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Exploring white privilege

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Reflecting on whiteness. Image by Christelle Prieur.

Reflecting on whiteness. Image by Christelle Prieur.

If you're white, you have almost certainly benefited from white privilege.

I know I have.

Recognising the specifics of our own experience of 'white privilege' is a step along the way to understanding the continuing impact today of the historical and systemic exploitation of non-European people and societies by Europeans and the societies they established in places like North America and Australia. I have been exploring my own white privilege, using a simple exercise.

As a white person, I didn't used to think much about my race or ethnicity. I didn't realise that this freedom from having to consider race as having anything to do with me - my personhood, my world - was a huge aspect of my own white privilege.

An exercise

The exercise invites white people to list the ways in which they have personally benefited from being white.

If you're white, try this out for yourself. Aim for at least ten answers. In her famous essay "White Privilege: unpacking the invisible knapsack" back in 1988, Peggy McIntosh came up with 50.

"I have benefited from being white by.... "

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
...

My own starter list is here.

In my experience the flip question often proves more thought provoking and, tellingly, harder to answer: "As a white person, white privilege has had these downsides for me..."

Learning more

There's so much more to learn about white privilege and how white people can be active anti-racists. This is very much a work-in-progress for me. Here are some of the programmes and reading I've found challenging and supportive.

Making the Path by Walking

This post was first published in my newsletter Making the Path by Walking, February 2021. Scroll right down to subscribe.