Hey white Kids, I'm a white kid too. I like to think of myself as a White Allie, or and AntiRacist White. Since I strive to embody these terms, it would be wrong of me to not write a post such as this one. First of all if you are a biggot, or harbor excessive hatred towards People ofColor, please do not comment on this. I would like this post to spark a discussion of whiteness that is open minded and considerate. If you are not willing to do so save your breath because you will not recrute anyone onto your hateful bandwagon. But if you are a white person who either 1.) does not beleive that racism still exsists, or 2.) beleive that you are not a racist, please do read as my intention is to eduacte you on an issue that is not generally discussed by white people.
I'll begin with a statement that is in many ways surprising. I am a racist. I say it with conviction. But wait! Consider the definition I use for racist. It is one that i discovered in antiracist liturature and that was also introduced to me durning an Antiracism training given by the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond (www.pisab.org). Racist-someone who benifits from a racist system. I am a white person in America and I therefore benfit from white privilege.
What is White Privilege? Let me offer a few examples from the wonderful Article Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh (which i have adimitly recommended to various users of this site).
As a White Person:
- I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
-I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
-I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
- 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.
- I can be casual about whether or not to listen to another person's voice in a group in which s/he is the only member of his/her race.
- Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.
- I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.
- I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.
- 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.
- I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the "person in charge", I will be facing a person of my race.
These are just a few of the points that McIntosh makes in her article. You may be able to find points of disagreement, but if you consider them as overall trends I feel they are pretty vaild.
These are some examples of white privilege in America today. As a person who experiances these privileges it is also are responsiblity to work to see their undoing. Racism hurts people of all races. Here are a few ways that i have come up with that white people experiance the effects of racism.
1.) In a racist system (such as America) white people have an advantage over POC (people of color), therefore any acheivements we make are made lessened by our racial privilege.
2.) If white people are concious of the effects of our privilege, we feel gulit, remorse and other negitive emotion, if we ignore it we ignoer the ways that our lives effect others (if you buy my arguement, of course)
3.) By excepting only the White perspective, we miss out on the wonders of diversity and multiculturalism thereby inhibiting the progress of our speices.
4.) Not to Quote a Pop Film but Hate is Baggage, having to worry about keeping other races below us in status takes energy that could be better spent in a different and more productive way.
5.) Racism devides us from other members of our species, and makes it harder for us to find commonground between races therefoire limiting the depth of our interaction.
If hearing that you are a racist makes you feel defensive, you are not alone. It made me feel very defensive as well. My first response was I am not privileged look at the things that i did without in my life... Then i started to feel immature about trying to make my self feel better by thinking about what i didn't have instead of being grateful for what i had. Next I started to feel guilty about the fact that I benifit from these things. You see, coming to terms with white privilege follow the 5 stages of greif: Denial and Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. It is not healthy to get stuck in any of these phases though it is healthy to experiance all of them.
If you wish to go further with these concepts i suggest the article Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh, What should white people do by Linda Martin Alcoff or White Identity and Race Relations by Ashley W. Doane. Or Since these articles are all written by women try: Privilage, Power, and Differance a book by Allan G Johnson.
Anyone looking for support or who has questions should feel free to comment. And i fyou have criticism of my arguement, please comment as well, but please see my previous blog before writing any hostile or hateful comment as that is not that is not the way to bring about progress.
Wow...you may be the most enlightened white person I have ever heard of. Go you!
if that is sarcaism, i really wish you would comment on my arguement instead of my character as i was merly conveying a topic i am passionate about and my experiance with it. as for myself being enlightened? i did not intend to come off as self rightous. I am still fucked up, and i have not owned every aspect of my privilege, it is something i work on everyday. but i do think that this theroy is valid and wanted to share it with others who are looking to make the world better. you hosility is considsending and shows that you are unwilling to consider what i am saying. atleast read one of the articles before you decide to attack me again ok?
Haha. I wish I lived where you live because where I live, white kids still rule.
rule what? might i ask.
I think people are too focused on the racial issue.
Maybe I'm just one of the silly white people who don't know how great they have it...
I think the problem is poverty, poor people are exploited and caught in a cycle of poverty. People look down on the poor and discriminate against the poor.
In this country the majority of the time, money=respect. We're obsessed with wealth. The only color people care about anymore is green. If you're a POC and you look poor I'm sure you're discriminated against, but trust me it's perhaps to a lesser degree similar when you're white.
