The first time I heard the term white privilege, I did what many white people do. I leapt immediately to defending myself from whatever accusations those words generated in my mind, choosing to passionately present the case for my innocence rather than simply listening.
In the years since then I’ve learned a bit, thanks to some good and really patient people who cared enough to endure my ignorance and give me time to step outside of my experience enough to see more clearly. It’s a daily endeavor and I have a long way to go, but for those reading this who happen to be white—here are a few truths I wished I’d understood better back then.
In fact, the essence of privilege is that its effects are so subtle and so built into your daily experience from birth, that they are hardly noticeable.
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Privilege simply is. You are privileged whether you believe it or not. The way the world sees you has made a difference since the day you showed up on the planet. Your pigmentation has come with certain advantages and exempted you from specific obstacles and there’s simply no way around it. If you are a white person living in America or many other parts of the world, you have had the luxury of feeling as though your skin tone is somehow the default, the baseline; that you are the standard against which others are measured and referenced. This matters because it has altered your daily experience of the world and your very sense of identity. You’re not privileged if you’re white and mean or white and racist or white and a jerk. You’re privileged solely because you are white.
You don’t have to feel your privilege for it to be real. In fact, the essence of privilege is that its effects are so subtle and so built into your daily experience from birth, that they are hardly noticeable. They are givens that are givens to you precisely because you look the way you look—but these realities are not at all universal and that’s the rub here. Like breathing, privilege is simply a reality of life that you are largely unaware of. Over time, you may learn to see it on display in certain moments and precise ways, but the greater truth is that privilege is at still at work even when you cease to be aware of it.
You can have it tough and still be privileged.
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Privilege isn’t personal. This isn’t about whether you “like” people of color, whether you have black friends or not, whether you listen to hip hop or not. It’s not about whether or not you vote Blue, or whether you do or don’t or say whatever you believe “racist” things to be. In many ways, this isn’t about you. The heart of privilege is that it is a systemic reality; you are part of a larger truth that is far greater than your individual experience or personal actions—as important as those things are. Recognizing privilege isn’t just about policing your behavior or monitoring your thoughts, it’s about purposefully pushing back against systems that nurture injustice and inequality in our culture, in the workforce, in our government.
You can have it tough and still be privileged. Like many white people, the suggestion of my privilege initially felt like a statement that my life was free from discouragement, pain, or hard work. I rushed to present my life resume and to detail the hardships I’d experienced as a way of refuting the charges I imagined levied against me—but this was and isn’t helpful. Of course you can be white and work hard and face disappointment and prejudices of some kind. You can be white and poor, white and unemployed, white and struggling. But the truth of privilege, is that even on our worst day, our color is a help that will always shield us from the greatest adversity, the kind that people of color encounter with great regularity.
Shame is the wrong response. Many white people, once faced with the understanding of the advantages they’ve been afforded because of the color of their skin, choose to withdraw into a place of guilt and shame. They make the moment of clarity about feeling bad about themselves. This is a selfish response that is itself a form of privilege, because it centers your experience and it changes nothing about the reality of the systems that are preferential to your pigmentation. I began to understand my privilege once I realized that it didn’t require an apology, just a response that intentionally leveraged that privilege for justice. White people, we don’t have to be sorry for being white, we just have to be aware that being white has been a help and it gives is a platform and influence which we get to use to do something beautiful. The redemptive response to the truth of our privilege isn’t shame—it’s movement.
This is certainly not an expansive or deep understanding of white privilege. For that you might look here or here or here or here or here.) Better yet, you might sit down with a person of color and ask them what white privilege means to them, and instead of defending your position or refuting their feedback—simply listen.
Originally Published on JohnPavlovitz.com
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White privilege is a myth, a fantasy cooked up by left socialist hipster social justice warriors on some kind of personal mission. I have a lot of black friends and I’ve never heard any of them speak of white privilege, even when I raised the topic. I challenge all these self loathing whites to go into a black community and make a difference instead of pontificating about white privileges.
Are the people who commented below saying this article is crap….white? If so then John…your article proved its point because the very same white people who’s perception you’re trying to change….don’t want to hear. Which then in fact proves your article that (some/most) white people STILL don’t think white priveledge is a real thing. I’m black South African female so I thank you for trying to start the change within yourself and those who are willing.
