White privilege

White privilege is a sociological concept that describes advantages purportedly enjoyed by white persons beyond that which is commonly experienced by non-white people in those same social, political, and economic spaces (nation, community, workplace, income, etc.). It differs from racism or prejudice in that a person benefiting from white privilege may not necessarily hold racist beliefs or prejudices themselves. Often, the person benefiting is unaware of his or her supposed privilege.

Overview

A study published by Branscombe et al found that thinking about the benefits gained from a privileged group membership can threaten social identity and evoke justification of the existing status difference between the ingroup and a disadvantaged group. For white Americans, racial privilege may be justified by concurring with modern racist attitudes. The study found that increased racism in response to thoughts of white privilege was limited to those who highly identified with their racial category. In contrast, when white racial identification was sufficiently low, thoughts of white privilege reliably reduced modern racismcite journal|last=Branscombe|first=Nyla R.|coauthors=Schmitt, Michael T.; Schiffhauer, Kristin|date=2006-08-25|title=Racial Attitudes in Response to Thoughts of White Privilege|journal=European Journal of Social Psychology|publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.|volume=37|issue=2|pages=203–15|url=http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/112771384/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0|accessdate=2008-07-19|doi=10.1002/ejsp.348] . Statements about racial inequality may be framed as either White privileges or Black disadvantages. When framed as White privileges, a 2005 study found that the statements resulted in greater collective guilt and lower racism compared to a Black disadvantage framing. The findings suggest that representing inequality in terms of outgroup disadvantage allows privileged group members to avoid the negative psychological implications of inequality and supports prejudicial attitudescite journal|last=Powell|first=Adam A.|coauthors=Branscombe, Nyla R.; Schmitt, Michael T.|date=2005|title=Inequality as Ingroup Privilege or Outgroup Disadvantage: The Impact of Group Focus on Collective Guilt and Interracial Attitudes|journal=Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin|publisher=Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.|volume=31|issue=4|pages=508–21|url=http://psp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/31/4/508|accessdate=2008-07-19|doi=10.1177/0146167204271713|pmid=15743985] .

In the essay, "White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack", Peggy McIntosh sought to enumerate the social, political and cultural advantages accorded to whites in American society. McIntosh claims there are parallels between white privilege, male privilege and heterosexual privilegecite journal|last=McIntosh|first=Peggy|date=July/August 1989|title=White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack|journal=Peace and Freedom|pages=10–2|url=http://www.case.edu/president/aaction/UnpackingTheKnapsack.pdf|accessdate=2008-07-19] .

White privilege in America

History

In his 1935 "Black Reconstruction in America", W. E. B. Du Bois first described the "psychological wages" of whiteness:

It must be remembered that the white group of laborers, while they received a low wage, were compensated in part by a sort of public and psychological wage. They were given public deference and titles of courtesy because they were white. They were admitted freely with all classes of white people to public functions, public parks, and the best schools. The police were drawn from their ranks, and the courts, dependent on their votes, treated them with such leniency as to encourage lawlessness. Their vote selected public officials, and while this had small effect upon the economic situation, it had great effect upon their personal treatment and the deference shown them. White schoolhouses were the best in the community, and conspicuously placed, and they cost anywhere from twice to ten times as much per capita as the colored schools. The newspapers specialized on news that flattered the poor whites and almost utterly ignored the Negro except in crime and ridicule. [W. E. B. Du Bois, "Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880" (New York: Free Press, 1995 reissue of 1935 original), pp. 700-701. ISBN 0684856573.]

This concept was later taken up by David Roediger in his book, "The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class" [" [http://www.historymatters.appstate.edu/documents/wagesofwhiteness.pdf The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class] " a book review.] Theorists associated with the journal "Race Traitor", such as editor Noel Ignatiev, argue that whiteness (as a marker of a social status within the United States) is conferred upon people in exchange for an expectation of loyalty to what they consider an oppressive social order. This loyalty has taken a variety of forms over time: from the suppression of slave rebellions to whites-only unions to support for police brutality. Like currency, the value of this privilege (for the powerful) depends on the reliability of a white appearance as a marker for social consent. With enough "counterfeit whites" resisting racism and capitalism, the writers in this tradition argue, the privilege will be withdrawn or will splinter, prompting an era of conflict and social redefinition. Without such a period, they argue, progress towards social justice is impossible, and thus "treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity."

