Is there a "White Privilege"? If so, what is it, and what are the public-policy implications?

Great Debates
1

The debate is, more or less, as stated in the OP.

1.) Is there a “white privilege”? That is, are there a set of benefits that accrue to white Americans by virtue of their race alone?

2.) If so, what is the nature of the white privilege? What benefits does it confer, and what impact does these benefits have upon those who hold them?

3.) If there is a white privilege, what public policies are best suited to its elimination?

I’ll kick things off by giving my own answers - but, before I do, a reminder: I know this is a charged topic, but this isn’t the Pit, folks. There will certainly be vociferous disagreement in this thread (assuming it doesn’t sink to the bottom of the page) - but let’s assume that everyone is posting in good faith. It’s usually true, and rarely useful to respond when it isn’t. :slight_smile:

That being said, I’ll get to it:

I think there is a very weak white privilege as such, but that white Americans are also far likelier to enjoy class privilege - and class privilege is very strong. I don’t derive any tremendous benefits from being white as such - we’ve got racism fairly well licked in this country. But it would be disingenuous to claim that racism has been entirely beaten, and I probably do enjoy some fairly modest benefit simply from being white. Perhaps it’s improved my odds slightly on a job interview. Maybe I found it easier to get directions from a passer-by late at night who would have kept on walking past a black man. It’s mild, but it’s there.

The real benefit (or “privilege”) conferred by being a white American, though, is that it makes it far likelier that one will have been born into the middle class. The historical reasons for this are ugly and well-understood - suffice to say that most non-whites didn’t enjoy the benefits of living in a real democracy until the 1960s or 70s. My family has been composed of middle-class, college-educated professionals for at least three generations. This made it far easier for me to become a college-educated (and law school educated) professional myself. My family had the resources to support me financially while I was in school, and encouraged me to go. It would have been far harder for a black family in the Jim Crow south to enter the middle class or establish a tradition of college education - and that would have made it harder for a kid from that family, even one born in the 80s, to eventually go to college himself.

The thing is, though, that the meat of my advantage of class-based, not race-based. If I’d been born in a white family barely subsisting at the poverty level, with nary a college degree to be found, it would have been extremely difficult for me to go to college myself. And, to be frank, I can’t see how the black kids I went to school with from middle-class, college-educated families had a set of advantages or disadvantages substantially different from what I enjoyed. Their parents could afford to send them to school, encouraged them to go, etc - just like mine.

It’s class that confers real privilege, or the lack of it - not race. A middle-class white or black or Asian or (American) Indian family is going to give its kids a whole lot of advantages. Conversely, a poor white family isn’t going to set its kids in significantly better stead than anyone else.

To me, then, the reason that someone comes from a lower-income family is irrelevant - whether it’s because their family was discriminated against for generations or because their parents lost the family fortune in Vegas. For the kid born to poverty, the experience will be largely the same regardless of race. And the proper public policy is that which combats the disadvantages of falling below the middle class, regardless of race.

So, I’m a huge fan of need-based financial aid programs for education. And I’m decidedly lukewarm on affirmative action - I believe it’s necessary to combat vestigial racism, but should be used sparingly, and not as a substitute for general anti-poverty and education programs open to all.

2

I think there is a big white privilege and a big deficit of black privilege, distinct from class privileges that are also there. I think it comes from having white ancestors, which since race is genetic amounts to the same thing.

My white ancestors in recent generations are not so different from me, in the expectations they and their environments had of one another. And my ancestors were certainly shaped by the centuries in which racism - well, not just racism, but slavery and other strong and formal institutions - made their lives very different from black lives.

My great grandfather, born in 1849, was a landowner. My grandfather, born in 1890, was that and also a college professor. My grandmother, 1900, was college educated. My father, 1926, also was. Born in 1957, I grew up thinking that college was what people typically did, and when I went, it was not much of a revolution. It didn’t take much imagination or initiative. The month after I graduated, while traveling in the American south, I saw my first “Colored Entrance” sign. Certainly I remember the Civil Rights amendment, and lynchings, and integration.

I don’t think really powerful privilege and disenfranchisement is that old or that far removed. Considering how much echoes down the generations, and how little truly new we do for ourselves, I think the effect is still plenty powerful today. That would be true even if we did have racism pretty well licked now, which itself is pretty debatable.

