Minoritized people and our allies are coming together in greater numbers than ever before. We are pushing the boundaries unwilling any longer to accept the repressive status quo.
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“Educators in social justice schools and universities talk to students about race regularly, even incorporating it into their daily curriculum, regardless of course subject. Now, thanks to radical teacher training programs and Common Core recommended texts and other aligned resources, the white privilege guilt-trip is rapidly spreading.” —Danette Clark, EAGnews.org, 3/30/14
Dr. Eddie Moore, Jr. founded the White Privilege Conference (WPC) in 1999 to examine “challenging concepts of privilege and oppression and offer solutions … to work toward a more equitable world.” Now more than 2500 students, educators, and other civil and human rights activists attend the conference annually.
As stated by an educator commenting on WPC 7:
The most powerful message that continues to reverberate through my head and heart is that of looking at the future and eliminating systems of oppression through the lens of possibility and hope.
I regularly participate and present workshops at the White Privilege Conference as it has traveled to various sites around the country. The theme of this year’s conference was “Building Relationships! Strengthening Communities! Seeking Justice!” According to the conference website:
WPC is a conference designed to examine issues of privilege beyond skin color. WPC is open to everyone and invites diverse perspectives to provide a comprehensive look at issues of privilege including: race, gender, sexuality, class, disability, etc.—the ways we all experience some form of privilege, and how we’re all affected by that privilege.
Resistance to WPC specifically and issues around social justice more generally comes in many forms along a spectrum from disbelief, denial, stretching the truth, fabrication, and downright lies and slander, to harassment, physical attack, and even more violent backlash.
Among the printed attacks on this year’s conference, in addition to the quote above, is a blog by the Council of Conservative Citizens, 3/30/14, which states in part:
Each year radical leftists hold a ‘White Privilege’ conference to demonize white people. The event openly promotes hatred against white people, especially white males.
Alongside the article, they include a cartoon depicting a blond man tied and hammered to a cross, a sign hanging around his neck announcing “WHITE HETEROSEXUAL CHRISTIAN MALE,” as three apparent men of color dressed in ancient Roman garb gaze from below, one is Barack Obama lifting high a golden grail demanding “FINISH HIM OFF ERIC” to a menacing Eric Holder dressed in military uniform pointing a long sharp spear inches from the crucified man’s groin.
The resistance we have seen and are continually experiencing to the White Privilege Conference, while venomous and blaming in tone, is nonetheless predictable in that these tactics have been employed time after time against individuals, groups, and communities that have challenged oppression and dominant hegemonic discourses.
Dominant groups try to intimidate minoritized communities and incite fear within the larger population in its attempts to silence opposition and to prevent minoritized groups from engaging in the decision-making process that affects the course of their lives, and even to name and define the terms of their existence.
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Dominant Group Privilege
Among the definitions of “privilege” is “a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.”
Peggy McIntosh’s (1988) has become universally acknowledged as the preeminent scholar and social activist investigating dominant group privilege, in particular white and male, which she asserts constitutes a seemingly invisible, unearned, and largely unacknowledged array of benefits accorded to white people and to males, with which they often unconsciously walk through life as if effortlessly carrying a knapsack tossed over their shoulders. This systemof benefits confers dominance on white people and males while subordinating people of color and females.
These systemic inequities are pervasive throughout the society. They are encoded into the individual’s consciousness and woven into the fabric of our social institutions, resulting in a stratified social order privileging dominant groups while restricting and disempowering marginalized groups. In keeping with McIntosh’s inventory outlining the manifestations of white and male privilege, authors have developed parallel lists summarizing overarching examples and forms of dominant privilege including Christian, heterosexual, age-related, economic, physical and mental ability, and others.
With its relative invisibility, privilege has been rarely analyzed nor scrutinized, neither interrogated nor confronted. Dominance is perceived as unremarkable or “normal,” and when anyone poses a challenge, those in the dominant positions brand them as “subversive,” “extremist,” “hateful,” “reverse oppressors.”