I'm tired of searching for scholarships only to find that the majority of them are for POC only. Apparently the only people giving out scholarships just for white kids are the KKK?
while to an extent you are right, classism is a huge problem in America, it is my personal beleif that the racial divide is what allows the perpetuation of our classist structure. As i have grown up in a poor white rural community I know first hand that poor white hate poor blacks. since the poor are divided we do not rise up against the rich (here i include my self in the "poor" though i am middle class and do experience class privilege to an extent). While it is frustrating to be both poor (or atleast not an heiress), (and female) and white therefore both privileged and opressed by society, it is important to recognize that the racial devide is the strongest held institution abd the one that must be dealt with before the others can be effected. Classism will end when the poor unite. And as for your comment on scholarships, consider it carefully. I do not mean to be condisending in any way because i have had this thought as well (when i began my college search) but, the reaseon that affirmative action scholarships exist is because the as white we do have an overall financial advanatage (in 1996 the average middle class POC family earned $.15 to every dollar of the average white family- this statistic is 1o years outdated but $.85 would be a huge increase in a mere 10yrs, I can try to locate a current one if you would like) as well as an advanatge in the education system. Most ciriculum is euro-centric, underpaid families= underfunded school systems etc. this is the reason these scholarships exist. not to exclude white people from college, but to include others and while it can be frustrating when you don't have the money, it is a fraction of the frustrations in the POC experiance as i understand/imagine it. Part of owning privilege is comming to terms with the fact that were must sacrifice some of it in order to create equality, so perhaps a white student has to go to a less expensive university, is the the POC fault? does the white student deserve to got to the expensive school more? wanting the best things for yourself is good, and i truly hope that you are able to find the funding to do what you want with your college experiance but do be careful in your assertion of reverse racism as they imply an equal system that does not exist. Again i have had similar thoughts and these are the arguements that i have come up with so take them for what they are worth. i hope this helps some and good luck :)
I'm sorry but affirmative action is not helping equality. It's blatant racism that not only disadvantages white people, but patronizes POC by assuming they couldn't get into whatever program. Perhaps if we stopped thinking of ourselves as white and black and brown racism would lose some of its power.
I consider myself to be working poor. Many of the people in my neighborhood have had mixed children. I think that the more time that passes, the further removed we are from the times of segregation it gets better. My grandmother is less racist than my great grandmother and I don't consider myself to be racist at all and I hope to raise children who value people of character and are oblivious to color.
I suppose I understand you're position and I appreciate your good wishes. I work in a stupid fast food job and trust me everyone is paid equally and equally exploited--minimum wage. I live in the south, but maybe it's worse in the deep south. I don't know.
[C]lassism is a huge problem in America [but] it is my personal beleif that the racial divide is what allows the perpetuation of our classist structure. . .the racial devide is the strongest held institution abd the one that must be dealt with before the others can be effected.
While I agree that the racial divide greatly supports many inequalities in our society, I personally feel that our society's failure to recognize that the sexes are more similar than different is just as detrimental to true social progress as racism. (See my post: Feminism Is (or Should Be) Humanism for more on this theory.) And it has been argued that the male oppression of women that dates back to the dawn of civilization is that which provides the very basis for repression by one group of any other group of humans, which I find to be a reasonable postulate.
/jkh
one thing folks miss -- white skin privilege. i commend you on admitting to this
I totally agree. White (heterosexual, American, male, monied) people need to be aware of their privilege and actively dissemble the power structures that privilege them over others.
Good post, I thoroughly enjoyed this.
Juneceaver,while you are of course intitled toyour own opinion, i wonder when the last time you heard a POC complain about scholarships that are POC only.
Honestly, I think POC are being lied to and told that things like retribution and affirmative action are the solution. If I were a POC I wouldn't complain about my scholarship, but I know that personally I wouldn't feel excessively proud about it either.
The White Privilede is a racist concept, but - strangely - most of the people that take part at it are not racists.
i think you are teh one with teh racial issues
I happen to be a POC, and though I liked your article, oleirir, I sorta agree with junecleaver. The so-called "POC only" scholarships are beneficial, but I percieve them as small monetary hand-outs to POCs to appease them, not to improve or enhance them or their status in society. What is a $2,000 hand-out to a POC when it is coming from a rich CEO with $100 million dollars after taxes? It makes him seem sooo charitable and it keeps civil rights/equality groups off of his back. I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I'm not buying all of this affirmative action/ equal opportunity crap that the system tries to shove down our throats.
