I can be casual about whether or not to listen to another person’s voice in a group in which s/he is the only member of his/her race.ġ2. I can be pretty sure of having my voice heard in a group in which I am the only member of my race.ġ1. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.ġ0. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.ĩ.
When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.Ĩ. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.ħ. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.Ħ. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.ĥ. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.Ĥ. I can avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my kind or me.ģ. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.Ģ. As far as I can tell, my African American coworkers, friends, and acquaintances with whom I come into daily or frequent contact in this particular time, place and time of work cannot count on most of these conditions.ġ. I have chosen those conditions that I think in my case attach somewhat more to skin-color privilege than to class, religion, ethnic status, or geographic location, though of course all these other factors are intricately intertwined. I decided to try to work on myself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of white privilege in my life. Individual acts can palliate but cannot end, these problems.“I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group”
#INVISIBLE KNAPSACK SKIN#
But a "white" skin in the United States opens many doors for whites whether or not we approve of the way dominance has been conferred on us.
White people are taught to think that racism could end if white individuals changed their attitude. In Intosh class and place, I did not see myself as a racist because I was taught to recognize racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth. They take both active forms, which we can see, and embedded forms, which as a member of the dominant groups one is taught not to see. One factor seems clear about all of the interlocking oppressions. Most, of our white students in the United States think that racism doesn't affect them because they are not people of color they do not see "whiteness" as a racial identity. Others, like the privilege to ignore less powerful people, distort the humanity of the holders as well as the ignored groups. Some, like the expectation that neighbors will be decent to you, or that your race will not count against you in court, should be the norm in a just society.
But not all of the privileges on my list are inevitably damaging. Conferred privilege can look like strength when it is in fact permission to escape or to dominate.