UNDERSTANDING WHITE PRIVILEGE by Francis E

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“We need to be clear that there is no such thing as giving up one’s privilege to be ‘outside’ the system. One is always in the system. The only question is whether one is part of the system in a way that challenges or strengthens the status quo. Privilege is not something I take and which therefore have the option of not taking. It is something that society gives me, and unless I change the institutions which give it to me, they will continue to give it, and I will continue to have it, however noble and equalitarian my intentions.” − Harry Brod, “Work Clothes and Leisure Suits: The Class Basis and Bias of the Men’s Movement,” in Men’s Lives, ed. Michael S. Kimmel and Michael Messner (New York: Macmillan, 1989), 280.

What Is White Privilege? surprising thing for us is that, even though we don’t see ourselves as part of a radical Privilege, particularly white or male group, people of color generally do see us privilege, is hard to see for those of us that way. who were born with access to power So given that we want to work to create and resources. It is very visible for a better world in which all of us can live, those to whom privilege was not what can we do? The first step, of course, granted. Furthermore, the subject is is to become clear about the basics of white extremely difficult to talk about because privilege, what it is and how it works. The many white people don’t feel powerful or second step is to explore ways in which we as if they have privileges others do not. can work against the racism of which white It is sort of like asking fish to notice privilege is a cornerstone. water or birds to discuss air. For those White privilege is an institutional (rather who have privileges based on race or than personal) set of benefits granted to gender or class or physical ability or those of us who, by race, resemble the sexual orientation, or age, it just is- it’s people who dominate the powerful positions normal. The Random House Dictionary in our institutions. One of the primary (1993) defines privilege as “a right, privileges is that of having greater access to immunity, or benefit enjoyed only by a power and resources than people of color person beyond the advantages of most.” do; in other words, purely on the basis of In her article, “White Privilege and Male our skin color doors are open to us that are Privilege,” Peggy McIntosh (1995) not open to other people. For example, reminds us that those of us who are given the exact financial history, white white usually believe that privileges are people in the United States are two to ten “conditions of daily experience… [that times more likely to get a housing loan than are] universally available to everybody.” people of color − access to resources. Further, she says that what we are Those of us who are white can count on the really talking about is “unearned power fact that a nation’s history books will our conferred systematically” (pp. 82-83) experience of history. American Indian For those of us who are white, one of parents, on the other hand, know that their our privileges is that we see ourselves children will not learn in school about the as individuals, “just people,” part of the contributions of their people. human race. Most of us are clear, All of us who are white, by race, have however, that people whose skin is not white privileges, although the extent to white are members of a race. The which we have them varies depending on 1 our gender, sexual orientation, have had higher test scores and grades socioeconomic status, age, physical because of where their parents had gone to ability, size and weight, and so on. For school. example, looking at race and gender, we find that white men have greater The Purposeful Construction of access to power and resources than white women do. The statistics from the White Privilege: A Brief History 1995 Glass Ceiling Commission show that, while white men constitute about Often it is not our intent, as individual 43% of the work force, they hold 95% of white people, to make use of the unearned senior management positions in benefits we have received on the basis of American industry. Looking purely at our skin color. Most of us go through our white privilege, white women hold about days unaware that we are white or that it 40% of the middle management matters. On the other hand, the creation of positions, while Black women hold 5% a system in which race plays a central part and Black men hold 4%. Unless we − one that codifies the superiority of the believe that white women or African white race over all others − has been in no American men and women are way accidental or haphazard. Throughout inherently less capable, we have to American history white power-holders, acknowledge that our systems are acting on behalf of our entire race, have treating us unequally. made decisions that have affected white White privilege has nothing to do people as a group very differently than with whether or not we are “good” groups of color. History is filled with people. We who are white can be examples of the purposeful construction of absolute jerks and still have white a systemic structure that grants privileges privileges; people of color can be the to white people and withholds them from most wonderful individuals in the world others. and not have them. Privileges are  The writing of the U.S. Constitution which, bestowed on us by the institutions with in ten articles, very intentionally confirmed which we interact solely because of our the holding of Black people as slaves, as race, not because we are deserving as property. individuals. While each of us is always  White people’s believing that our destiny a member of a race or races, we are was to “own” the land on which we all sometimes granted opportunities currently live, even though that required because we, as individuals, deserve forcibly removing the native people who them; often we are granted them had lived here for centuries. because we, as individuals, belong to  Our breaking apart of Black families one or more of the favored groups in our during slavery, sending mothers one society. At some colleges and place, fathers another, and babies and universities, for example, sons and children yet another. daughters of alumnae and alumni might  Choosing to withhold from African have lower grades and test scores than Americans the ability to read so that they other applicants; they are accepted, could not reproduce any of their culture or however, because their parents function well enough in our literate society graduated from the institutions. That is to change their status. a privilege that the sons and daughters  The removing of American Indian children did nothing to earn; they were put ahead from their homes, taking them as far as of other possible applicants who may possible from anything they knew, and 2

