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The Benefits of White Privilege
By Anthony Bouyer, PhD
Guest Column
Racial imagery is central to the organization of the modern
world. Whose voices are listened to, who gets what jobs,
housing, access to health care and education, what cultural
activities are subsidized and sold, in what terms they are
validated?
Public perception drives public policies. Because of
people’s capacities and worth, the judgments based on what
they look like, where they come from, how they speak, even
what they eat, those are racial judgements. Race is not the
only factor governing these things, but it is never not a
factor, never not in play.
Yet, until recently, a notable absence in the study of
racial imagery has been the study of images of white people.
To say that one is interested in race has come to mean that
one is interested in any racial imagery other than that of
white people. Yet race is not only attributable to people
who are not white, nor is imagery of non-white people the
only racial imagery.
In fair social systems, individuals generally get what they
strive for according to predictable rules that apply equally
to everyone. This tenet of U.S. society, that most citizens,
regardless of race, believe ought to be the case. However,
in reality, the rules do not work the same way for everyone.
Dominant groups make the rules in order to retain control
over the resources of the society. Different groups actually
experience societal rules differently.
Most people in the U.S. analyze who gets what only in terms
of individual effort and ability. Privilege allows people to
assume a certain level of acceptance, inclusion and respect
in the world. Privilege grants a presumption of superiority
and social permission to act on that presumption without
having to worry about being challenged.
Race privilege is more about whiteness than it is about
white people. Black and people of color are not race
privileged because of who they are. Whiteness is privileged
in this society. Since being white is valued in this
society, whites tend to compare themselves with other
whites, not people of color.
Peggy McIntosh, American feminist,
anti-racism activist, scholar, speaker, and senior research
scientist of the Wellesley
Centers for Women, in
her work on white privilege, "White Privilege and Male
Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See
Correspondences Through Work in Women’s Studies,”
says that denial surrounds the subject of advantage which
whites gain from minorities’ disadvantages.
These denials protect white privilege from being fully
acknowledged. McIntosh says whites are carefully taught not
to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to
recognize male privilege, and whites have come to see white
privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which
they can count on cashing in each day, but about which are
to remain oblivious. According McIntosh, white privilege is
like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions,
maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes and blank checks.
McIntosh described 25 privileges her whiteness afforded her.
Do to the lengthiness of the list; I will only submit the
following:
1.
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.
2.
I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well
assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
3.
When I am told about national heritage or about
“civilization,” I am shown people of my color who made it
what it is.
4.
I can be sure that my children will be given curricula
materials that testify to the existence of their race.
5.
Whether I use checks, credit cards, or cash, I can count on
my skin color not to work against the appearance of
financial reliability.
6.
I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from
people who might not like them.
7.
If a traffic cop pulls me over or the IRS audits my tax
return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of
my race.
8.
I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without
having my co-workers on the job suspect that I got it
because of my race.
For people of color, and particularly African American males
unfortunately, their race and gender has been priced cheaply
and these privileges are inconceivable if not totally
foreign to their imagination. The existential chasm between
white privilege and being a black male is the price of
taking a black man’s life. To be a black man is to be marked
for death. How do these marks appear? How that is the black
male body “presents itself “as an object to be killed?
Unlike white privilege, black people, especially black males
are subject to a virtual probation. the presumption
that black people are disposed to criminality and they are
guilty until proven innocent. Some white people do not have
to harbor conscious racial animus against black people to
conclude black people are criminals or otherwise dangerous,
being black and particularly male does all the signifying
work.
Virtual probation
is the object of a criminogenic gaze. Regardless of the race
and gender of the perceivers, black people, especially black
males, are perceived as criminals. The virtual unanimity of
this perception (a transracial consensus) is an artifact of
white supremacy. This perception is counterfactual.
Black people are perceived as always guilty of a crime (or
of being predisposed) in the absence of evidence, even in
the presence of contrary evidence. Black criminality is
ontological.
If you think that this clam is exaggerated, then consider
the remarks of former Secretary of Education William
Bennett. Speaking of the relationship of race and crime, he
remarks: “But I do know it’s true that if you wanted to
reduce crime, you could—if that were your sole
purpose--abort every black baby in this country, and your
crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible,
ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your
crime rate would go down.” Bennett, recipient of a PH.D in
philosophy, ontologizes black criminality.
To be subjects of this kind of knowledge is to be subjects
of virtual probation. Part of the disagreeable if not unfair
part of being on probation is that you become one of the
“usual suspects.”
When crimes occur, or when they don’t occur, the police come
looking for you. They treat you with disrespect; pressure
you to confess to crimes, provide information they presume
you have, and threaten to arrest you.
With impunity if not immunity, they make your life
miserable. They rough you up and beat you down. You have
little recourse. Who would believe you if you complained.
The police have presumptive moral credibility, you do not.
You are trapped by your presumed convict status. Civically
speaking, you are virtually dead.
The subjects of virtual probation are always under
suspicion, subject to question, to being stopped and
frisked, in danger of being deprived of their liberty, if
not their life. Acting as an ally to people of color is one
of the most important things that white people can do. An
ally is not identity, it is a practice. An ally is someone
who not only shows up, but also one who stays around for the
long term.
Acting as an ally means living each day in alliance with
people of color in the struggle for racial justice because
we recognize that we are interdependent.
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