Concomitant to that though is the idea -by virtue of collective identity or authority- that only a person of colour could legitimately challenge the notion ‘white privilege’ (either on an absolute or a relative or situational scale). It’s the notion that by virtue of collective associations one whole grouping can never be impartial, and that another whole grouping is always impartial: So, by that default, the only objective or legitimate arbiter of what is or is not existent ‘white privilege’ can be a person of colour: By that logic, a person who is not a person of colour can only… Read more »
By the way, white privilege is a fabrication of liberals. privilege is a social construct put forth by liberals and to make the average white person have something to feel guilty about or shamed. Quit trying to tell white people that they are privileged and have some special privileges that aren’t available to anyone who isn’t white. What a crock of shit, white privilege is bullshit that doesn’t exist for most white people. There’s a select few that are privileged but that’s due to other factors besides them being white. We ended white privilege with the civil rights movements. You… Read more »
Let me be real practical here for a minute. If the dems want to lose the election in 2020, they should make this “white privilege” idea a big part of the conversation. Oh, and they should follow Ta-Nahisi Coates, and talk about reparations for black people, too. And (for the perfect trifecta), they should make feminism a big part of the campaign platform, and wear pussy hats at all their rallies. Right now, if you want to become president, it’s apparently better to be black than Jewish, or black than gay…although I am sure Bernie would have beaten Trump in… Read more »
Excellent article.
Elwood Watson, Ph.D.
Contributor
Good Men Project
John, Good article. I learned a lot more about White privilege when my wife and I adopted a little girl, who is African American. She’s now 45 and has four children. There is a world of privilege and also disadvantage that we don’t easily feel when we’re White. But its worth understanding and being aware of the reality. It’s also very freeing. Not only is privilege often invisible and unconscious, but so too is our shame and guilt for being White. Understanding and accepting White privilege frees us all.
Congratulations on your adoption.
My adoptive kids moved back to their country of origin (Italy and Germany). Whereas my brothers Russian kids stayed here. My niece is in the Air Force.
What a garbage post from a group that I had previously enjoyed reading. The only privilage that I get is from my creator. Who is no respector of men, and gives favor to any he chooses.
White privilege does not exist, it is manufactured by the left so minorities have someone to blame when they fail. Everyone, reguardless of color, religion, handicap status, Exedra has the same opportunity to get an education or skill set, live free, and have a good life and be able to provide for their families if they make the right Life Choices.
Yes it does!
And I have countless non-white friends and acquaintances that prove your point. BTW, my son is not “white” and has been and is VERY successful. Truth be told, financially he could have done better if he’d claimed his minority status but refused to use it as a tool..
According to the 2010 U.S. Census (the last census year), the five poorest counties in the country are all at least 95 percent white. The nation’s poorest county — Owsley, Kentucky — is more than 98 percent white.
Fact – There are 0 majority black/brown first world nation’s.
But what is the crucial meaning, context, trajectory, or relationship you would infer or imply with your fact? Is one a consequence of the other? And if so, how so? What do you think it says about the relationship of national economic prosperity and demographics? One could point out that that India is the world’s most populous democracy, with a population of 1.3 billion people, a nuclear arsenal, the world’s 7th largest economy at present, and one of the world’s fastest growing economies (with the potential to reach the third or second largest by mid-century), but lacking the context, I’m… Read more »
And so? That fact is pretty empty without context.
Talking more generally here about the overall use of ‘privilege’ itself as a rhetorical tool, or as a concept in rhetorical discussions: Typically, I would steer clear of discussions of ‘privilege’, as it often involves well-meaning people of good intent trying to invoke a very elaborate series of double-standards (ostensibly to fight another pre-existing set of detrimental double standards), all in the name of insisting that double standards are bad, and that somehow they themselves are not really also employing them in their process of assailing the relative imbalances of power they wish to selectively redress. In so many words,… Read more »
What kind of bullshit is this? You don’t have to feel your privilege for it to exist, you can have it rough and still be privileged? Sounds to me like the privilege is a social construct put forth by liberals and SJW’s to make the average white person have something to feel guilty about or shamed. Quit trying to tell white people that they are privileged and have some special privileges that aren’t available to anyone who isn’t white. What a crock of shit, white privilege is bullshit that doesn’t exist for most white people. There’s a select few that… Read more »
https://youtu.be/AoHAG9UFaKI
Spot on. It always strikes me as interesting that the vast majority of those bitching about white privileges are white themselves.