The theory of White privilege in America may be seen as having its roots in the system of legalized discrimination that existed for much of American history. [cite book|last=Williams |first=Linda Faye
title=Constraint Of Race: Legacies Of White Skin Privilege In America
publisher=Penn State
year=2004 |isbn=0-271-02535-2] In her book "Privilege Revealed: How Invisible Preference Undermines America" Stephanie M. Wildman writes that many Americans who advocate a merit-based, race-free worldview do not acknowledge the systems of privilege which benefit them. For example, many Americans rely on a social and sometimes even financial inheritance from previous generations. This inheritance, unlikely to be forthcoming if one's ancestors were slaves, privileges whiteness, maleness, and heterosexualitycite book|last=Wildman|first=Stephanie M.|coauthors=Armstong, Margalynne; Davis, Adrienne D.; Grillo, Trina;|title=Privilege Revealed: How Invisible Preference Undermines America|publisher=NYU Press|location=New York|date=1996|isbn=0814793037|url=http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=LK-aQDstH6kC&dq=Privilege+Revealed:+How+Invisible+Preference+Undermines+America&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=-ZPGq0p8Rf&sig=uHygCCbcWcXCTf_EZ1zW_TYIt1A&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result|accessdate=2008-07-19] . In addition to legal rights, whites were sometimes afforded opportunities and benefits that were unavailable to others. For example, government subsidized white homeownership in the middle of the 20th century through the Federal Housing Administration, but not homeownership of other minoritiescite book|last=Massey|first=Douglas|coauthors=Denton, Nancy|title=American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass|publisher=Harvard University Press|date=1998-01-15|isbn=0674018214|accessdate=2008-07-19] . Some social scientists suggest that the historical processes of suburbanization and decentralization are instances of white privilege that have contributed to contemporary patterns of environmental racismcite journal|last=Pulido|first=Laura|date=March 2000|title=Rethinking Environmental Racism: White Privilege and Urban Development in Southern California|journal=Annals of the Association of American Geographers|publisher=Blackwell Publishing|volume=90|issue=1|pages=12–40|issn=0004-5608|url=http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/anna/2000/00000090/00000001/art00002;jsessionid=3rmbt81dt5utk.alice|accessdate=2008-07-19|doi=10.1111/0004-5608.00182] .

Historians and authors, including Noel Ignatiev and Karen Brodkin, discuss the historical trajectory from exclusion to acceptance of Irish and Jewish émigrés in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in terms of white privilege. Many see a continuing, although not legalized or acknowledged, system of advantage to white people in areas such as housing, salaries, access to employment (especially to positions of power), access to education, even life expectancycite book|last=Farley|first=Reynolds|title=Race in America: The Struggle for Equality|editor=Hill, Herbert; Jones Jr, James E.|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press|location=Madison|pages=197-233|chapter=9|url=http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=cx55JM9J3RQC&dq=Race+in+America:+The+Struggle+for+equality&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=DL5fhxungk&sig=UYkRS1y7fcKwrZCUfMJv4h1_KJs&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result|isbn=0299134245|date=May 1993] .

Sociologists in the American Mosaic Project report widespread belief in the United States that "prejudice and discrimination in favor of whites is important in explaining white advantage" or in their terms that "prejudice and discrimination create a form of white privilege." According to their 2003 poll, this view was affirmed by 59% of white respondents, 83% of Blacks, and 84% of Hispanics. [cite web |work=American Mosaic Project |url=http://www.soc.umn.edu/pdf/racialPrivledge.pdf
title=The Role of Prejudice and Discrimination in Americans’ Explanations of Black Disadvantage and White Privilege
year=2006 |accessdate=2008-07-19| format=PDF]

Wealth

Whites have historically had more opportunities to accumulate wealth. Some of the institutions of wealth creation amongst American citizens were open exclusively to whites, notably land distributed under the Homestead Act and other settlement efforts in the West. Similar differentials applied to the Social Security Act (which excluded agricultural workers, a sector that then included most black workers), rewards to military officers, and the educational benefits offered returning soldiers after World War II. An analyst of the phenomenon, Thomas Shapiro, professor of law and social policy at Brandeis University argues, “The wealth gap is not just a story of merit and achievement, it’s also a story of the historical legacy of race in the United States.” [cite news|url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15704759|title=Census Report: Broad Racial Disparities Persist|date=2006-11-14|publisher=MSNBC|accessdate=2008-07-19] .

