Confronting white privilege

Imagine that you grew up in a very poor, white family. Your family struggled with poverty, domestic violence, moving from place to place, and navigating the welfare system. Your ancestors were day laborers in the southern slave economy and eventually, coal miners, machinists, and mill workers. You're referred to as hillbillies, rednecks, or white trash by the dominant culture. To be clear, that’s not the same as a history characterized by being forced to the U.S. as slaves, but it’s a perspective worth considering. Even most middle-class, white people don’t easily embrace the idea that they’re privileged. It’s not like someone knocked on their door and handed them their college degree, job, or home. 

White privilege is real. It’s impossible to deny that being born with white skin affords certain unearned privileges. White privilege is knowing you can walk into a restaurant, use the bathroom, and leave without buying anything, and it’s unlikely that anyone will say anything to you about it. It’s knowing you can go to the front door of your house and not have someone ask if the homeowner is around. The writer not only experiences the benefits of white privilege in the U.S., but The writer also encounters it almost everywhere in the world. It’s not that you’re privileged if you’re white. It’s that being white is a privilege. A white kid growing up in a poor trailer park living next door to a black kid growing up in the same environment has fewer barriers to worry about than the black kid does.

Research Paper Abstract

For thousands of years, black people have been overpowered, racially discriminated against, harassed, and had little to no equal/civil rights. Millions of white people around the world are unable to see that all white people automatically have privilege simply from being white. White privilege is unseen by the advantages it holds no matter what your situation is, whether that means you are incredibly poor or very rich.

For many, white privilege was an invisible thing that white people needed to recognize. It was being able to walk into a store and find that the main displays of shampoo and pantyhose were catered toward your hair type and skin tone. It was being able to turn on the television and see people of your race widely represented. It was being able to move through life without being racially profiled or unfairly stereotyped.

Racial understandings may change through time, they have always been connected with social, political, and economic troubles and consequences. As a black individual, there are always things you have to be aware of, such as where you're walking and who you look at. Having to act a certain way just to ensure they wouldn’t get beaten, targeted, or killed. Having to be worried about getting arrested for speaking against a white person who got involved. These constant worries and fears that these black individuals have to deal with daily are things no person should ever have. Most are raised to respect every human singularity but to never forget that black people have been enslaved in this country longer than they have been free. Always having to be smart and aware because this country is still isn’t kind to black people.

Although white privilege has improved, it is still at the forefront of our society. It doesn’t take away from the struggles that other racial groups have had to endure. In general, our society has done a disservice by not valuing all racial groups and by choosing to continue to put white privilege on a hierarchy. All individuals deserve to be treated equally in these modern times.

Research Paper

In 1619 slavery came to Northern America to satisfy the labor, at first, they would have poor European servants. They then chose a much cheaper option, enslaved Africans, which proceeded to spread quickly throughout the American colonies. For thousands of years, black people have been overpowered, racially discriminated against, harassed, and had little to no equal/civil rights. Millions of white people around the world are unable to see that all white people automatically have privilege simply from being white. White privilege is unseen by the advantages it holds no matter what your situation is, whether that means you are incredibly poor or very rich. Many white people deny white privilege because it improves their lives.  Most white people believe that everyone is equal in America but unfortunately, that’s not the case. White privilege is an invisible thing to most, that needs to be realized and understood. Individuals need to acknowledge and personally recognize the impact that white privilege has created in America to this day. 

White privilege comes with benefits and advantages. Defining white privilege must often begin with defining what it’s not. White privilege is not the suggestion that white people have never struggled. It is not the assumption that everything a white person has accomplished was not earned. Although, what most white people are unable to see is that throughout their whole life they’ll always have more advantages than black people or other ethnicities. White people have a much higher chance of succeeding in life because they are most likely to get hired over black people. If a white and a black person have the same GPA and submitted an application for a job, the white person has a higher chance of getting into college than the black person. 

White privilege is often described through the lens of Peggy McIntosh’s essay “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” Originally published in 1988, the essay helps readers understand white privilege by making its effects personal. For many, white privilege was an invisible thing that white people needed to recognize. It was being able to walk into a store and find that the main displays of shampoo and pantyhose were catered toward your hair type and skin tone. It was being able to turn on the television and see people of your race widely represented. It was being able to move through life without being racially profiled or unfairly stereotyped. All true. 

They enslaved African Americans for free labor “and the dispossession and genocide of Native Americans for land” (Casey, Lensmire, Lozenski, McManimon “Whiteness and White Privilege.” 2013,)

This idea of white privilege as unseen advantages takes hold. It became easy for people to interpret McIntosh’s version of white privilege. From such an early age white privilege is learned, but individuals have never deeply understood what the true meaning of white privilege represents. Black children don’t understand the color of their skin until they recognize that others are staring, receiving rude looks, people avoiding them, or kids not wanting to play with them because of what parents and adults have taught their white children. Sometimes, black children don’t know the difference between the color of their skin and a white person's skin until they attend school and experience socialization. 

The question is, why do so many white people deny white privilege? Many white people refuse the idea that white privilege improves their lives. That’s because they view the world in a specific way, through what sociologist Joe Feagin calls the “white racial frame.”  Think of a frame as the process by which people take in new information, sift through the data, sort the important from the unimportant and decide how to feel about it all. As individuals, we have the choice to make a change or stay in the stagnant ignorant position of racial inequality.  It will always be in our control to make that decision to learn and make the necessary changes because no one else can do that for us.  White privilege should be viewed as a built-in advantage, separate from one’s level of income or effort.

