BOSTON 8-01-08
BOSTON 5-17-10
EV SOLO BOSTON 6-16-11
PJ20 9-3-11
PJ20 9-4-11
WRIGLEY 7-19-13
WORCESTER 10-15-13
WORCESTER 10-16-13
HARTFORD 10-25-13
:thumbup:
+1
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Why not (V) (°,,,,°) (V) ?
I agree... some of those on the list made me shake my head, but a lot of them did seem prevalent in today's society.
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
+2
You know, this is just SUCH a great and significant song (which has gone remarkably unmentioned in all this talk of race lately) that I think I'll just post the lyrics for everyone to remember:
W.M.A.
He won the lottery when he was born
Took his mothers white breast to his tongue
Trained like dogs, color and smell
Walks by me to get to him
Police man
Police man
He won the lottery by being born
Big hand slapped a white male American
Do no wrong, so clean cut...
Dirty his hands, it comes right off
Police man
Police man
Police stopped my brother again
Police stopped my brother again
Police stopped my brother again
Police man
Police man
Jesus greets me...looks just like me...
Do no wrong, so clean cut
Dirty his hands, it comes right off
Police man
Police man
Police man
Police stopped my brother again
Police stopped my brother again
Police stopped my brother again
Police man
Police man
Police stopped my brother again
Police stopped my brother again
Police stopped my brother again
Police man
Police man
Police man
All my pieces set me free...human devices set me free...
All my pieces set me free...
Human devices set me free...
All my pieces set me free...
Human devices set me free...
I think it still remains pretty potent, and I think much of what was said in this essay is directly relevant to many of the discussions that have been occurring on this forum lately.
I have had the opportunity to leave my dominant white culture and live as a minority in another culture and the effect it had on me was enormous. I understand the unspoken biases that presist and the effects it has on an individual. Losing one's knapsack of privilege is a powerful learning tool.
Agreed, its relevant. Keeping in mind that everyone's experiences are different. Not every white person has found the knapsack to be all that helpful ...
In my country i was considered "white", but here in the USA i would get my ass kick by the KKK
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Why not (V) (°,,,,°) (V) ?
Cool. :P
I have had the fairly unique experience of being insulted for a) being too white and b) for being not white enough, at different times and depending on who was around. Fortunately in my case, it was just verbal comments and not societal level discrimination, and I don't want to pretend I had it so rough ... Its just interesting, though.
I agree that everyone's experiences are different and I always keep that in mind. But I think the whole point of this article is that white people in this country are helped by this knapsack in some way, even if they don't realize it. Just because someone didn't find it to be helpful, doesn't mean it wasn't. I think you'd be pretty hard pressed to find a white person who has NEVER experienced any type of benefit from white privilege.
"With our thoughts we make the world"
The one about music was kinda silly too ... The author must realize how much really bad hip hop and R&B is clogging up music store shelves these days ...
I guess my basic point was that white priviledge is not a powerful enough force to overcome the effects of social class and poverty... Poor whites might still benefit in some of the more subtle ways the author describes, but poor and oppressed is still poor and oppressed.
I have wondered about why North America and Europe are the only places on the globe who actually work to protect the interests of minority groups. There is obviously still a lot of work to do, but at least some strides have been made. The attitude in Asia and Africa is VERY different.
Beauty privileged
Blond Privileged
Born Rich privileged
Got connections privileged
Born a Minority privileged
Foreigner privileged
Male privileged ?
More on White privileged...........
There is an entire "white privilege" industry out there, populated by "critical studies" academics and agitators (of all races) who see racism where there is no actual evidence of racism.
"white privilege" really is just another useful tool for those who want to play the race card for political gain.
It is impossible to disprove "white privilege" because the concept does not rely on proof of discrimination in a particular situation. The absence of proof is proof.