The concept of “hegemony” describes the ways in which the dominant group, successfully disseminate dominant social realities and social visions in a manner accepted as common sense, as “normal,” as universal. Hegemony is advanced through “discourses,” which include the ideas, written expressions, theoretical foundations, and language of the dominant culture. These are implanted within networks of social and political control, described by Foucault as “regimes of truth,” which function to legitimize what can be said, who has the authority to speak and be heard, and what is authorized as true or as the truth.
The concept of oppression, then, constitutes more than the cruel and repressive actions of individuals upon others. It involves an overarching system of differentials of social power and privilege by dominant groups over minoritized groups based on ascribed social identities and reinforced by unequal social group status. And this is not merely the case in societies ruled by coercive or tyrannical leaders but, according to Iris Marion Young, occurs within the day-to-day practices of contemporary democratic societies like the United States. “Unpacking” the knapsack of privilege (whether it be white, male, Christian, heterosexual, owning class, temporarily able bodied, English as first-language speakers, and others) is to become aware and to develop critical consciousness of its existence and how it impacts the daily lives of both those with and those without this privilege.
Forms of Resistance
When raising and discussing issues of oppression and privilege, I like to refer to Dr. Sherry Watt’s “Privilege Inventory Exploration” (PIE) model to name the types of resistance that may emerge:
1. Denial – Rejection of the concept of dominant group privilege, for example “It’s not white privilege. I worked hard for what I have gained.”
2. Deflection – The notion that majority rules and that the minority cannot expect the majority to adhere to minority standards. “They can’t expect the dominant culture to change for them. If someone is going to live in America, then they need to understand that we were founded by white Europeans, that our founding fathers were white, and the majority rules.”
3. Rationalization – The notion that the individual did not set the conditions for the inequities that may exist in the society currently or historically. “My relatives arrived in the United States after slavery, and I had nothing to go with it.”
4. Intellectualization – The assertion that the individual is not prejudiced and does not discriminate. “I am opposed to hate groups. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of my heroes. Beside, my best friend is an Asian American.”
5. Principium – A defensive reaction arising from a personal or political belief. Though the person may feel badly that a certain social identity group may not have achieved full equality and equity within in society, this is the way it was meant to be. “As I see it, white people’s culture has created some of the greatest civilizations in the world, and other cultures can learn a lot from these white cultures.”
6. False Envy – Sometimes manifesting an affection for a minoritized person or group, it is an effort to deny the complexity of the social and political context. At times, it manifests itself in dominant groups claiming victimhood at the hands of minoritized groups. “Actually, white people are the victims. We should be talking about reverse racism.”
7. Minimalization – Reducing the effect that social identity has upon one’s life chances, and that issues of oppression based on social identity are no longer a problem. “People of color all have the same chances to succeed as white people do. It’s not about race. It’s about motivation. Besides, racism used to be a problem, but it’s no longer a problem today.”
8. Benevolence – Projecting an excessively sensitive attitude toward a social and political issue or group based on a position of charity. “I treat everyone with respect. I don’t see race. I am color blind.”
Look, for example, at the clear similarities between consistent charges lodged against WPC with the tenets of the 2010 law passed in Arizona, HB 2281, abolishing Mexican American studies programs in Tucson Public School and the banning of foundational books like Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. The following is from the actual language of the law:
The legislation prohibits a school district or charter school from including in its program of instruction any courses or classes that:
–Promote the overthrow of the United States government.
–Promote resentment toward a race or class of people.
-Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.
–Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.
While the legislature and governor of Arizona may have eliminated the program (which, by the way, had successfully increased graduation rates to an amazing 92% of students enrolled in the courses), this short-term “victory” on their part has only increased opposition to these racist policies and has served to unify the opposition.
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[Not A] Conclusion
I have often attended WPC to learn as much as I can, and to recharge my batteries to reenergize for the work, the often difficult work, of joining with others to help bring about a more equitable and just society, one that truly fulfills the ideal of justice and equality on which our nation was built but has not yet achieved.