punishing them if they tried to speak in Spanish at school. This meant that every their own languages. individual teacher and principal was  The passing of laws that were created required by law to send any child home for to maintain the legal separation and speaking his or her own language whether inequality of whites and African the teachers and/ or principals believed in Americans (Plessy v. Ferguson) the law or not. Based on the belief that  The making of “politically expedient” people who live in the United States should decisions by many (if not most) white speak English, mixed with racial bigotry suffragists to align themselves with against Mexicans, the law was passed by a white Southern men, reassuring them group of individual white legislators who that by giving the vote to women (read had the institutional power to codify their “white women” since at that time and their constituents’ viewpoints. Once a about 90% of the Black women lived particular perspective is built into law, it in the South and were not by law, able becomes part of “the way things are.” to hold property and thus vote) the Rather than actively refusing to comply with continuation of white supremacy was the law, as individuals we usually go along, insured. particularly if we think the law doesn’t affect  The manipulation of immigration laws us personally. We participate, intentionally so that people of color, particularly or not, in the purposeful construction of a Chinese and Mexican as well as system that deflates the value of one European Jews, were less free to people’s culture while inflating the value of immigrate to the U.S. than Western another’s. More recently, this same kind of and Eastern Europeans. thing occurred in a county called Georgia  The removing of American citizens of that was experiencing a large influx of Japanese ancestry from their homes Mexican immigrants. By saying that and taking their land and their firefighters might not speak Spanish and businesses as our own during World would therefore not be able to find the War II. grocery store that was on fire if the sign  The using of affirmative action to outside said “Tienda de Comida,” the promote opportunities for white county officials made it illegal to have store women rather than for people of color. names in languages other than English. It is important to know and However, the bakery, Au Bon Pain, was not remember this side of American history, asked to change its sign. Presumably, the even though it makes us extremely firefighters speak French better than they uncomfortable. For me, the confusion speak Spanish. and pain of this knowledge is somewhat As we see from these two examples, the eased by reminding myself that this patterns set in history are continued today. system is not based on each individual Not only in the on-going pervasive and white person’s intention to harm but on systematic discrimination against people of our racial group’s determination to color in housing, health care, education, preserve what we believe is rightly ours. and the judicial systems, but also in the less This distinction is, on one hand, obvious ways in which people of color are important, and, on the other hand, not excluded from many white people’s day- to- important at all because, regardless of day consciousness. Think, for example, of personal intent, the impact is the same. how regularly you see a positive story about Here are a couple of examples. For an American Indian or a Latina/o on the many years, it was illegal in Texas for front page of the newspaper you read. How Spanish- speaking children to speak long would it take you to name ten white 3 heroes? Could you name ten women of White People: color, other than people in sports and music, who have made major Taking Racism Seriously contributions to our society? The freedom not to notice our lack of Far too many of us who are white knowledge about people of color is erroneously believe that we do not have to another privilege that is afforded only to take the issues of racism seriously. While white people. All of us, including people of color understand the necessity of students of color, study the history of being able to read the white system, those white, Western Europeans everyday in of us who are white are able to live out our our schools unless we take an ethnic lives knowing very little of the experiences studies course or a course consciously of people of color. Understanding racism or designed to present the many other whiteness is often an intellectual exercise threads of the “American experience.” for us, something we can work at for a period of time and then move on, rather than its being central to our survival. Privilege from Conception Further, we have the luxury of not having to have the tools to deal with racial situations White people’s privileges are without looking incompetent. bestowed prenatally. We can’t not get I was working with a college at which them and we cannot give them away, no senior administrators were trying to decide matter how much we do not want them. how to move forward with diversity intake. For example, if I walk into any drug One of the vice principals said, “There are store in the country that carries hair so many people who want diversity to fail.” products, I can be sure that I will find The conversation seemed theoretical and something that was designed for my removed to me. What an odd thing to say: hair. Black hair products are much “There are so many people who want harder to find; often African Americans diversity to fail,” with the attitude of, “well, have to drive for miles to buy what they we tried, it was an interesting experiment, need. Further, I know that when a now let’s send all of ‘them’ back to the Band- Aid box says “fresh color,” it countries they came from. Too bad − it was means my skin color, not those of my an exciting thought.” If, instead, someone Asian or Latina friends. If, in an attempt had said, “There are so many people who to “give back” my privileges, I said to the want diversity to fail. I’m afraid we won’t drug store clerk, “I don’t want the succeed,” an action plan would be drawn privilege of always being able to get up in a heartbeat and monitored daily to get shampoo for my hair when my Black the school back on track. Or would that be friend can’t,” the clerk would think I was the response? Is there a sense that, at the nuts. What we can and must do is work root, “We don’t need to worry; we will daily to combat our privilege by bringing always be here”? I think the underlying to consciousness others’ and our own, sense is there: for some eliminating racism the system in which we are living. is life and death, a question of survival, being seen as opposed to being invisible. For others, this is an interesting intellectual exercise from which we can be basically removed.