-Oz
This is very interesting. While I don't have the time now, I intend to read all of the articles you referenced. I'm white, and I can identify with many of the privileges you outlined in this post. I find myself in an interesting situation presently. I've just enrolled at a historically black university, and will begin classes there on Monday. I feel that attending this university will offer me a unique perspective about myself and my place in the world, as well as framing my graduate studies in a very interesting light. My first class on Monday is "Blacks in American History" (I'm also taking "African History" -- both of these classes are required by this university in order for me to obtain my undergraduate history degree). I thought to myself that most likely, were I attending another state university, one which is not historically black, such courses would not be required. Not that I'm offended, its just that these are not necessarily the areas of history that I'm most interested in. However, I'm aware that I can focus my studies on ancient cultures later in my academic career, so I actually feel that I'll benefit from getting my undergrad degree from this historically black university. That said, I intend to read these articles sometime tomorrow before I report for class. I think it will be most enlightening. Thanks for the post.
/jkh
When I say white supremacist I refer to POCs who demand that they be permitted wherever whites are. They demand that they sit next to them in the classroom. Live next door to them with the hope that this white privelage will be extended to them. Maybe POCs should just keep to themselves and create their own privilage. You know have their own TV stations like BET or have their own univertities like Howard.Yet POCs demand to be on ABC and CBS and demand scholarships to Harvard. Now who really has privilige in this society.
Live next door to them with the hope that this white privelage will be extended to them."
Or maybe we just want to be able to live whereever they want and be treated with respect like everyone else.
"Maybe POCs should just keep to themselves and create their own privilage.You know have their own TV stations like BET or have their own univertities like Howard."
*sigh* First, the only reason there are HBC is because we were not allowed (no matter how qualified or rich we were) to attend state universities (and other POC's also). And BET sucks, period it's basically MTV, but with more black people.
"Yet POCs demand to be on ABC and CBS and demand scholarships to Harvard. Now who really has privilige in this society."
How can you possibly believe that POC's are the privileged in America? Where do you get your info from to make you believe this?
As to oleirer, great blog you made many great points I think that not many whie people want to believe that fact there is still white privilege in America.
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"When people say, "I’m so tired it's not even funny" or "my head hurts so much it's not even funny", why would it even be funny in the first place?"
The fact is whites cannot live where ever they want. For a white person to try and live among some POC is very dangerous.I know I tried. Too bad you think BET ie so bad is it the Fault of whites. The fact is BET had a news show. It was canceled for lack of interest. Do you know how hard it is for an average poor white kid to get a schalarship to harvard.The fact their have been historically black colleges for over one hundred years.
"The fact is whites cannot live where ever they want. For a white person to try and live among some POC is very dangerous.I know I tried."
You are judging that over one bad experience, it doesn't go for all POC's
"Too bad you think BET ie so bad is it the Fault of whites."
I never said it was anyones fault. I do not play the race card
"The fact is BET had a news show. It was canceled for lack of interest."
Uh no BET is a cable channel you mean BET news, or whatever it was called.
"Do you know how hard it is for an average poor white kid to get a schalarship to harvard."
No, I don't I never said it wasn't easy for poor whites to get a scholarship to harvard.
"The fact their have been historically black colleges for over one hundred years."
Thank you Captain Obvious :)
I'm not trying to be mean or place blame but I think you should maybe read a bit more and meet more people before you start making "set in stone" judgements/ or generalizations. You're more than welcome to PM me if you want to ask questions of comment on what I said.
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"When people say, "I’m so tired it's not even funny" or "my head hurts so much it's not even funny", why would it even be funny in the first place?"
Most white people I find are clueless about the true structure of racism. Take for example BET the owners of BET are white. It's owned by Viacom the same company that own VH1 and MTV. Most of the audience about 75-80% is also white. So what you get is a white company portraying an image of Blacks for other white people.
Racism is everywhere and it hurts. I am a very Patriotic American and yet I have to reconcile that my country the one I love so much never actually wanted me here. That I am part of the Race problem, the urban problem, the poverty problem. I have to reconcile with myself that whenever I meet someone that will see me as black before anything else. Have to accept that people will comment on how well I speak as if I not an American, as if I and all of my family for as far back anyone can see was born here. I can not say I don’t identify with a race and have that be accepted. I will be followed in stores, I will be asked to present ID at time when my white friends won’t. My money will be checked at the store. And I will e expected to take all of this with a smile on my. I am expected to rise above hundreds of years of legal oppression and only mere decades of non legal oppression. Being Black is a constant struggle a day to day journey into who I am as a person. I am on a quest to know my place and then a battle to break out from it. The only thing I white for the average white person is an awareness that these things and more happen to all black people and most of these things with a little variance to fit with each group happen to most POC’s. Instead I find those who think that we are not working hard enough. Well I’m working hard, I am working as hard as I can but it’s hard to pull yourself up when so many things are pushing you down.