Over the past 40 years there has been less formal discrimination in America. However, the inequality in wealth has been sustained. Many whites were able to pass along their wealth in the form of inheritances and transformative assets (inherited wealth which lifts a family beyond their own achievements) which continually give advantage to white Americans."Young whites can often rely on gifts and bequests from family members for transformative assets that help build wealth ... One in four white families receives a bequest upon the death of a relative compared with only one in twenty black families." George Lipsitz, "The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics", Temple University Press, 2006, p. 107-08.] Pre-existing disparities in wealth are exacerbated by tax policies that reward investment over waged income, subsidize mortgages, and subsidize private sector developerscite journal|last=Lipsitz|first=George|date=September 1995|title=The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: Racialized Social Democracy and the "White" Problem in American Studies|journal=American Quarterly|publisher=The Johns Hopkins University Press|volume=47|issue=3|pages=369–87|url=http://www.jstor.org/pss/2713291|accessdate=2008-07-19|doi=10.2307/2713291] .

Thomas Shapiro argues that wealth is passed along from generation to generation, giving whites a better "starting point" in life than other races. According to Shapiro, many whites receive financial assistance from their parents allowing them to live beyond their income. This, in turn, enables them to buy houses and major assets which aid in the accumulation of wealth. Since houses in white neighborhoods appreciate faster, even African Americans who are able to overcome their "starting point" are unlikely to accumulate wealth as fast as whites. Shapiro asserts that this is a continual cycle which whites consistently benefit from. cite book |first=Thomas M. |last=Shapiro |title=The Hidden Cost of Being African American; How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780195181388|date=2003-12-12] These benefits also have effects on schooling and other life opportunities.

Justice

A 2002 Department of Justice survey found that, although the likelihood of being stopped by police did not differ significantly between white drivers and other races, black or Latino drivers were three times more likely to be searched than white drivers. [Matthew R. Durose, Erica L. Schmitt and Patrick A. Langan, Contacts Between Police and the Public: Findings from the 2002 National Survey. U.S. Department of Justice, (Bureau of Justice Statistics), April 2005.] Young white offenders are likely to receive lighter punishments than minorities in America. Black youth arrested for drug possession for the first time are incarcerated at a rate that is forty-eight times greater than the rate for white youth, even when all other factors surrounding the crime are identical. ["Young White Offenders get lighter treatment," 2000. The Tennessean. April 26: 8A.] [Human Rights Watch, 2000. Punishment and Prejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs. DC: May, Volume 12, No. 2.]

Employment and economics

Racialized employment networks are yet another facet of employment which benefit whites at the expense of blacks. Deirdre A. Royster cite book |first=Deirdre A. |last=Royster |title=Race and the Invisible Hand |location=Los Angeles |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=0520239512] conducted a study which compared black and white males who graduated from the same school with the same skills. She looked at their success in their school-work transition and subsequent working experience. What she found was that the white graduates were more often employed in skilled trades, earned more, held higher status positions, received more promotions and experienced shorter periods of unemployment. Since all factors of these graduates education and skills were strikingly similar, the differences in employment experiences could only be attributed to race. Royster concluded that the primary cause of these racial differences was due to social networking. The concept of “who you know” seemed just as important to these graduates as “what you know.”

Since older white males predominantly control blue-collar trades, they are more likely to offer varying forms of assistance to those in their social network, other whites. Assistance can be anything from job vacancy information, referrals, direct job recruitment, formal and informal training, vouching behavior and leniency in supervision. This assistance available to whites is a form of privilege which consistently puts black men at a disadvantage in the employment sector, “these ideologies provide a contemporary deathblow to working-class black men’s changes of establishing a foothold in the traditional trades.” .

This concept is similar to the theory created by Mark Granovetter which analyzes the importance of social networking and interpersonal ties with his paper "The Strength of Weak Ties" and his other economic sociology work.