Making Decisions for what my friend and I had planned without any input from people of color.) Everyone A couple of weeks later, at our second meeting, the women of color pointed out White privilege is the ability to make that I had fallen into the classic trap of white decisions that affect everyone without women: the come-be-part-of-what-we’re- taking others into account. This occurs doing syndrome. “If you truly want us to at every level, from intellectual to work with you to create a conference, we individual. The following story could will. But it means starting over and building look simply like an oversight: “Oops, I a plan together. If you want us to enter the forgot to ask other people what they planning process in the middle and add our thought.” However, it is typical behavior ideas to yours, we’re not interested.” for white women who want women of color to join them in their endeavors. During a visit with an out-of-town White People Don’t friend − another white woman and a Have to Listen librarian – we began to plan a conference for librarians on racism that Being white enables me to decide we named “Librarians as Colleagues: whether I am going to listen to others, to Working Together Across Racial Lines.” hear them, or neither. As one of those in We talked and talked, making notes of what Lisa Delpit calls “the culture of power,” good exercises to include, videos to I also silence others without intending to or use, materials that might prove helpful. even being aware of it. For example, a It was absolutely clear that we needed a colleague of mine, and African American diverse committee to work with me, the woman, attended a conference on the facilitator, and we created one that process of dialogue. Of the forty-five would include all voices: two white people there, she was one of four who were women (one Jewish), a Latina, a not white. The whites were of the Chinese American woman, straight intellectual elite: highly educated, bright, women and lesbians, and several and, for the most part, liberal people. As African Americans. By the end of our the meeting unfolded, it became conversation, I was extremely excited increasingly clear that, if the women of color and couldn’t wait to contact the women didn’t mention race, no one would. The on the “planning committee.” white people were not conscious enough to At the first meeting with these the fact that race − their race − was an women, during the introductions, I talked integral aspect of every conversation they about my twenty-five year history of were having. When the women of color did working on issues of racism and insert the issue into the dialogue, the white particularly my own work on what it people felt accused of being “racist.” In this means to be white and Southern. Then instance, “silencing” took place when the I presented what my friend and I had planners were not clear that race was thought up as the plan for the present at the conference even if no people conference and all of us talked about of color attended; the white participants the particulars. (In other words, I didn’t include the reality of others in their presented my credentials as a “good plan; and, when the issue was raised by my white person” and then proceeded to colleague, she was made to feel that she create a conference that was exactly was the one who was “causing trouble.”