I"m white. In fact, I don't know if you can get much whiter than me. I don't dance well, I can't jump very high, and at the beginning of summer I have to burn and then let it "tan out".
I have never, once in my life, experienced any of this "priviledge" you speak of. There were plenty of Hispanics getting scholarships to attend Catholic schools when I was in high school, but I didn't qualify even though some of the Hispanic families had higher income levels than my family. When I went to apply to colleges, I was encouraged to apply early and apply to a lot of institutions because " in order to meet desired levels of diversity" colleges need to basically save x numbers of spots for each ethnicity. (I always wondered if white kids from South Africa could still check the "African-American" box.) I even went to school with a Hispanic kid who scored slightly lower than me on the ACT (3 points) and had a slightly lower GPA (we were both just north of 3.0) and he was offered a scholarship to Harvard (yes, THE Harvard) while I was offered a scholarship to the local community college. Richard even freely admitted that he was given the opportunity because of his ethnic background.
Before everyone thinks this is some sour grapes, white trash rant, just stop right there. I don't care. In fact, I say milk it for all it's worth. If you get scholarhips because of your ethnicity, more power to you. I don't care. I merely give these examples to show that there are plenty of cases where People of Color benefit from being just that. I would also go so far as to say that in someways the power structures in "minority" communities depends on a sense of oppression and injustice. People like Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton NEED for there to be rampant, systemic, wide spread racism. If there isn't, then there's no justification for them any more. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the ridiculousness of some of their views is borne out in Jessie Jackson's statement that Barak Obama "isn't black" because "he's never lived" the "American" black experience. Barak Obama's father is freaking from Africa. You don't get much more African-American than that.
I'm also tired of hearing about how racist white people are, but no one seems to want to acknowledge that racism is at least as rampant, if not more so, in the black and hispanic communities. I have experienced this myself on more than one occassion. Ironically enough, each time I was told I didn't belong where I was because of my race.
I pesonally think that in 21st Century America, the issue is predominantly "classism". Regardless of your race, the system has been structured so that those who have wealth have it protected and those who don't are frustrated access to it at every opportunity. I won't deny that, as of right now, there are more minorities in the bottom part of that structure. I won't deny that the cause of that is racial injustice of the past. What I will deny is that it's easier for a poor white kid to elevate himself than it is for a poor kid of color. It will be equally, unjustly difficult for both of them.
There's nothing like a trail of blood to find your way back home.--Nikki Sixx
I don't know where to begin with this pile of nonsense. Let's start with something pretty simple. You start by defining a racist as "someone who benifits [sic] from a racist system" (may I add in passing that learning to spell greatly increases your chances of being taken seriously?) and then go on to preach "Hate is Baggage, having to worry about keeping other races below us in status takes energy that could be better spent in a different and more productive way". In other words, you can be a racist just for passively existing in a racist system, but on the other hand, being a racist means you have to "worry about keeping other races below us in status"? Well, which is it? Do you have to be a conscious hater and oppressor of other races to be a racist, or do you not?
You quote, or paraphrase: "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." Well, that's an odd problem to pose. Most people would suppose that if something can be blamed on your race, that is a less piercing criticism than if they attribute it directly to your bad character. One can be helped, after all, the other can't.
Listen and listen closely. There is such a thing as racism (and it can be practiced by anyone against anyone, although that's a different argument). But there is such a thing as mathematics too, and that means that 80% of the population is going to be much more represented, whether on TV, in history books, or anything else, than 13%. Sorry to be so blunt, but those are the facts. Most white people are ok; some are creeps. Same for blacks, Jews, Asians, Arabs, or anyone else you want to mention. And everything on earth is not reducible to a question of race. And by the way, you are not "oppressed" because you are not an heiress. It's called life's lottery. Get over it!
HAHAHAHAHAHA White allies sounds like a neo-nazi group, doesn't it?
Sometimes for some it even becomes true nature, that’s mostly the moment when some stop to hide it….
