reading up on white privilege

[sapience]

For anyone interested in doing some reading on white privilege, here are some recommendations:

cos's Response to a testy commentJust because you happened to be born white - which was not your choice, just your luck - you were given some extra power over others around here, even though you didn't ask for it. What you were not given, simply for being

Comments

[alsoname]

Re: Peggy McIntosh's piece. I'm not so sure about Nos. 1 and 30! No. 1 depends on where you live and what you're doing with your life. Since I work from home, I guess I could arrange for that now, but it would have been impossible in college. My university did not have any one ethnic group in the majority, and as far as raw numbers went, there were more Asian Americans than white people. There's no way I could have arranged to have classes, do my job, or join extracurricular activities with only white people. Maybe I am misunderstanding that point.

No. 30 probably holds true in most situations, but then there is the exact reverse of that in certain circles. I am totally behind being educated about history, being aware of privileges, and listening to everyone's perspectives. I think these are very positive things. I don't, on the other hand, think white guilt is a very positive thing. To me it doesn't seem helpful in setting up a truly egalitarian dynamic between people. To be more explicit about why I think No. 30 doesn't hold true in certain circles -- when you get a group of people together who keep a subconscious tally of "oppression points," those with the most points are accorded the most authority. Maybe this seems like a fair way to redress past wrongs, but if it gets in the way of authentic communication, which I think it does, I don't think it's very helpful at the end of the day. I think white guilt can be conducive to the subconscious tallying of oppression points. To me it doesn't seem to be the most productive way to address racism and related issues.