In her article “The Silenced Dialogue: White privilege allows us not to see race Power and Pedagogy in Educating in ourselves and to be angry at those who Other People’s Children” (Harvard do. I was asked to address a meeting of Education Review, Vol.58, Number 3, white women and women of color called August 1988), Delpit includes the together to create strategies for addressing profoundly disturbing comments of an social justice issues. Each of the women African American teacher that illustrate had been working for years in her own how we silence dialogue without being community on a range of issues from health aware of doing it or meaning to. care to school reform. As I spoke about the When you’re talking to White people work that is required for white women and they still want it to be their way. You can women of color to collaborate authentically, try to talk to them and give them the white women became nervous and then examples, but they’re so headstrong, resistant. Why was race always such an they think they know what’s best for issue for women of color? What did I mean everybody, for everybody’s children. when I said it was essential for white They won’t listen. White folks are going to do what they want to do anyway. women to be conscious of how being of It’s really hard. They just don’t listen their race affects every hour of their lives, well. No, they listen, but they don’t hear just as women of color are? They were all − you know how your mama used to say professionals, some said, why did it matter you listen to the radio, but you hear your what color they were? The silencing of mother? Well, they don’t hear me. dialogue here occurred because the white So I just try to shut them out so I can women didn’t see the race of the women in hold my temper. You can only beat your the room as an issue. It did not occur to head against a brick wall for so long them that their daily experience was before you draw blood. If I try to stop different from that of the African Americans, arguing with them I can’t help myself Latinas, and Asian Americans in the room. from getting angry. Then I end up walking around praying all day “Please Had I not been asked to raise the issue, the Lord, remove the bile I feel for those possibility of doing so would have been left people so I can sleep tonight.” It’s funny, to the women of color, as it usually is. but it can become a cancer, a sore. (pp. Believing that race is “N.M.I” (“Not My 280-281) Issue”) and being members of one or more As Delpit says, these are not the groups that also experience systemic sentiments of one isolated person who discrimination, we use the privilege of teaches in a particularly racist school. emotionally and psychologically removing The feelings are representative of a vast ourselves from the “white” group, which we number of people of color as they see as composed either of demonically interact with white people on a daily racist people who spout epithets and wear basis. Ku Klux Klan robes or white, straight, The saddest element is that the healthy males. For those of us who are individuals that the Black and American white, and are also disabled, gay, lesbian, Indian educators speak of…are seldom or straight women, our experience of being aware that the dialogue has been excluded from the mainstream hides from silenced. Most likely the white educators us to the fact that we still benefit from our believe their colleagues of color did, in skin color. By seeing ourselves as the end, agree with their logic. After all, they stopped disagreeing, didn’t they? removed in some way from the privileged (p.281) group, we may be all the more deaf to our silencing of people of color.