I'm sorry, but I really don't agree with you. So many people think that is is 'so easy' being white. It's not. I come from a low income family, where the one parent is my mom. I just filled out FAFSA, and because it doesn't ask about debut (which my family has quite a bit of) and it thinks my mom can somehow afford to send me to school, I can't qualify for a Pell Grant. And my mom literally has maybe $50 in her bank account. I look for scholarships, but any worth money are for people of minority races. My good friend, who is Hispanic and in the same socioeconomic class as my family, found a scholarship on Fastweb for $20,000 for art programs. But only Hispanics can apply. I want to go to an art school that will cost in total about $80,000. However, I have to try a lot harder to find a scholarship that will get me there. I really wish I could change my race, so I could get college money. This is one of the most unfair things society does; we cannot control our race or gender, so why should you get college money just for being a specific skin tone???
Have your Mom sign an affidavidt that she thinks her genetic father was a Mexican migrant and that she was concieved as the result of a one-time fling behind the corn crib. Who can prove otherwise? Have you ever heard of a scholarship applicant being given a genetic test?
And then just check the Hispanic box on the application. If you go into an interview and they notice that you are not brown, just launch into a tirade about the fact that Hispanics come in all colors. Many Hispanics are pure European. And almost all Jamaicans, Haitains, Dominicons and many Brazillian Hispanics are black. There are quite a few Asians in Mexico. Make sure that they know you are accusing them of being a racist asshole and think out loud about getting your lawyer involved. You will be fine.
Everybody should refuse to play this disgusting racist game where they divide us up into categories with little checkboxes on applications. Just check whatever box you feel is most advantageous and then threatened to sue them if they have the temerity to question you. The very worst that will happen is that they will deny your application.
A friend of mine had his grandfather sign an affidavidt that his grandmother was an indian from some vanished tribe in Tennesse. He now jokingly calls himelf Chief Walking Eagle (too full of shit to get off the ground). But being "Native American" gives him advantages in the business world. Banks love giving loans to a white indian with a good credit history because they can check the right box on their affirmative lending practices reports to the government.
If everybody did this, we would all soon have equality because the check boxes would just go away. We need to kill this racism by burying it in absurdity. Everybody is a minority now. All of this hatred is being perpetuated by the ethnic/race hustlers who have a vested interest in keeping us divided.
The language use by most of the bloggers or respondents above does not approach the 6th grade level. What I have read is similiar to what is going on in Clayton County, Georgia School Board with respect to the education of its students. "Google up" the Clayton County School Board, you 'll see what Africa in the US is like.
Not that I read every thread but from the ones I have, and the topic, I believe your all guilty of 2 things. Materialism, and pointing out the divisions in your family tree. We all came from the same group(long ago), as unfair as a monetary system such as ours is people all focus on it all too much. Debating political correctness and monetary injustices, it's seems you're materialist and have lost the focus on the real problems, the true problem, is not the system in which we are born into, it became so over time through imperialism and captitalism. The real problem is a world where how much you can claim before you dies matter even the least, in a system that claims to care, claims to not be working you all like slaves, claims it wants happiness for you all. Your all being whipped the same, every single one of you bound to the rat race of earning lemmingness, walking through each day, to do an occupation thats been done before, to earn for a country which in itself is wrong for drawing boarders in an open sky. You talk of the social injustices with a focus primarilly on money like thats the goal, I guess you've all lost the point, and missed the memo, you dont leave with any of your earnings and to you religioust ones, sorry but you wont even leave with the memories of how you enjoyed them. I'm not going to be the least bit surprised if this sturs a disturbance in your discussion and it angers any of you. I am just trying to point out, this topic has been gone over in my life enough and all you wanty materialists need to stop slaving to impress, and stop hungering for an equality. No society has ever been fair to a whole populous(besides communism, which the selfish will not ever except here) so striving for realization in discussions such as this is fruitless, I hope this can come to a lot of you as a reality check.
I apologize ahead of time if I got slightly off topic, and I also did not re-read this so if i left out a word or mispelled, just do what you can to understand, Very open to responses.
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Everything, you have done, and will do, is chemically predisposed by matter, even the fact you are reading this message. You make no choices, only percieve a givin reality.
White privilege sounds great. I wish I could have just set out in the world and had privileges just for me being White. It never happened. It won’t happen for you either. There actually are racial privileges handed out in this country. Privileges based on race in the categories of scholarships, college admittance, housing, employment and others. None benefit Whites. All give privileges to non-Whites.
College kids love buying this load White privilege crap. Most went to college straight out of highschool, and have never had to earn a living for themselves, raise children, pay medical bills, etc. Liberal professors and the media make them believe they are afforded these opportunities because they are White, never realizing usually how much of a burden they are onto their own parents who are footing the bill the entire time.
Wait till you get out of college, kids. Unless you have rich parents who are going to foot your bills till you die, all that “knapsack” contains is what you put in it yourself.
:D