What a joke…White Privilege is a myth. More whites are below poverty level in USA, more whites are murdered by police while proportionally committing MUCH MUCH less crime than other races(except Asians), I could go on and on and on…White Privilege is a bunch of bullsh1t, everybody wants to be a victim and blame everybody else for their own crappy life. This is America, get an education, work hard, save and spend your money wisely, don’t commit crimes, and you’ll have a pretty damn good life.
Privilege theory has some merit, but the vast majority of the time it is used it’s utter BS. Take for example the white privilege of not being seen as a criminal. Point out that men are more likely to be viewed as potential threats / criminal than woman and does that mean that there is female privilege? “Progressives” will tell you the exact opposite. Men are more privileged because they’re viewed as a threat it keeps women subjugated. When people start taking out of both sides of their mouths, you know something is wrong.
Exactly. The concept of privilege is useful but the problem is it is often misused.
I mean sure you can hammer a screw in with a hammer but its not exactly the right tool for the job.
You don’t have to feel your privilege for it to be real. It’s a bit like faith in our lord Jesus Christ in that sense. Or perhaps Original Sin is a better comparison. Privilege isn’t personal. Yes, why on earth would people take a claim that they’re personally benefitting from the oppression of an entire race…. personally? That’s like telling people they have something in their teeth. They make the moment of clarity about feeling bad about themselves. This is a selfish response that is itself a form of privilege, because it centers your experience and it changes nothing about… Read more »
I totally agree that what the internet calls “white privilege” is a real thing…but the word itself does a terrible, terrible job at saying what it means. A privilege is something that the majority does not have and that is usually an unimportant, but pretty cool extra like getting a free cookie if you order your sandwich before noon. What white people have that minorities don’t, like the ability to talk to law enforcement without fearing for one’s life are certainly not trivial little extras, they are part of the basic rights and freedoms that are supposedly at the core… Read more »
Cynthia, I would agree with the way you articulated it there- the word privilege itself is problematic (and often detrimental) to the way it’s being used or intended. Moreover, it seems like more and more people are appropriating or co-opting the word (or a vague concept of it); and not always prudently or judiciously.
Further to your point Cynthia- It got me thinking that there seems to be something innately counterintuitive about constantly using the term ‘privilege’ where the primary concern there always seems to be (or is framed as being) the relative redress of some form of disadvantage. As mentioned, the fact that a person or group is being actively objectively, verifiably, penalized does not imply that -by default- the only other corresponding state must be abject, diametric privilege or symmetrically disproportionate advantage. Not to get too deep into semantics, but it is the ‘penalization’ which is the source of detriment, and the… Read more »
Agree Cynthia – when privilege discussions occur in the socialist context, it’s less to do with adding privilege, rather, it’s about the battling of ideologies where privilege is used to discount positions and gain a moral advantage. The privilege theory is self-serving at heart. You never hear of the privilege of not being viewed as a threat in relation to the man / woman threat dynamic. Usually, when brought up in a discussion, the retort is some mention of intersectionality and how that disqualifies that privilege in the grand sum. In the end, privilege redistribution, if that is indeed the… Read more »
If I may suggest as well – An article here on the GMP in the same subject vein; lengthy, but definitely worth the time & consideration:
https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/the-problem-i-have-with-the-concept-of-white-privilege-wcz/
In short, “check your privilege” says “Your problems can’t be real because nobody has written PhD paper on it yet” and “I can’t have compassion for you because I already have compassion for someone else”. Like there is only one way to suffer…
In truth, not only there are many, many ways to suffer and in the case of genders, they often have the same root cause. The boy who is labelled a future criminal at age six and the girl who is labelled a slut at age six both suffer and neither have to.