Being anti-racist is NOT being anti-white. Working against white supremacy is NOT working against white people. Rather, it is attempting to share privilege with all people of every socially constructed identity. As a white person, I am not working to ensure that white people suffer from racial profiling, or receive tougher penalties in the judicial system, or are punished more harshly in the schools, or suffer the consequences of higher unemployment or lower educational outcomes, or are “red lined” into certain neighborhoods on account of their “race” as people of color currently experience. Instead, we are working to end these discriminatory practices for everyone by looking at and challenging the systematic social inequities.
The great news is that no amount of intimidation will ever lock us away again. Minoritized people and our allies are coming together in greater numbers than ever before. We are pushing the boundaries unwilling any longer to accept the repressive status quo. In coalition with other disenfranchised groups and allies, we are refusing to buckle under and to assimilate into a corrupt and corrupting system that forces people to relinquish their integrity and their humanity. And most exciting of all is the fact that people of the younger generations are leading the way.
In the final analysis, I do believe that love will conquer the hatred, the lies, the stereotypes, the violence, and ultimately the resistance.
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Photo: AP/Jim R. Bounds
Any ideology that uses “resistance” or “benevolence” as bad words is inherently regressive. And inherently repressive. George Orwell really did see all this coming.
@wellokthen:
The difference is pretty clear.
If your impression disagrees with the dogma, then your impression is just your impression. In that case, ignore your first impression, because it’s prejudiced.
If your impression agrees with the dogma, then you “get it” and you’re totally achieving consciousness of The Truth. In that case, don’t ignore your impression, because it’s just straight-up individual awareness of reality.
So, just get with the program, and the program can tell you what to do with your impression….
Diz Who says this is about making white people feel guilty?This is about,for me anyway,making white people take some responsibilty and ownership for fixing things.Which is a mantra whites have aimed at black people with regularity.On the flip side the MRM expects their complaints and considerations will be taken seriously and be dealt with.But the MRM famously ignores concerns men of color have.Telling them, we’ve got you covered,there is no need to deal with race.This is the same tired bs too many feminists tell MRM.In this way,the MRM is just as blind and stunted as feminism.
If black people want to talk about the black experience, I’m all ears. I’ve always taken an interest in that. What I’m absolutely tired of is upper class white people lecturing me about privileges they’ve always had, that I’ve never gotten to have. It’s insulting.
Man, I don’t think I’ll ever understand this white guilt thing.
The standard of fairness and equality is much higher for the victim than it is for the dominant oppressor class.Always has been.The dominant group defines the terms of the discussion.In my mind,it is yet another layer of bs-I did not say denial- designed to bottleneck the discussion.It says,”See,you people aren’t fair either.We do not have to listen to you!”This is another layer of privilege that tells oppressed people tha they must jump through another hoop..On the one hand,we should care when a blackman is harmed because he is black AND because he is a man.But if a blackman says he… Read more »
It is utterly important to understand the complex ways in which we silence non-predominant voices. We do so at great loss of the wisdom that emerges from a multi-voiced perspective.
…or how about,all men are created equal… except for those over there.Every person who signed the constitution believed in white supremacy.I can deal with that just fine.Its the lies,deceptions and ignorance about it that get under my skin.Shit,you’d think the gruesome deaths of 600,000 mostly white people,tens of thousands more amputees, and, perhaps millions of humans held in bondage who were murdered,tortured,raped and pillaged, would be enough to inspire change.Go figure.Although civil rights-NOT THE CONSTITUTION- provides the legal backbone protecting critical civil liberties of about 60,000,000 disabled white people through the ADA,tens of millions of white female athletes through Title… Read more »
You’re saying that this law was a “racist policy”: “The legislation prohibits a school district or charter school from including in its program of instruction any courses or classes that: …. Promote resentment toward a race or class of people. Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.” Hang on. A law banning ethnic discrimination is a racist law? That will require some explanation, because on its surface that sounds like cognitive dissonance or Orwellian doublespeak. It sounds like you’re against a law that bans discrimination in… Read more »
That’s a curious example on the author’s part. A startling admission, really. The only way that law could have eliminated the Mexican Studies program is if the program actually DID one or more of those things – advocated overthrowing the government, promoted ethnic hatred, taught solidarity at the expense of individual identity, etc. If the only way that a Mexican Studies program could exist is by doing one or more of those things, then that shows a real lack of imagination or lack of diversity on the part of the people running the program. It’s hard to believe that the… Read more »
If you want to see the truth about the very successful Mexican American Studies program, get a copy of the documentary film, “Precious Knowledge.” The law that banned the program was one based on misinformation, misunderstanding, and insensitivity, one that made no pedagogic sense or reason. It was purely political.