3

Thanks for the heads up about the thread creation. I’m formulating a precise (if not concise) list of white privileges in the US, but it’s going to take me a bit to do it since work is busy and I can only type between calls.

To contribute a small piece of debatability for now, there is no doubt that white privilege exists. You even acknowledged some of it in your original post. The only challenge is getting white people to take it seriously, which I don’t think you’re doing yet. Yes, it’s a minor thing to be able to ask strangers for directions in the dark. But there are hundreds of these little things which, when experienced altogether, oppress anyone who happened to be born black (and other minorities in many cases, but blacks are the primary focus of my argument).

4

Definition of white privilege:
*A right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor.

Such a right or immunity attached specifically to people of white european descent. *

White privilege is a term that has historically been used to identify the privileges, opportunities, and gratuities offered by the American society to anyone who is Caucasian and not a member of an ethnic group. This has manifested itself in a number of ways, such as, better housing, education, economic opportunities, and higher wages, etc. for Caucasians.

It is a Eurocentric attitude of superiority that is perpetuated in America by the so-called “Good Ole Boy” system of covert racism that prevents non-whites from receiving equal, fair and just treatment.

A list of white privileges in the US:

[ul]
[li]I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color, who constitute the worlds’ majority, without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion. [/li][li]I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider. [/li][li]I can go home from most meetings or organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in rather than isolated, out of place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, or feared. [/li][li]If my day, week, or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it has racial overtones. [/li][li]I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help my race will not work against me. [/li][li]I can arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.[/li][li]I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.[/li][li]I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.[/li][li]When I am told about our national heritage or about civilization, I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.[/li][li]I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.[/li][li]I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the food I grew up with, into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can deal with my hair.[/li][li]Whether I use checks, credit cards, or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial responsibility.[/li][li]I am not made acutely aware that my shape, bearing, or body odor will be taken as a reflection on my race.[/li][li]I can worry about racism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking.[/li][li]I can take a job or enroll in a college with an affirmative action policy without having my co-workers or peers assume I got it because of my race.[/li][li]I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race.[/li][li]I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated.[/li][li]I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial. [/li][li]I am never asked to speak for all of the people of my racial group.[/li][li]I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk with the “person in charge” I will be facing a person of my race.[/li][li]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. [/li][li]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.[/li][li]I can easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children’s magazines featuring people of my race.[/li][li]I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them. [/li][li]I can choose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more or less match my skin.[/li][li]I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.[/li][li]I can walk into a classroom and know I will not be the only member of my race.[/li][li]I can enroll in a class at college and be sure that the majority of my professors will be of my race.[/li][/ul]

Sources:
http://wik.ed.uiuc.edu/index.php/White_privilege

5

Does anyone remember the study (I believe it was Univ of Chicago) that found that resumes were more readily accepted if the given name was traditionally “white” than the identical resume with a traditionally “black” given name?

6

Rachel, I’ll try to respond to most of the items on your list eventually - but since I’m typing this on my iPhone, I’ll restrict myself to a few for now:

Regarding language - look, I’m a fuzzy-hippy human rights lawyer by training. Do you have any idea how much it would benefit my career if I spoke a major Asian language? Or Swahili? Or best of all, Spanish? Hell, you needn’t even be a particularly fuzzy lawyer to lose a lot of options if you don’t speak Spanish. It’s true that my friends don’t think less of me for my lack of language skills - they aren’t assholes - but the idea that I get a pass on being monolingual because I’m white is just flat wrong.

As for people not thinking I’m an “outsider” when I criticize my government - well, no, of course I don’t. But that’s because I live in a democracy that values dissent, and I have friends and family who love a good fight. By the way, those friends include black people, an Asian, Hispanics, and one guy who’s got so many hyphens in his ethnicity that we’ve pretty much decided he’s a one-man ethnic group in his own right. I don’t think any of them feel less than free to speak their minds because of their race :slight_smile:

As for finding accommodation - you know that discrimination in housing or hotels is illegal, right? (With narrow exceptions, as in group houses.)

7

I’m getting seriously tired of that shit. What kind of culture on Earth doesn do that? The only difference is that the Western world managed to dominate how the world runs (at least for now). Others are just complaining about the rules of the game because “they’re not winning”. And I guess we would do just the same if we were in the same situation. You dont get moral superiority just because you’re dominated, you only get pity and a serious load of patronizing.

