This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Nat Krause (talk | contribs) at 14:27, 13 October 2005 (restoring the Sailer critique (previously removed with an edit summary of "balancing the article")). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 14:27, 13 October 2005 by Nat Krause (talk | contribs) (restoring the Sailer critique (previously removed with an edit summary of "balancing the article"))(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)White privilege, or White Skin Privilege, is a term of analysis used to denote a particular kind of alleged social relation, one which typically involves a right, advantage, exemption or immunity granted to or enjoyed by white persons beyond the common advantage of nonwhites. Those employing the term include historians, legal scholars, philosophers, opponents of the Eugenics Movement, and sociologists of racism. In the view of those using the term, it is the primary benefit of racism expressed as preferential treatment within a society. As racism is usually understood to be punitive towards people of color, white privilege is claimed to be the pattern of social benefits accruing to members of the socially privileged and oppressing group, at the expense of members of the socially disprivileged and oppressed group.
It explains such phenomena as white boxer, Gerry Cooney, receiving an very large amount of money for his 1982 fight with African American Larry Holmes, even though he was an untested contender. Examples from popular music include Elvis Presley, credited with popularizing "black music" with white audiences, as well as Eminem's popularity as a rap singer. It is also put forward by scholars as an explanation for why social groups have used racism as a form of social control and oppression: namely, to benefit themselves at the expense of others. It is also used by some historians to explain the historical trajectory from exclusion to acceptance of Irish and Jewish Americans.
Parallels are often drawn between white privilege, male privilege and heterosexual privilege. Advocates of white privilege theory may be supportive of black nationalism, reparations and other forms of ethnic nationalism and identity politics. However, some advocates of the white privilege theory make the claim that white privilege is the only significant form of oppression in society and, in fact, homophobia, sexism, labor, homelessness, and other issues are all but irrelevant because white gays and lesbians, white women, the white working class, white homeless people etc. all allegedly have a built-in advantage of "whiteness" and thus cannot truly be considered members of any oppressed group. At the most extreme, this view manifests itself in calls to "abolish the white race."
Critics of the concept of white privilege from the political left sometimes point out that focusing white privilege undermines or ignores the class and economic nature of racism (i.e., that racism ultimately hurts every person, including whites), and that it runs the risk of branding all white people regardless of economic stature (including, presumably, working-class whites) or social or cultural history as "beneficiaries" of racism. Those pursuing anti-racism along this class-based analysis criticize the white skin privilege analysis as just another more advanced form of identity politics, instead advocating multi-racial unity as the true anti-racist solution.
Proponents of the white skin privilege concept maintain that white people are unaware of how their racial privilege operates on a daily basis. Thus they may consider themselves anti-racist but are not pro-actively conscious of what proponents of the concept claim are their own unfair advantages. Because it has a tendency to be invisible to the very people that profit from it, many argue that white privilege is a particularly insidious (and, to those who benefit from it, effective) form of social control to dismantle.
Conservative commentator Steve Sailer argues that, while white privilege may be real, "t's not 'unearned.' It was earned for you by the hard work and self-discipline of your ancestors and relatives."
Whiteness studies is an emerging field of academic inquiry that emerges from the desire of some to accept the white skin privilege theory as valid, and to understand and dismantle it.
References
- WhitePrivilege.com, an anti-racism resource
- Allen, Theodore. The Invention of the White Race: Racial Oppression and Social Control (Verso, 1994)
- Ignatiev, Noel. How the Irish Became White (Routledge, 1996)
- Lipsitz, George The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics (Temple University Press, 1998)
- Roediger, David R. The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (Verso, 1999)
- Rothenberg, Paula S., ed. White Privilege: Essential Readings on the Other Side of Racism (Worth, 2004)
- Williams, Linda Faye. Constraint Of Race: Legacies Of White Skin Privilege In America (Penn State, 2004)
- Wise, Tim. White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son (Soft Skull, 2005)