White privilege

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White privilege is a sociological construct describing the advantages enjoyed by white persons beyond what is commonly experienced by the non-white people in those same social spaces (nation, community, workplace, etc.). It differs from racism or prejudice by the fact that a person benefiting from white privilege need not hold overt racist beliefs themselves.

Overview

Scholars associated with the legal studies field of Critical Race Theory have argued that whiteness or white racial status can be thought of as property, something of value owned by certain members of society. This idea has been advanced in particular by Cheryl Harris and George Lipsitz. Betsy Lucal writes that current ideas about racism are limited because of their tendency to focus only on racial "minorities" and the oppressive aspects of race. This approach, she writes, overlooks how whites are affected by race and indeed receive privileges through race. It is particularly difficult for white people to learn about White privilege. Dan J. Pence and J. Arthur Fields suggest that resistance to acknowledging white privilege stems from the fact that whites often see inequality as a black or latino issue. Reactions range from hostility to a "wall of silence."

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 racism. 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 attitudes.

In the widely circulated article, 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 privilege.

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.

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 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. 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 heterosexuality. 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 minorities. 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 racism.

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 expectancy.

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.

Justice

Black and Latino American males are three times more likely than white males to have their vehicles stopped and searched by police. 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.

Employment and economics

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 showed that people with "white-sounding" names are 50% more likely to receive a call back than people with "black-sounding" names, despite equal resumé quality between the two racial groups. White Americans are more likely than African Americans to have their business loan applications approved, even when other factors such as credit records are comparable.

Black and Latino college graduates in America are less likely than white college graduates to end up in a management position. This is true even when other factors such as age, experience, and academic records are similar.

Education

Minority students are less likely to be placed in honors classes, even when justified by test scores. 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. E. Manglitz argues the educational system in America has deeply-entrenched biases in favor of the white majority in evaluation, curricula, and power relations.

Media

Television programs tend to reflect white worldviews, especially the news media which tends to feature white personalities.

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. Some members of the subordinate microculture internalize these negative messages, thus being further disadvantaged by the entrenched belief that they cannot succeed to the same extent as white people.

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.

Criticism

Non-existence of white privilege

Many white people do not see themselves as being privileged or powerful. White people who are poor, who have come from families affected by abuse or alcoholism or who have not benefited from advanced education, may not have benefited from being white. Critics point out that whites make up the majority of those living in poverty in the United States, and contend this is evidence against the existence of any system of advantage for whites.

Justification of white privilege

Journalist, blogger and race realist Steve Sailer argues that white privilege may be real, but that "it was earned for by the hard work and self-discipline of ancestors and relatives ... If, say, inherit a valuable house in a nice, crime-free white neighborhood, it was earned for by the law-abidingness of other whites"

Low impact of white privilege

Other critics such as Shelby Steele believe 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."

References

Harris, Cheryl I. (1993). "Whiteness as Property". Harvard Law Review. 106: 1709–1795.
Lipsitz, George (1998). The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics. Temple University Press. ISBN 1566396352.
Oppression and Privilege: Toward a Relational Conceptualization of Race Betsy Lucal Teaching Sociology, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Jul., 1996), pp. 245-255
Teaching about Race and Ethnicity: Trying to Uncover White Privilege for a White Audience Dan J. Pence, J. Arthur Fields Teaching Sociology, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Apr., 1999), pp. 150-158
Racial attitudes in response to thoughts of white privilege Nyla R. Branscombe, Michael T. Schmitt and Kristin Schiffhauer. European Journal of Social Psychology. Volume 37, Issue 2 , Pages 203 - 215. 25 Aug 2006
Inequality as Ingroup Privilege or Outgroup Disadvantage: The Impact of Group Focus on Collective Guilt and Interracial Attitudes Adam A. Powell, Nyla R. Branscombe and Michael T. Schmitt. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 31, No. 4, 508-521 (2005)
McIntosh, P. (1989). "White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack". Peace and Freedom (July/August): 10–12.
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.
The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class a book review.
Williams, Linda Faye (2004). Constraint Of Race: Legacies Of White Skin Privilege In America. Penn State. ISBN 0-271-02535-2.
Privilege Revealed: How Invisible Preference Undermines America By Stephanie M. Wildman. Published 1996 by NYU Press
Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton, American Apartheid. Harvard University: 1993;
Rethinking Environmental Racism: White Privilege and Urban Development in Southern California Laura Pulido Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 90, No. 1 (Mar., 2000), pp. 12-40
Farley, R. (1993). The common destiny of Blacks and Whites: Observations about the social and economic status of the races. In Hill, H. & Jones, J.E., Jr. (eds.) Race in America: The Struggle for equality. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
^ Tatum, Beverly Daniel (1997). Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? And other conversations about race. New York: BasicBooks. ISBN 9780465091270.
"The Role of Prejudice and Discrimination in Americans' Explanations of Black Disadvantage and White Privilege" (PDF). American Mosaic Project. 2006. Retrieved 2007-09-09.
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 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.
Bertrand, Marianne and Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment in Labor Market Discrimination." June 20. http://post.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/mullainathan/papers/emilygreg.pdf.
Fix, Michael and Margery Austin Turner, 1998. A National Report Card on Discrimination in America: The Role of Testing. The Urban Institute, March: 104.
Linda Faye Williams, The Constraint of Race: Legacies of White Skin Privilege in America. Penn State Press: 2003, 359, Figure 7.1.
William M. Hartnett, William M. "Income gaps persist among races," Palm Beach Post, October 20, 2003
Patrick L. Mason, "Race, Cognitive Ability, and Wage Inequality," Challenge. May-June, 1998.
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.
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.
Manglitz, E (2003). "Challenging white privilege in adult education: a critical review of the literature". Adult Education Quarterly (2): 119–134. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |volumen= ignored (|volume= suggested) (help)
Savillo, Rob (2007-05-14). "Sunday Shutout: The Lack of Gender & Ethnic Diversity on the Sunday Morning Talk Shows". Media Matters for America. Retrieved 2007-09-09.
Llewelyn Muriel Austria-del Rosario. "Brown is Beautiful".
Victor Mejia. "Mestizaje and Self-Hate".
Jensen, R (1998-07-19). "White people need to acknowledge benefits of unearned privilege". Baltimore Sun.
Proctor, Bernadette D (2003). "Poverty in the United States: 2002" (PDF). Current Population Reports, P60-222. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
Sailer, Steve (2005-03-17). "Whiteness Studies and the White Guy Gap".
Stossel, John (2006-11-05). "Does White Privilege Exist in America? Scholars Debate Whether Society Overlooks Minorities". ABC News (20/20). {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

External links

WHITE ANTI-RACISM: Living the Legacy from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
White Privilege in WikiEd from UIUC.
WhitePrivilege.org

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