8

Of course there is white privilege. I can’t imagine what kind of idiot would think otherwise. I mean, the year after slavery was abolished, was there white privilege? If so, how many generations does it take to undo numerous generations of extreme oppression? Anyone who thinks it’s 0 or 1 or 2 or 3 is woefully ignorant or unbelievably stupid. Likely both.

9

White privilege exists if only because if you are a member of the majority, you will tend to be treated more favorably than if you are a member of a minority group. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule (old-school South Africa comes to mind), but anyone who denies that simply belonging to the “club” doesn’t come with benefits is crazy.

I’m currently reading “Being Black, Living in the Red”, a book by sociologist Dalton Conley. The author details the ways black people have been held back historically, starting with renegged offers of land compensation following the Civil War, laws forbidding the establishment of black-owned businesses (particularly those competing with white-owned businesses), overt discrimination by banks and loaning institutions, discrimination in federal land-grant programs during the country’s westward expansion, denial of Social Security benefits to farm and domestic workers during the early years of the program, redlining of home loan mortages before and after the Great Depression, and discrimination in the execution of the G.I Bill after WWII. That’s not even to mention the things we are more familiar with, such as separate and unequal schools (including discrimination in admissions at state-funded colleges), government-sanctioned terrorism during Jim Crow, political disenfranchisement, etc. etc. etc.

These may seem like long-ago travesties, but they really aren’t. Had my parents been born in Virginia instead of Indiana (which was racist too, don’t get me wrong), they most likely would not have been able to go to college or earn advanced degrees. Their salaries might not afforded them with one house, let alone the two they currently own. Their children might have grown up less ambitious and more cynical.

Can white people play the same “what if?” game? Of course. But there aren’t very many white Baby Boomers who can say they were born into a society where there were laws codefying their second-class citizenship. There is no denying that if my parents had grown up in Farmville, VA, their educations would have been inferior to their white counterparts. Education is the biggest predictor of future success in this country. If you can’t use historical discrimination in education as an example of past and present white privilege, I don’t know what would count.

Is white privilege a major issue today? I don’t know. I’m not thinking there are too many white people who would choose to be black, but I’m not sure if that’s a measure of anything. Is there anything that can be done to remove it? Well, I think Affirmative Action and similar policies are one way, although they also benefit white people (white women and their families). Honestly, I think we have to wait for the mule-hearted, Archie Bunker-type racists to die off before we can really say anything about racism not being a problem. You can have all the right laws on the books, but as long as racists crop up on jury panels, hiring committees, classrooms, and voting booths, we’ll always have a “race problem.”

10

White priveledge, controlling for class, compared to what groups?

Black?
Hispanic?
Native American?
Asian?
Indian?

Do we include Jewish people in the list?

Do we look at regional differences? If your town is all white, do you still get white priveledge? If another groups is the controlling majority, can white’s complain about other priveledges?

Is poor white trash the recepient of measurable white priveledge? How do we compare them to wealthy 2nd generation Chinese in Orange County, CA?

11

I’m fairly certain that my time spent hitch-hiking and bumming around the country in the early 70s would have acquired me many more nights in jail had I been black.

“White privilege” certainly still existed then, though to a lesser degree than in the 40s. And it exists now, though to an even lesser degree than in the 70s. I’d hope that it will be completely gone in my lifetime, though I won’t bet on it.

rachelellogram, large parts of your list really strike me as reverse racism. Many of the items on that list will never be attainable in the U.S except for whites, unless we return to segregation. It’s the focus on race, from any view, that causes problems.

12

I think if you have a white person and a black person each born into equally impoverished circumstances, the white person will generally have an easier time rising above it. That doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of black (and other race) people born into better circumstances than a lot of white people, but if you average it out, yeah, the white person is more privileged.

(Of course, that does NOT help the individual white person who happens to be born into difficult circumstances, but these are things to look at on a large scale, never individual. A person of any race who needs help should be considered equally.)

13

I think you’re right, and I wasn’t even born then.

It’s kind of like if you see a guy on the street, panhandling. Does your opinion of the guy change based on the color of his skin? Are you more likely to feel pity for a guy of one race versus another?