Discounting People of Color suggesting that race is the only cause of pain and discrimination. I am pointing

out one of the ways in which white As white people, we have the people suggest that someone else’s privilege and ability to discount the experience can’t be any worse than worth of an individual of color, his or her what we ourselves have experienced or comments and behavior, and to alter his can understand). or her future, based on our asses- sments. One of the most frightening  Asking why people of color always focus aspects of this privilege is that we are on the negative, as if life can’t be that able to do enormous damage with a glib bad. A similar way of discounting or off-hand comment such as “I just someone’s experience is to say, “You don’t think she’s a good fit for our always focus on race. I remember at organization.” Promotions have been two meetings last year…” denied on the basis of such comments.  Commenting, “I know we have a way to There are many ways in which our go, but things have gotten better.” comments are given inflated worth (Read, “Stop whining. What do you because of the privilege we hold. want from me, anyway? Didn’t we fix For example: everything in the 60’s?” Or “I know what  Seeing those most affected by your reality is better than you do.”) racism as wounded or victims and  Seeing and keeping ourselves central, somehow, then, as defective. never marginal. For some years know, Identifying a member of an writers of color have been discussing oppressed group as wounded is the experience of living in the margins patronizing, particularly when done while white people are living in the by someone with privilege. center. In one of her early books,  “Mis-hearing” the comments of Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center people of color so that their words (Boston: South End Press, 1984), Bell are less important, not understood or Hooks defines it: fully appreciated, and thereby To be in the margin is to be part of heightening our sense of superiority. the whole but outside the main body…Living as we did − on the edge −  Rephrasing or translating for others, we developed a particular way of seeing as if they cannot speak for reality. We looked both from the outside themselves, without appearing rude in and from the inside out. We focused to others like us. our attention on the center as well as on  Being allowed, by others like us, to the margin. (p.ix.) take up most of the airtime without

saying much of substance.  Suggesting that people of color need Seeing White as “Normal” to “lighten up,” not to take things so seriously. Another element of this privilege is the  Saying or implying that, as a woman ability to see white people as normal and all (or gay person or a working class the others as different-from-normal. In person, and so on), you know what describing heterosexuals’ privilege, Allan G. the person of color is going through. Johnson also identifies a white privilege. “I know just how you feel. When the “They have the privilege of being able to children in the playground made fun assume acceptance as ‘normal’ members of me because I was fat…” (I am not of society…live[ing] in a world full of cultural

7 images that confer a sense of legitimacy responsibility for the privileges we and social desirability…” (The Gender Knot: receive as white people. The pain and Unraveling Our Patriarchal Legacy, Philadelphia: sense of being less-than, often based Temple University Press, 1997, p. 149.) on reality, may emanate both from our White people express this privilege personal life experiences − my father in many ways: died when I was four − and our  We use ourselves and our membership in groups from which experiences as the referent for privileges are systematically withheld − everyone. “I’m not followed around being poor or Jewish or gay or deaf. In in the store by a guard. What makes our minds, this sense of struggling you think you are?” somehow lessens or removes our  We reinsert ourselves into the responsibility for our receiving or conversation if we feel it has drifted colluding in systematic white privilege. to focus on a person of color or an For example, I often hear, “I don’t have issue of others’ race. “I don’t really white privilege because I’m working think the issue is race as much as it class.” White working class people do is class.” not have the same socioeconomic  We bring a critical mass with us privileges as white upper-middle class wherever we go. Even if I am the people. But, while class privileges are only white person in a room of being withheld from them, they are university administrators of color, I given the same skin color privileges. know that most of the other  We shift the focus back to us, even administrators in the nation’s schools when the conversation is not about us. look, relatively speaking, like me. A classic example of this is white  We believe that we have an women crying during conversations automatic right to be heard when we about racism and women of color having speak because most leaders in most to put their pain aside to help the white organizations look like us. women who are crying. (African (Obviously, this privilege in particular Americans and gays and lesbians, in is significantly altered, though not particular, are expected to take eliminated, by the intersections of responsibility for other people’s socioeconomics class, gender, responses to and discomfort with them.) sexual orientation, etc.)  We use our white privilege to define the  We have, as a racial group, the parameters of “appropriate” privilege not to have to think before conversation and communication, we speak. If what we say is keeping our culture, manners, and upsetting to others, our thought- language central by: lessness, rudeness, anger, and so o Requesting a “safe” place to talk on, are attributed to us as individuals about race and racism. This is often rather than as members of our race, translated as being “safe” from as is the case for others. “I can’t hearing the anger and pain of people believe Bill was such a jerk in the of color as well as being able to say meeting today,” as opposed to, “racist” things without being held “Latinos are so passionate; they just accountable for them. don’t think before they speak.” o Establishing the rules for “standard”  We use the pain and experience of English and holding others to our being deprived in our lives to keep rules. us central and lessen our