Other research shows that there is a correlation between a person's name and their likelihood of receiving a call back for a job interview. A field experiment in Boston and Chicago found that people with "white-sounding" names are 50% more likely to receive a call back than people with "black-sounding" names, despite equal résumé quality between the two racial groupscite journal|last=Bertrand|first=Marianne |coauthors=Mullainathan, Sendhil|date=September 2004|title=Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment in Labor Market Discrimination|journal=American Economic Review|volume=94|issue=4|pages=991–1013|url=http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/0002828042002561|accessdate=2008-07-18|doi=10.1257/0002828042002561|accessdate=2008-07-18] . White Americans are more likely than black Americans to have their business loan applications approved, even when other factors such as credit records are comparablecite book|last=Bates|first=Timothy|coauthors=Austin Turner, Margery |title=Minority Business Development: Identiﬁcation and Measurement of Discriminatory Barriers|editor=Fix, Michael E.; Austin Turner, Margery |publisher=Urban Institute|location=Washington, D.C|date=March 1998|series=A National Report Card on Discrimination in America: The Role of Testing|chapter=5|isbn=9780877666967|url=http://www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=308024|accessdate=2008-07-18 at p. 104] .

Housing

Discrimination in housing policies was formalized in 1934 under the Federal Housing Act which provided government credit to private lending for home buyers. Within the Act, the Federal Housing Agency had the authority to channel all the money to white home buyers instead of other minorities. The FHA also channeled money away from inner-city neighborhoods after WWII and instead placed it in the hands of white home buyers who would move into segregated suburbs. [ cite book |first=Paula S. |last=Rothenberg |year=2005 |title=White Privilege |location=New York |publisher=Worth Publishers |isbn=0716787334] These practices and others, intensified attitudes of segregation and inequality.

While discriminatory practices have since been outlawed, there are still unofficial tactics which take place to advantage white homeowners and disadvantage minorities. Property ownership is one of the most valuable assets one can obtain. But “most white families have acquired their net worth from the appreciation of property that they secured under conditions of special privilege in a discriminatory housing market.” . [ cite book |first=Paula S. |last=Rothenberg |year=2005 |title=White Privilege |location=New York |publisher=Worth Publishers |page=77 |isbn=0716787334] This net worth accumulation assists in placing whites in more favorable conditions to receive low interest loans, mortgages and financial assistance in the housing market. Chip Smith [ cite book |first=Chip |last=Smith |year=2007 |title=The Cost of Privilege |location= Largo, MD |publisher=Linemark Printing, Inc.|isbn=0979182808] paints a quick picture of some additional ways whites are privileged.
*Whites are offered more choices; 60%-90% of housing units shown to whites are not made available to blacks.
*72.1% of whites own their own home opposed to 48.1% for African Americans
*46% of whites had help from their family in making down payments on homes compared to 12% for African Americans
*Whites are half as likely to be turned down for a mortgage or home improvement loan
*Whites pay on average a 8.12% interest rate on their mortgage, lower than the 8.44% African Americans pay on average
*The median home equity for whites is $58,000 compared to $40,000 for African Americans

Education

Whites go to schools where, on average, 80 percent of the other students are white as well. Even schools that appear to be integrated often segregate students based on abilities. Gaps in school related cognitive skills between minority students and others develop before kindergarten. [ cite book |first=Harry J. |last=Holzer |date=2007 |title=in Ending Poverty in America |article=Education and Training for Less Affluent Americans in the New Economy |location=New York |publisher=The New Press |page=126 |isbn=9781595581761] Since white students have a higher likelihood of being “school ready,” they are grouped together. This presents white students with an educational advantage, magnifying the “unequal classroom experience of African American students” and minorities. [ cite book |first=Thomas |last=Shapiro |date=2004 |title=The Hidden Cost of Being African American; How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=144 |isbn=9780195181388]

