Race: White Privilege, Black Disadvantage
In a recent article - “Saying Sorry For Slavery Isn’t Enough” - that I wrote for the Guardian about the US House of Representatives’ apology for slavery, one of the readers made a comment to the effect that he/she is white and is sick of hearing about race.
This type of comment is one that particularly gets my goat, for whoever makes such a comment completely misunderstands the role that race plays in Western society. People think that it is only by black people talking about race that race has become - or is - an issue. The underlying - and incorrect notion - is that race would go away if black people stopped talking about it. Of course, that’s not what would happen.
The reason why many black people talk about race is because they have tended to be at the brunt of its most negative usage. Most white people in the world, however, have experienced the positive aspects associated with being white. However, because their racially-orientated privilege is such an inherent part of society, they fail to realize that it matters or plays any role in their lives at all.
One of the issues with discussions about race is that they tend to only focus on racism and oppression. There is little said about those - generally white people - who are affected by race from the basis of privilege.
In ‘White People: Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack’ which is now one considered an anti-racist classic, Peggy McIntosh, the white author, writes: “Thinking through unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon, I realized that, since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of while privilege that was similarly denied and protected. As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage… I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was “meant” to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools , and blank checks.”
Western society has always operated a normative notion that posits whiteness as inherently superior and of a higher status. In an academic study entitled “Politicizing Whiteness: Recognition of Race Privilege and Prejudice among Rural, Southern Whites”, the author notes that “Whiteness is a particular material, cultural, and subjective location that “signals the production and reproduction of dominance rather than subordination, normativity rather than marginality, and privilege rather than disadvantage” (Frankenberg 1993: 236-237). White studies acknowledge that for the most part, “whiteness” has been invisible since it has gone unmarked, assumed, and considered normative”.
That is, the inherent privileges associated with being white are so ingrained within society as to be almost unnoticeable by those who benefit from it. White people on the whole have become more race conscious because black people or other minorities have complained about or become aware of their racial disadvantage. It seems to them, as a result, that it is black people who make race an issue.
In a simplistic way this can be seen when it comes to the issue of black magazines and black media. I have had a large number of white friends ask me what the purpose of black-orientated media is. They assume that by focussing on ‘black’ such media is exclusive and ‘racist’. What they fail to see is that most media is already exclusive and racially-orientated - towards white people.
When I open a women’s magazine that talks about skin turning red in the summer, self-tanners, or shows a certain hue of foundation and pale pink blushers, I immediately know that they are not talking to me as a black woman. White people, however, so used to being the dominant culture and so used to have the world targetted toward them do not see that.
Another example is affirmative action. Many white people do not like the practise. They think it injects race into the workplace or education system and is therefore discriminatory. Again, what they fail to understand is that race already operates in those enviroments. Indeed, the unspoken affirmative action policies that have been in operation for years in those environments just happens to be one that benefits white people. A great book to read on this is “When Affirmative Action Was White” by Ira Katznelson.
Race is a complex issue, made all the more troubling by those who insist that black people should shut up about it in order for it to go away. Race is not simply black disadvantage. There are many people who have benefited and continue to benefit from the privileges their race affords them every single day. If only they would realize it!
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Comments
I agree and I talk about white privilege too, in the context of US Presidential political discourse.
Title: How Privilege is a bias in Political Discourse
http://sciedsociety.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-privilege-is-bias-in-political.html
Can you believe that I used the same picture for my last Race in America show? Love it!