And the concept, as most twisted concepts, starts from a kernel of truth. There is racism in society, as much as we may try to stamp it out. It's where one takes that kernel of truth, in a series of "therefores," which ends up with the caricature that is the White Privilege.
"white privilege" really is just another useful tool for those who want to play the race card for political gain.
The "white privilege" guilt-trip is all part of a well-orchestrated plan, if you believe Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn in "Prairie Fire," their "mission statement" of the Weather Underground. White privilege was foundational to all their "logic" and arguments for overthrowing America.
http://legalinsurrection.blogspot.com/2 ... white.html
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
who holds the majority of power?
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
edit: oh 1988. that explains it. OLD NEWS IS OLD
Yeah, because god knows, foreigners and other minorities are sooooo privileged here.
It seems that the person that wrote scb's post has an agenda or else they would have covered the others that are priviledge......I myself think that we are all human and most of us have a respect for all humans.....I don't think it's good to put people in there little groups......isn't that how we end up with Racisms in the first place?
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
A person half of my race then?
Yeah. I kind of try to avoid ranking which identities people are more oppressed because of (race, class, gender, etc.) since they're so intertwined. But if I had to do it, I think I'd have to say people are probably more oppressed based on class than anything - at least in these times in this nation.
It sounds like she had White Guilt. I think she would have benefited from moving out of the 'burbs and into the 'urbs. For example, the part of the city that I live in is majority Hispanic, about 18% Asian, about 9% black, and about 9% white. I really don't have to worry about being in a swarm of white people!
Hmm, who looks like me? I go to 3 local post offices with my eBay sales, and not one of the Post Office employees at any of the locations is white. The recycling centre where I sell my garbology treasures has four regular workers. None of them are white. The part-time helper who shows up occasionally IS white. There are some white tenants in my building. Not the woman next door. Not the woman across the hall. Not the man in the other of the four flats in my section.
This is in refreshing contrast to Chepachet, Rhode Island! When I was a child, everyone was white. Everyone was religious, working class or middle class, and was very ignorant of the wider world. (They didn't pronounce the letter R if it was on the end of a word because they simply did not know better.) Luckily the monotony made me a xenophile instead of a xenophobe. When other women drool over pigmentless men with yellow hair and blue eyes, I roll my eyes. Booooring.....
I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that you don't actually know all the places the author has lived and whether these places were urban or suburban, am I right? Regardless, I think you may be missing the point. She is talking about our society on a national level, not on a neighborhood level. And the white privilege that is systemic in our national society benefits those of us who are white whether we live in minority majority neighborhoods or not.
For example, I have lived most of my life in places where white people are the minority and I know I have still benefited from being white. Even when I lived on an Indian Reservation, where probably less than 1% of the population is white and there were only about 20 white families in all of the surrounding towns, I experienced white privilege. Were my neighbors white? No. Were the Post Office employees white? No. But if I were at school and asked to speak to the person in charge, he was white. If I visited a friend in the hospital and asked to speak to his doctor, he was white. If my boyfriend was murdered and I asked to speak to the head of the investigation, he was white. Also, the majority of the music we listened to was by white people. The language we spoke was the language of white people. The food we ate was primarily the food of white people. Even the history we learned was mostly the history of white people. I wasn't in the company of people of my race most of the time, but that's not what the article said. It said I could probably arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time, which was true. And then, of course, as soon as we stepped off the reservation - which is impossible to avoid - many/most of the other examples in the article took effect. For instance, if we wanted to go to the mall, my friends were followed in the stores as if they were going to steal something and I wasn't. I could go on and on, but I won't.
I will comment about one last thing though: I don't think denigrating the appearance of any race is appropriate, even if that race is the one in power.
Calling white skin boring is denigrating? It just got so old for me living in a white world. The town was white, the school was white, the stores were white, the churches were white. Half my relatives are Scandinavian. When they made children, every single one of them chose a white partner and had a white baby. I DO find the lack of variety boring.
Your boyfriend was murdered?!?!?