Often the material that black and other minority children are tested on in school is culturally biased, not taking into consideration dialect and other differences between populations. Williams and Rivers (1972b) showed quite clearly that test instructions in Standard English penalized the black child and that if the language of the test is put in familiar labels without training or coaching, the child’s performances on the tests increase significantly. [Williams, R.L. and Rivers, L.W. (1972b). The use of standard and nonstandard English in testing black children. A presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association] For example, it has been pointed out that ideally a child’s language development should be evaluated in terms of his progress toward the norms for his particular speech community. [Cadzen, C.B. (1966). Subcultural Differences in Child Language: An Inter-disciplinary Review. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 1966, 12 pp. 185-214] Other studies using sentence repetition tasks found that, at both third and fifth grades, white subjects repeated Standard English sentences significantly more accurately than black subjects, while black subjects repeated nonstandard English sentences significantly more accurately than white subjectscite journal|last=Marwit|first=Samuel J.|coauthors=Walker, Elaine F.; Marwit, Karen L.|date=December 1977|title=Reliability of Standard English Differences among Black and White Children at Second, Fourth, and Seventh Grades|journal=Child Development|publisher=Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Society for Research in Child Development|volume=48|issue=4|pages=1739–42|url=http://www.jstor.org/pss/1128548|accessdate=2008-07-19|doi=10.2307/1128548] .

Evidence shows that traditional psychological and academic assessment is based on skills that are considered important within white, western, middle-class culture, but which may not be salient or valued within African-American culture. [Helms, J.E. (1997) The triple quandary of race, culture, and social class in standardized cognitive ability testing. In D.P. Flanagan, J.L. Genshaft, & P.L. Harrison (Eds.), contemporary intellectual assessment: theories, tests, and issues (pp.517-532). New York: Guilford Press.] [Helms, J.E. (1992). Why is there no study of cultural equivalence in standardized cognitive ability testing? American Psychologist, 47, 1083-1101.] When tests stimuli are more culturally pertinent to the experiences of African Americans, performance improves. [Hayles, V.R. (1991). African American Strengths: a survey of empirical findings. In R.L. Jones (Ed.), Black Psychology (3rd ed., pp. 379-400). Berkeley, CA: Cobb & Henry Publishers.] [Williams, R.L. and Rivers, L.W. (1972b) The use of standard and nonstandard English in testing black children. A presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association]

Educational inequality is also a consequence of housing. Since most states determine school funding based on property taxes, schools in wealthier neighborhoods receive more funding per student. As home values in white neighborhoods are higher than minority neighborhoods, local schools receive more funding via property taxes. This will ensure better technology in predominantly white schools, smaller class sizes and better quality teachers, giving white students opportunities for a better education. [ cite journal |first=Erin E. |last=Kelly |year=1995 |title=All Students Are Not Created Equal: The Inequitable Combination of Property Tax-Based School Finance Systems and Local Control |journal=Duke Law Journal |volumn=45 |issue=2 |pages=397–435 |doi=10.2307/1372907 |volume=45] The vast majority of schools placed on academic probation as part of district accountability efforts are majority African-American and low-income. [Diamond, John B. & James P. Spillane. (2004) "High Stakes Accountability in Urban Elementary Schools: Challenging or Reproducing Inequality?" Teachers College Record, Special Issue on Testing, Teaching, and Learning. 106(6): 1140-1171.] Inequalities in wealth and housing allow white parents the option to move to better school districts or afford to put their children in private schools if they don’t approve of the neighborhoods schools. [ cite book |first=Thomas |last=Shapiro |date=2004 |title=The Hidden Cost of Being African American; How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=157 |isbn=9780195181388]

Minority students are less likely to be placed in honors classes, even when justified by test scores. [Gordon, Rebecca. 1998. Education and Race. Oakland: Applied Research Center: 48-9; Fischer, Claude S. et al., 1996.] [Inequality by Design: Cracking the Bell Curve Myth. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press: 163] [Steinhorn, Leonard and Barabara Diggs-Brown, 1999. By the Color of Our Skin: The Illusion of Integration and the Reality of Race. NY: Dutton: 95-6.] Visible minority students are more likely than white students to be suspended or expelled from school, even though rates of serious school rule violations do not differ significantly by race. [Skiba, Russell J. et al., The Color of Discipline: Sources of Racial and Gender Disproportionality in School Punishment. Indiana Education Policy Center, Policy Research Report SRS1, June 2000 ] [ U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System: Youth 2003, Online Comprehensive Results, 2004.] Adult education specialist Elaine Manglitz argues the educational system in America has deeply-entrenched biases in favor of the white majority in evaluation, curricula, and power relations. [cite journal| last=Manglitz |first=E |year=2003 |title=Challenging white privilege in adult education: a critical review of the literature |journal=Adult Education Quarterly |volumen=53 |issue=2 |pages=119–134 |doi=10.1177/0741713602238907 |volume=53]

Self-image

Beverly Daniel Tatum points out that most white people do not think to describe themselves as "white" when listing descriptive terms about themselves, whereas people of color usually use racial or ethnic identity descriptors. Tatum suggests this is because the elements of one’s identity that are congruent with the dominant culture are so normalized and reflected back at one that one is apt to take such traits for granted. This is not the case for identity aspects of those who are defined as "other" by the dominant culture, whether it be on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or other microcultural aspects. The true reasons behind this occurrence are unknown, but may also be due to many different unspoken psychological effects on minorities and majorities alike, whether it be pride, shame, or an environmental stimulation such as a rally.

