White Privilege

There is much confusion about the term white privilege. It seems fairly clear to me that many people assume that white privilege is the same thing as white racism, that white people are somehow choosing to be white racists, or that white privilege implies that all of us white folks are privileged in the same way and in the narrow sense of the word (i.e., receive special, largely financial, benefits). And if someone fancies him- or herself as progressive or coming from a working class background, these associations can rub them wrong way. It’s an understandable response to a concept that is difficult to understand. But, and speaking here (full disclosure) as a progressive white man with something closer to working class roots, I think it’s worth struggling with this concept in an attempt to really understand what it means, to figure out if it really is little more than a synonym for white racism.

Short answer: no. No, it’s not.

But first, let me stress something right up front here. The concept of “white privilege” (that is, the theory of white privilege as a way to understand our racialized society and culture) is itself based on a larger rhetorical framework, i.e., race, and specifically “whiteness.” So before we can even begin to unpack “white privilege,” we need to understand how race and whiteness work in our culture.

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http://www.djbuddha.org/?p=1408