The language of the law is explicitly NOT racist yet it is cited as explicitly racist… How enormous of a disconnect can you find?
“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
The action to ban the program was racist. The effort to ban the program was founded upon racism.
That may be very true. It still does not answer the question about how a law banning discrimination could stop a program, unless the program used discrimination. Either the law shut it down or it didn’t. Now, if the argument is that the most important thing is how well the program worked, that’s a different kind of argument. If the argument is that discrimination is okay as long as it works to improve a situation, then that should be stated overtly. Then we can have some sincere open discussion about the relationship among discrimination, academic success, and public funding. If… Read more »
“Racism” as a word has become incredibly watered down when a law that forbids discrimination is racist. This isn’t about principles anymore, it’s about outcomes and it doesn’t matter what happens just so long the end product looks like what the “true believers” want it to be.
wellokaythen: Your “impression” is not reality. Have you ever attended WPC? Have you done extensive research and reading on the issues? “Impression” and “opinion” is not necessarily truth. Do your homework.
[No place to respond below, so I’ll do it here:] “wellokaythen: Your “impression” is not reality. Have you ever attended WPC? Have you done extensive research and reading on the issues? “Impression” and “opinion” is not necessarily truth. Do your homework.” Yes in answer to both questions. As I mentioned just a few inches above, I have attended WPC and worked with people who have presented at similar gatherings. I’ve read extensively on the history of racism, and have worked for several organizations involved with issues of diversity and inclusion. I’ve done a bit of homework. And, I probably agree… Read more »
I attended a White Privilege Conference (WPC 14, Seattle) as a participant in a workshop on environmentalism. I can report based on that admittedly limited experience that this article is, unfortunately, a very good representative of WPC rhetoric and ideology. (I don’t necessarily mean “ideology” in a negative sense, because I think everyone has at least one ideology whether they admit it or not. I know _I_ have ideologies.) There is a lot of merit to using the white privilege model, and privilege of all sorts does exist. However, this kind of rhetoric and this kind of political approach totally… Read more »
I agree with you Wes but we also have been complicit in our ongoing confusion. Taking the red pill won’t matter if we don’t unravel why we took the blue pill in the first place.We cannot afford to ignore our duplicity in crafting the situation we find ourselves.
If you have been lied to your entire life, told that things were a certain way, how are you supposed
to know the difference? We get told a lot of things as kids then when we get older learn that not
all of them were true. The politicians and CEOs who took advantage of the lies are the ones guilty
of duplicity.
I hope you can understand that even as your group is doing solid work,for many who come from systematically oppressed groups,this is fairly remedial stuff.While my white friends were reading Old Yeller,my black friends were reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X and of the kidnapping and murder of Emitt Till and the ordeal of Jackie Robinson and of the KKK. I think the issues have been unnecessarily complicated and sanitized by all of the academic studies.At the end of the day,it is about treating other human beings with respect and dignity.It is about first setting the standard of behavior one… Read more »
We were lied to but so were our parents and grandparents. The same lies got passed down generation after generation till they became the truth. War is fun. Skin color is important. A man’s worth is by the
size of his bank account. We have literally been living in the Matrix. It’s way past time to take the red pill and wake up.