Tatum writes that dominant microcultures (in this case, white people) set the parameters in which "subordinate" microcultures operate. Subordinate groups are often labeled as substandard in significant ways: e.g., blacks have historically been characterized as less intelligent than whites. Subordinates are also defined as being innately incapable of being able to perform the preferred roles in society.

The use of skin whitening treatments by non-whites has been linked to the benefits of white privilege. According to several theorists, the relationship between white privilege and skin whitening is explained by colorism and colonial mentality. [cite news|title=Brown is Beautiful|url=http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=11261|author=Llewelyn Muriel Austria-del Rosario] Verify credibility|date=April 2008 [cite news|title=Mestizaje and Self-Hate|url=http://www.mexika.org/Mestizo.html|author=Victor Mejia] Verify credibility|date=April 2008

The absence of racism

Definitions of privilege also include not experiencing racism (the absence of racism) as a privilege [ [http://seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/~mcisaac/emc598ge/Unpacking.html#daily White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack] - Peggy McIntosh] . Privilege, then, includes both human rights, which are understood to be deserved, and unearned immunities and advantages, because disparity of both types exists. [ [http://whiteprivilege.com/definition/ Defining “White Privilege”] - WhitePrivilege.com] Verify credibility|date=April 2008

The Persistence of White Privilege

In her personal account of experiencing white privilege, Heidi A. Zetzer, the Director of the Hosford Counseling & Psychological Services Clinic in the Department of Counseling, Clinical, & School Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara explains why white privilege is such a persistent problem. She categorizes it as an “institutional and individual manifestation of racism, however indirectly or unintentionally.” [ Zetzer, H.A. (2005). White Out: Privilege and Its Problems. In S.K. Anderson & V.A. Middleton (eds.), Explorations in Privilege, Oppression, and Diversity (pp. 5). Belmont, CA: Thomson Brooks/Cole.] This indirectness of white privilege is what makes it so prevalent. If people are not educated on the matter, it is unlikely that they will take note of it. Secondly, those that are aware of it suffer under the stigma of benefiting from an unfair system. Zetzer asks “How can I see myself as a just person when I willingly participate in a system that is inherently unfair?” The guilt formed by this opinion creates a spirit of inactivity in solving the problem. “White guilt,” as Zetzer deems it, is an impediment to change. Consequently, even if people become educated on white privilege it is unlikely that they will take action to change it and instead allow the problem to persist.

Zetzer also specifies the type of changes necessary to make progressive steps in dealing with white privilege and its implications. She notes that most people who become educated on white privilege undergo a first-order change in which they gain increased awareness, knowledge and skills. However, for progress to be made in equalizing problems such as white privilege, individuals need to undergo second-order change. Second-order change is characterized by a paradigm shift in which people use their awareness, knowledge and skills to take action. Zetzer believes the first, and easiest, way to initiate this transformation is through dialogue. Honest and multicultural dialogue is the first way to build alliances which can then “transform people and systems and turn intention into action,” [ Zetzer, H.A. (2005). White Out: Privilege and Its Problems. In S.K. Anderson & V.A. Middleton (eds.), Explorations in Privilege, Oppression, and Diversity (pp. 13). Belmont, CA: Thomson Brooks/Cole.] thus slowly changing the persistence of white privilege.

Criticism

Assumptions of white privilege theory have come under criticism. In discussing unequal test scores between public school students, opinion columnist Matt Rosenberg laments the Seattle Public Schools' emphasis on "institutional racism" and "white privilege":

"The disparity is not simply a matter of color: School District data indicate income, English-language proficiency and home stability are also important correlates to achievement...By promoting the "white privilege" canard and by designing a student indoctrination plan, the Seattle School District is putting retrograde, leftist politics ahead of academics, while the perpetrators of "white privilege" are minimizing the capabilities of minorities."Rosenberg, Matt (2007-04-11), "Putting politics ahead of kids". "The Seattle Times", [http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2003661182_matt11.html] .]