I remember feeling nervous one time when I was working in the Everglades and I was imagining a worse case scenario. I thought about what I would do if my truck was stolen from the levee while I was out in the marsh. I would have been forced to hitch hike the ten miles back to the lab, dressed in my muddy clothes, shoe-less (because I always left them in the truck), and wearing a tattered wide-brimmed hat hiding a big-ass afro. Would anyone stop and give me, a swarthy person who’s been mistaken for just about every racial group imaginable, a ride? I’m a woman, so that might have helped my chances, but in that get-up I would have looked pretty androgynous (especially from a distance). I decided that in Miami, where anti-Mexican and anti-black bias are both pretty high, I would have had better luck getting a lift from a gator than one from my fellow man! That’s when I decided to keep my cell phone on my person rather than in the truck’s glove compartment.

Fortunately I never had to try out my hypothesis.

14

They can if they are women. Or homosexual. Which when combined are enough to be the majority of whites even without including other oppressed categories. The dividing line between privileged and oppressed isn’t as simple as white/black.

15

It isn’t, but a white lesbian will generally still have more privilege than a black lesbian, so there you go. It’s just one factor of many, but it’s still a big one.

16

Why don’t you be fair to the topic of the OP and the point of monstro’s post that you quoted and consider a comparison between white women and black women, or white homosexuals and black homosexuals? Or start a new thread about “male privilege” or “straight privilege”?

I think it would be better to keep this thread focused.

17

I’ll grant you women, but white women benefited from the male privilege of their fathers and spouses. Also, the year when my father was born, there were no white women who were barred from voting, nor were they forced to attend “separate but inferior” educational facilities. Some state-funded universities did bar their entrance (like my alma mater), but most public universities did accept white women applicants. The discrimination they faced, however, was not codefied into law. De facto discrimination and de jure discrimination may feel the same to an individual, but they aren’t the same when we’re talking about groups.

There were laws against sodomy, yes, and same-sex marriage was not allowed anywhere in 1946 as far as I know. But is that really enough to classify someone as a second-class citizen? And does it really speak to the notion of privilege–that is, an advantaged socioeconomic status–that I appealed to in my post? I don’t think it does. I’m interested in hearing your rebuttal, though.

18

Good point, because of course, there were countless white women who had no real options in life, but it was never a generational thing, because that’s just not possible. Still really bad for those women, but it has a lot less potential to fuck up things for generations to come. Women are still feeling the effects of oppression, too, but it’s from residual attitudes; for black people it’s from residual attitudes AND from past generations.

19

This list is a pathetic joke.

I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color, who constitute the worlds’ majority, without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.
I’m not even sure what this means. How many black people in America speak a second language versus how many white people do? And in the grand scheme of things, is knowing a second language in America a benefit to someone who has no plans for international travel?

If my day, week, or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it has racial overtones.
Unless you’ve got an out bigot for a boss, I’d say most black people that think their day-to-day problems are the results of racism are doing themselves a disservice.

I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help my race will not work against me.
This isn’t the 1930s anymore. Patients are not treated differently due to the color of their skin. And have you been inside a hospital in the last decade? I’d bet good money that most nurses are black.

I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
I was a good kid in my teenage years, but my white ass was followed from the front of the store to the back all the time.

When I am told about our national heritage or about civilization, I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
Barack Obama is the president of the US. MLK Jr. is heavily featured in nearly every history textbook. I haven’t picked up a textbook in a while, but I’m sure there are a lot more examples as well.

I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the food I grew up with, into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can deal with my hair.
Is this a joke? It what way are black musicians oppressed? Do black people not eat burgers, apples, chicken, coke, pasta or any of the other staples of an American diet?

Whether I use checks, credit cards, or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial responsibility.
If you have the money, the only color that matters is green.

I can take a job or enroll in a college with an affirmative action policy without having my co-workers or peers assume I got it because of my race.
How many schools even have affirmative action policies anymore?

I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race.
What?

I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.
What?

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.
Huh?

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.
Race is not an option on your tax forms.

I can easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children’s magazines featuring people of my race.
So you’ve never been in a store ever? Because that’s the only way you’d miss all the black people featured on those items.

I can choose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more or less match my skin.
So there isn’t makeup designed for black skin and it isn’t available in stores? Oh wait, there is and it is.

I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
More out racists being all racist.

Finally…

Do you just love segregation or something?

20

Why stop there…aren’t there thousands of situations where whites have the benefit of ignoring skin color and blacks have the opportunity to consider it a factor.