A Guide to White Privilege for White People Who Think They’ve Never Had Any
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/01/26/guide-white-privilege-white-people-theyve.html
I can relate to you. You are usually the white person who grew up poor, often living a marginalized existence, who overcame economic barriers to achieve a modicum of success as an adult. Sometimes, you knew a lot of other Black or Latino poor people and you compare yourself and your outcomes to theirs. Other times, you don’t really know anyone of a different race personally, but you have notions about how people should face adversity and overcome it, because you did. You apply these beliefs to people in what you consider to be a “colorblind” way. No matter what, you want to believe your race never got you anywhere. It was irrelevant to where you are today.
I’ve met you hundreds of times in classes I have taught on “Human Diversity,” which in my field is really just a label to mean teaching people about the dynamics of oppression and privilege in the United States. When we start the unit on race and begin talking about white privilege, you get angry and sullen. You grudgingly admit there is racism in the world, but in the next sentence you say, “But I never had any white privilege. No one ever gave me anything. I worked for everything I ever got.” Even though I knew better, I once had the same kinds of fleeting thoughts. I was wrong and so are you....
Yet, even believing all of this, when I entered my first multicultural education class as a college student, I balked when I was told I had white privilege. I could accept that people of color faced oppression and racism. I could accept that white people perpetrated abuses and even that their institutions were biased against anyone who wasn’t white. But, I was stalled at accepting the notion that I had white privilege. How could I, a woman who had asked other school children for the leftovers on their lunch plates when I was in elementary school be privileged? How could I, someone who had a job by age 8, a job that caused multiple bouts of frostbite and a bad back, be advantaged in any way? What about the years spent with a suicidal, mentally ill mother who left me in the position of raising four younger brothers and sister when I was ten years old? That was misery, not privilege. Right?...
I was hired for numerous jobs growing up that I have little confidence my Black friends would have gotten. These jobs seemed burdensome at the time, but they helped me and my family at very precarious moments. Then, my junior year of high school, I was about to be expelled for too many absences to my first class of the day. I worked too much, too late, too often, and overslept for that class way too many times. I believe that being white helped me weasel my way out of being expelled. My Black friends in similar situations were expelled.
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