o Setting up informal rules for white men died, as if no indigenous communicating in the people had been killed there. organizations and then failing to  We are able to grow up without our share those rules with people racial supremacy’s being questioned. It who are different from us. is so taken for granted, such a o Creating institutions that run by foundation of all that we know, that we our culture’s rules but acting as if are able to be unconscious of it even the rules are universally held, though it permeates every aspect of our such as what time meetings start, lives. Charles W. Mills describes this how people address one another, phenomenon in his book The Racial the “appropriate” language to Contract (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997). use. “…white misunderstanding, misrepre- sentation, evasion, and self-deception If History is White on matters related to race are…psychically required for conquest, The privilege of writing and teaching colonization, and enslavement. And history only from the perspective of the these phenomena are in no way colonizer has such profound accidental, but prescribed by the terms implications that they are difficult to of the Racial Contract, which requires a fathom. As white people, we carry the certain schedule of structured blindness stories we were taught as the truths, and opacities in order to establish and often failing to question those truths and maintain the white polity.” (p. 19, italics his) discrediting those who do. There are  While we are deprived of the skills of many embedded privileges here: critical thinking by being given such a  We are able to live in the absence of rudimentary view of our heritage, our historical context. It is as if we are ignorance is not held against us. We not forgetting our history, but acting are taught little complicated history to as if it never happened. Or, if it did, have to sort through, think about, it has nothing to do with us today. question, and so we have few For most of us who are white, our opportunities to learn to grapple with picture of the United States, both complexities. We end up with simplistic past and present, is sanitized to sentiments like “America − love it or leave out or downplay any atrocities leave it” because we have only been we might have committed. Our taught fragments of information. We’re Disneyland version of history is that told that George Washington couldn’t our white ancestors came here, had tell a lie, but we aren’t told that he a hard time traveling west, finally owned African people who were conquered those terrible savages enslaved or that he most likely has and settled our country, just as we descendants by those slaves. We don’t were supposed to do − Manifest often have to wrestle with the fact that Destiny. one of the biggest fights in framing the Constitution was over maintaining  We are taught that we are the only slavery. ones in the picture. If there were others, they obviously weren’t worth  We have the privilege of determining mentioning. An example of this is how and if historical characters and the white crosses at the Little events will be remembered. From the Bighorn Battlefield indicating where Alamo to the Filipino-American War to the Japanese internment to Viet Nam to 9

training the assassins at Fort loan, it’s because she or he didn’t earn Benning, GA, who killed nuns and it. priests in El Salvador: we retain an  We are able to delude ourselves into extremely tight hold on what is and is thinking that people of all colors come to not admitted and how information is the table having been dealt the same presented. We do this as a culture hand of cards. We act as if there are no and we do it as individuals. remnants of slavery that affect African  We control what others know about Americans today, that the Japanese their own histories by presenting only didn’t have to give up their land, their parts of a story. Because we all go homes and businesses, or that the to the same schools, if you will, Latinos weren’t brought back into what everyone, regardless of color, is told had been their country to do stoop labor. the “white” story. Japanese  We can disconnect ourselves from any Americans are told that their families’ reality of people of color that makes us internment was purely a safety uncomfortable, because our privilege precaution, just as white children allows us to believe that people are. American Indian students see basically get what they deserve or we Walt Disney’s “Davy Crockett” feel helpless to do anything about alongside their white schoolmates, another group’s pain. So we have kind, learning that their great grand- good people who, because of race and mothers were “squaws” and their class privilege, are so removed that they ancestors were “savages.” We all don’t have to see or experience others. learn the “tomahawk chop” during Without that personal experience, they baseball season. None of us sees a have no understanding of or motivation whole picture or our nation that to address others’ lives. includes the vast contributions of those who are not white. All of us Inclusion and Collateral are given a skewed picture of reality.

