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White Privilege

White privilege refers to the concrete benefits of access to resources and social rewards and the power to shape the norms and values of society that whites receive, unconsciously or consciously, by virtue of their skin color in a racist society.

[FN Maurianne Adams, Lee Anne Bell, and Pat Griffin, editors. Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice: A Sourcebook (New York: Routledge, 1997), p. 97]

Users, particularly white users, of this Web site may have emotional responses to the definition of white privilege and its use throughout this site, as might people of color. Whites have benefited over the years from being silent, for ignoring racist acts, and for remaining ignorant about the privilege whites receive based on the current racial hierarchy in the United States. White privilege is a system, like racism. It has to do with how whiteness is typically affirmed, respected and accepted, and how that affirmation and distinction is built into law, policy and institutions, as well as conferring individual benefits (like the ability to shop without being followed, or drive without being stopped).

White privilege has many manifestations. For example, public laws and policies and private actions, legal and illegal, have often created benefits for white people that were denied to people of color (for example, the ability to get low-interest long-term mortgages and to buy houses in many suburbs after World War II), and these policies and actions have had long-standing and cumulative consequences. White privilege shows up in assumptions about which groups are considered dangerous and how that affects emergency response in various communities. It even shows up in decisions about whose art and literature is considered "classic" and whose is "outsider" or "primitive" and the educational and economic consequences of those decisions for artists, students and museum goers.

It helps to remember that the above concepts are about groups, not individuals. Many individual people of color are healthy, have opportunities for good quality education and excellent jobs even in a racist society; and many individual white people struggle. However, as groups, the data are clear that this is not the typical case. Further, racial inequities continue and are getting worse, not better, on many measures. And there are always effects for individuals, seen or unseen, when one's group is persistently advantaged or disadvantaged, over generations and into the foreseeable future. That's why racial equity is urgent, and to all of our benefits.