Low impact of white privilege

Conservative scholar and opponent of affirmative action programs, Shelby Steele at the Hoover Institution, believes that the effects of white privilege are exaggerated. Steele argues that irresponsibility is a larger problem for blacks, who may incorrectly blame their personal failures on white oppression. He also argues that there are many "minority privileges": "If I'm a black high school student today... there are white American institutions, universities, hovering over me to offer me opportunities: Almost every institution has a diversity committee... There is a hunger in this society to do right racially, to not be racist." [cite news|title=Does White Privilege Exist in America? Scholars Debate Whether Society Overlooks Minorities|url=http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=2629192&page=1|date=2006-11-05|author=Stossel, John|authorlink=John Stossel|coauthors=Binkley, Gena|publisher=ABC News (20/20)]

Justification of white privilege

Journalist, conservative [ [http://www.nationalreview.com/11oct99/osullivan101199.html Types of Right] - National Review] blogger and "race realist" Steve Sailer argues that white privilege may be real, but that "it was earned for [whites] by the hard work and self-discipline of [white] ancestors and relatives ... If, say, [a white person] inherit [s] a valuable house in a nice, crime-free white neighborhood, it was earned for [them] by the law-abidingness of other whites" [ cite news|title=Whiteness Studies and the White Guy Gap|url=http://isteve.blogspot.com/2005/03/whiteness-studies-and-white-guy-gap.html|date=2005-03-17|author=Sailer, Steve|authorlink=Steve Sailer]

ee also

*Affirmative action
*Angry white male
*Glass ceiling
*Heterosexism
*Identity politics
*Institutional racism
*Media bias
*Nadir of American race relations
*Race and inequality in the United States
*Reverse Discrimination
*White male
*Whiteness studies

References

Further reading

* Allen, Theodore. "The Invention of the White Race: Racial Oppression and Social Control" (Verso, 1994) ISBN 0-86091-660-X.
* Berger, Maurice. "White Lies: Race and the Myths of Whiteness" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1999) ISBN 0-374-52715-6
* Brown, C.S. (2002). "Refusing Racism: White allies and the struggle of civil right." New York: Teachers College Press.
* DuBois, W.E.B. 1920. "The Souls of White Folk," in "Darkwater"
* Dyer, Richard. "White"
* Fanon, Franz. "Black Skin, White Masks"
* Ignatiev, Noel. "How the Irish Became White" (Routledge, 1996). ISBN 0-415-91825-1.
* Jackson, C. 2006. "White Anti-Racism: Living the Legacy." Retrieved October 31, 2006 from http://www.tolerance.org/teach/activities/activity.jsp?ar=718.
* Levine-Rasky, C. 2000. Framing whiteness: working through the tensions in introducing whiteness to educators. "Race Ethnicity and Education, 3"(3), 271-292.
* Lipsitz, George. "The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics" (Temple University Press, 2006). ISBN 1-56639-635-2.
* McIntosh, Peggy. "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack." (excerpt from Working Paper #189, "White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming To See Correspondence Through Work in Women's Studies" (1988), Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, Wellesley, MA.
* Roediger, David R. "The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class" (Verso, 1999) ISBN 0-86091-550-6.
* Roediger, D.R. 2005. "Working toward whiteness: How America’s immigrants became white. The strange journey from Ellis Island to the suburbs." New York: Basic Books.
* Rothenberg, Paula S., ed. "White Privilege: Essential Readings on the Other Side of Racism" (Worth, 2004) ISBN 0-7167-8733-4.
* Solomona, R.P., Portelli, J.P., Daniel, B-J. & Campbell, A. (2005). The discourse of denial: how white teacher candidates construct race, racism and ‘white privilege’. "Race Ethnicity and Education, 8"(2), 147-169.
* Updegrave, W.L. (1989). Race and money. Money, December 1989,152-72.
* Wise, Tim. "White Like Me"

External links

* [http://www.tolerance.org/teach/activities/activity.jsp?ar=718 WHITE ANTI-RACISM: Living the Legacy] from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

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