I know I sure am excited about the following sessions: * White on White: Communicating about Race and White Privilege Using Critical Humility *Our Bodies Know the Way: Using Cellular Wisdom to Dismatle Whitemess and Live in Deep Community *What’s a White Parent To Do: Talking White Privilege with our Kids, Understanding the Impact of Racism in Schools, and Advocating for Racial Justice *White Women: Internalized Sexism and White Superiority *Deepening our Relationships and Transforming Communities – Vulnerability and Shame as an Asset to Seeking Justice *Where are all the White People? Strategies for engaging white people in racial justice… Read more »
I am bemused at the resistance to owning ones privilege.It would appear to be obvious that a hierarchy of privilege has existed and was legalized by the signing of the constitution and other similar documents at the state and local levels.Beyond that privileges manifest in subtle and nuanced fashion, even among like group members.Therefore,Mr Carr is partially correct in his analysis.In general,at the top end of the hierarchy,everyone has the same power.However,it is more correct to say that they have more power than those with lower rank.For instance,Hillary Clinton has more privilege than the average man does.The average white guy… Read more »
There is an article by Paul Elam called “The Plague Of Modern Masculinity” that lays out the
Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamic as it relates to privilege. As for Hillary Clinton, she is just as much
a sociopath as her husband is. Same for Janet Reno, Dianne Feinstein and Janet Neopolitano.
Absolutely disagree with this. If anything, it is the concept of privilege that oversimplifies, minimising racial and sexual prejudice from groups that it has binned under “oppressed”.
It results from an oversimplistic oppressor/oppressed paradigm.
Politicians, regardless of race or gender are the ones with real privilege. So are CEOs and lawyers. So it is in their own best interests to keep fanning resentments and grudges between people so they can come in and appear to save the day. Does anyone actually believe they care about inequality except where it serves their own interests?
Privilege and oppression need to be seen on multiple levels, and not only on the Personal/Interpersonal level, but also on the Institutional and Societal levels. While the Personal/Interpersonal level may be more apparent, Privilege and Oppression exist systemically.
Great piece Warren. I’ve attended WPC three times and had the opportunity to present as well. Those experiences were monumental in the decisions I would make over the next several years. I was wondering your thoughts on dominant cultures. Being a white, heterosexual, able bodied male raised by middle class educated parents in the US is part of my background in privilege. As I explored further I have found another aspect of privilege and I was wondering your thoughts on the subject. It seems to me that many people say “we” when speaking about humanity. It seems to me that… Read more »
Hi Mike. It’s great hearing from you. You pose a good question, but I would frame it somewhat differently. “Who defines what is ‘civilization’ and ‘civilized’?” When we look at so-called “knowledge,” we have to ask ourselves, whose knowledge are we talking about, and how is it constructed or produced? Dominant groups are the ones with the power to define what is “knowledge.” White Europeans defined indigenous peoples as “uncivilized.” You asked me the question: “Should we not be resisting civilization itself?” My response is that we need to deconstruct what we mean by “civilization,” and who gets to define… Read more »
Thanks for the response Warren. Defining terms and deciding what is in fact knowledge are huge factors in what The dominant culture calls “civilized” living. If we look at a process the question then becomes, “The fact that billions of people require their most basic human needs (food, water, shelter) to be imported, does this construct a hierarchy that we are merely trying to reform, tweak and manipulate instead of dismantle/resist?” It seems to me one can’t reform something that requires injustice to function/survive. The reliance of stored resources that need to be purchased is the dominant paradigm. Isn’t this… Read more »
In my experience with the WPC, there’s a much different use of the term “indigenous.” At the WPC, most commonly it was used in contrast to parts of “Western” culture that people didn’t like. So, really, just about any culture that was not white or Western European was branded “indigenous,” which was then also a synonym for environmentally conscious, holistic, sutainable, and generally wiser about the universe. So, pollute as much as they do, drive as many cars as they want to, people in China are considered “indigenous.” Because “Eastern ways of knowing” are so much better, you know?