This is part of what Charles Mills is We have the privilege of being able to writing about in The Racial Contract. determine inclusion or exclusion (of  We are able, almost always, to forget ourselves and others) in a group. that everything that happens in our  We can include or exclude at our whim. lives occurs in the context of the “She would be great here, but her supremacy of whiteness. We are research doesn’t focus enough on Latin admitted to college, hired for jobs, America even though she’s a Latina.” given or denied loans, cared for by And, moments later, “She would add a the medical profession, and we walk lot to our department, but she’s just down the street as white people, so…Chicana!” always in the context of white dominance. In other words, part of  I have the ability as a white woman to the reason that doors open for us is move back into my gender and our unearned racial privilege. But commiserate with other women about we act and often believe that we men if I don’t want to be aligned with have earned everything we get. We other whites. then generalize from our perceived  We are able to slip in and out of experience of deserving the opportu- conversations about race without being nities we receive to thinking that , if a questioned about our loyalty or called an person of color doesn’t get a job or a Oreo or a Banana or a Coconut. 10

 We can speak up about racism Property” (Harvard Law Review, 1993, without being seen as self-serving. Vol. 106.) In fact, we can even see ourselves as good at standing up for others Ongoing Excavation and mentally pat ourselves on the back. We cannot allow our fear of anger to deflect  We expect and often receive us nor seduce us into settling for anything appreciation for showing up at “their” less than the hard work of excavating functions – the Multicultural Fair, the honesty… NAACP annual fundraising event, - Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider, the Asian Women Warriors awards Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, celebration – as if they don’t really 1984, p. 128. pertain to us. If we aren’t thanked For those of us who are deeply profusely by people of color, we give committed to social justice work, the up because we feel unappreciated. purposeful crafting of systemic supremacy  We have the privilege of having our of whiteness is one of the most difficult and race serve as a financial asset for painful realities to hold. It would be more us. We are beneficiaries of a system comfortable to believe that racism that was set up by people like us for somehow magically sprang full-blown people like us so that we can control without our having had anything to do with the critical financial aspects of our it. We would rather remain unconscious of lives more than people of color are decisions that reinforce white privilege that able to. There is much research that are made by a few on behalf of all white shows that race, when isolated as a people. variable, overrides the variables of However, if we are truly to understand class and gender in impacting the racial context of the twenty-first century, institution’s financial decisions. I am we have to grapple with our dogged able to count on my race as a unwillingness to understand the patterns of financial asset, if I have nothing else discrimination for what they are. We must to offer as collateral. For example, ask how we participate in not seeing the as a white person I am far more experiences of people of color that are so likely to have access to expensive very different from white people’s. We medical procedures, particularly should question our resoluteness to identify pertaining to heart disease, than class rather than race as the primary people of color. Statistically, the determinant of opportunity and experience, likelihood is that I will pay less for a particularly when there is so much evidence new car than a Black woman will. to the contrary. In short, white people can Examples of this element of white continue to use unearned privilege to privilege are plentiful. For a more in- remain ignorant, or we can determine to put depth discussion of whiteness as aside our opacities in order to see clearly financial collateral, see Cheryl I. and live differently. As Harvey Cox said in Harris’s article, “Whiteness as The Secular City, “Not to decide is to decide.”

Frances E. Kendall, Ph.D.; 960 Tulare Ave.; Albany, CA 94707; 510-559-9445 CPT – 6/09