You can use your white privilege for good and bad things. For example, you can use your voice to positively speak out as a way to teach others and spread awareness for the racial global issues that we still struggle with today. Learning when to listen and use your voice to speak up is a positive quality and character trait that can make other races feel as if white people care. When people of color are speaking about their own experiences, it’s important for white people to not dominate the conversation or question their experiences negatively. Listening and learning about black people's experiences in their lives is a great way to not only help the black communities reach the audience but to also take the information and spread the message to educate others. 

The constant worry and fear of the state of the world make it difficult for black parents to have conversations with their children about how they should be treated.  Instead, white privileged individuals are often acting unequally and mistreating blacks.  An example of mistreating blacks is racial “Profiling.”   Blacks may get pulled over even if they had no reason to be, only because of the color of their skin. Parents have a worry about their child attending school because there is always a chance of being bullied, harassed, and not treated the same as the white children.  Black children may get accused of a crime more often than white children or individuals. White parents are only worried about their child getting straight A’s, going to college, and making a life for themselves, while black families have to worry about many more daily living issues.  It’s proven that in the United States 79% of teachers are white, 80% of principals are white, 86% of white individuals graduate as compared to only 69% of black individuals that graduate. Therefore there is a concern with racial equality in our world.  

For thousands of years, racial categories have changed and certain people have been given titles over time, but whites have stayed the same and been dominant. “ This racialized system may thus be referred to as white supremacy, a “historically based, institutionally perpetual system of exploitation and oppression of continents, nations, and peoples of color by white peoples and nations…for the purposes of maintaining and defending a system of wealth, power, and privilege.” (Casey, Zachary. “Whiteness and White Privilege.” 2013,)

Racial understandings may change through time, they have always been connected with social, political, and economic troubles and consequences. As a black individual, there are always things you have to be aware of, such as where you're walking and who you look at. Having to act a certain way just to ensure they wouldn’t get beaten, targeted, or killed. Having to be worried about getting arrested for speaking against a white person who got involved. These constant worries and fears that these black individuals have to deal with daily are things no person should ever have. Most are raised to respect every human singularity but to never forget that black people have been enslaved in this country longer than they have been free. Always having to be smart and aware because this country is still isn’t kind to black people. 

White privilege has been a part of our society since slavery. White individuals have had an advantage over other racial groups despite feeling that this is actually factual. Individuals have not seen the unequalness and negative impact that white privilege has caused in our world. Although white privilege has improved, it is still at the forefront of our society. It doesn’t take away from the struggles that other racial groups have had to endure. In general, our society has done a disservice by not valuing all racial groups and by choosing to continue to put white privilege on a hierarchy.  All individuals deserve to be treated equally in these modern times.

Annotated Bibliography/Works Cited

Kendi, Ibram X. “How to Be an Antiracist” 2019

This is an excellent book about a system of ideas and policies that fight racial inequality. Ibram X. Kendi is a fabulous author who talks about antiracism, that there is no such thing as being “not racist”. Kendi explains that people are capable of unlearning their racist ways and that being anti-racist takes three important components. 

 Casey, Lensmire, Lozenski, McManimon “Whiteness and White Privilege.” 2013

This is a great informational article explaining what white privilege really is. Many white people don’t understand what white privilege is and it’s important for all white people to learn what white privilege is. This article goes into depth about how race is not biological but is social, historical, cultural, and economic formation based on a created hierarchy. How the color of your skin can affect your experiences and opportunities. For many white people, whiteness and white privilege are unmarked or invisible. 

Rav Arora “ White Privilege?” 2020

In this article, the author talks about their own experiences with being discriminated against especially when it came to school. The author talks about how on bus the kids would always bully them and even harass them on the school bus. How no action was taken when these things would occur. Many white people don’t understand the impact of doing such things to an individual because of the color of their skin and their ethnicity. That the solution to this problem isn’t to reciprocate stereotypes about what people. The solution is to diminish the degrading reach of racial bigotry. This solution should not include the new-found notion of “white saviorism,” defined as white people having to atone for their whiteness in some way to help minorities, who are otherwise trapped in a system of white supremacy and institutionalized racism.

"'White privilege' and disparity in opportunity; Letters to the Editor." Times [London, England], 16 Oct. 2020, p. 24. Gale In Context: Global Issues

This article talks about how coming from a poor family is hard to get an education no matter what color your skin is. But, the advantages and disadvantages that come from the color of your skin vary dramatically. This article explains how if we white student and a black student submitted an application to the same school with the same GPA there is a much higher chance of the white student being accepted than the black student. Although, it doesn’t take away the fact that white individuals haven’t had disadvantages in life but that we’ve never been discriminated against by the color of our skin.

Crossly-Corcoran, Gina. “Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person .” Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person. 

This is a great article that explains the difference between white privilege and being a white broke person. Even if you may be broke your white privilege doesn’t disappear. It’s important to learn that being white is a privilege let alone. Being white grants you many advantages and experiences throughout life. Learning that white privilege has been taken to a whole new level of privilege and how it has completely changed our world and society today.