A Guide to White Privilege

For White People Who Think They Never Had Any

By Deborah Foster
I can relate to you. You are usually the white person who grew
up poor, often living a marginalized existence, who overcame
economic barriers to achieve a modicum of success as an adult.
Sometimes, you knew a lot of other Black or Latino poor people and
you compare yourself and your outcomes to theirs. Other times, you
dont really know anyone of a different race personally, but you have
notions about how people should face adversity and overcome it,
because you did. You apply these beliefs to people in what you
consider to be a colorblind way. No matter what, you want to
believe your race never got you anywhere. It was irrelevant to where
you are today.
Ive met you hundreds of times in classes I have taught on
Human Diversity, which in my Hield is really just a label to mean
teaching people about the dynamics of oppression and privilege in
the United States. When we start the unit on race and begin talking
about white privilege, you get angry and sullen. You grudgingly
admit there is racism in the world, but in the next sentence you say,

But I never had any white privilege. No one ever gave me anything. I
worked for everything I ever got. Even though I knew better, I once
had the same kinds of Hleeting thoughts. I was wrong and so are you.
In my case, after being returned to my mother from foster care
when the State removed us for not having sufHicient food or heat in
the house, our family moved to a community where we were one of
only a handful of white families. As the minority in our
neighborhood, I was both befriended and picked on. I made plenty of
friends, and the more time I spent with them, the more racism I
watched them face. When we went to the public library, at one time
or another, I saw a friend accused of stealing a video or book when
they had not. When we went to the McDonalds on the other side of
town, I was stunned to be harassed by a hostile group of white men
who told us to get back to our side of town or else. When my
boyfriend, who was black, and I were driving on the other side of
town, we were pulled over for no reason by the police and harassed,
searched, and intimidated for over an hour.
On the other hand, I experienced prejudice. My best friends
mother hated white people, and she did not bother to hide that
when I came over. I was suspended for Highting three times by the
tenth grade, and I started exactly zero of the Hights. Each of the Hights
had racial overtones with the perpetrator seemingly starting the
conHlict because I was white. We had had no prior quarrel. However,
I say I experienced prejudice rather than racism, because I Hirmly
believe that racism must be bigotry combined with institutional
power. Only white people have institutional power and maintain the
capacity to exercise oppression. People of other races can mistreat
white people, but they dont have the power to practice racism.
Yet, even believing all of this, when I entered my Hirst
multicultural education class as a college student, I balked when I
was told I had white privilege. I could accept that people of color
faced oppression and racism. I could accept that white people
perpetrated abuses and even that their institutions were biased
against anyone who wasnt white. But, I was stalled at accepting the

notion that I had white privilege. How could I, a woman who had
asked other school children for the leftovers on their lunch plates
when I was in elementary school be privileged? How could I,
someone who had a job by age 8, a job that caused multiple bouts of
frostbite and a bad back, be advantaged in any way? What about the
years spent with a suicidal, mentally ill mother who left me in the
position of raising four younger brothers and sister when I was ten
years old? That was misery, not privilege. Right?
Teachers assigned me the ubiquitous reading, Unpacking the
Invisible Knapsack of White Privilege, by Peggy MacIntosh, but Dr.
MacIntosh made the mistake of putting items in that version of her
list that represented economic privilege, not racial privilege, so
immediately, I disagreed with the list. She has since revised it.

It was then that a skilled multicultural educator at the
University of Michigan asked me to look at the list and see what I
could own. He asked me to make my own list, because as he said, I
know you can do this. I went away and in the end produced a
product that would become a book chapter in, Explorations in
Privilege, Oppression, and Diversity, by Anderson and Middleton. I
could now embrace what being white had gotten me.
My elementary school teachers initially labeled me as slow,
probably because we moved so many times in my Hirst grade year,
but a third grade teacher changed all that and had me entered into
the gifted program. The odds that plucking a poor child out of the
academic abysses would happen for a person of color are essentially
nil. Teachers expect less from people of color, and expectations have
a dramatic impact on outcomes.
I was hired for numerous jobs growing up that I have little
conHidence my Black friends would have gotten. These jobs seemed
burdensome at the time, but they helped me and my family at very
precarious moments. Then, my junior year of high school, I was
about to be expelled for too many absences to my Hirst class of the
day. I worked too much, too late, too often, and overslept for that
class way too many times. I believe that being white helped me

weasel my way out of being expelled. My Black friends in similar

situations were expelled.
These are just a couple of the examples that I generated. I also
used Dr. MacIntoshs examples of being able to read about history
from my races point of view, being able to worry about racism
without being seen as self-serving, being able to move into any
neighborhood I could afford and expect the neighbors to view my
family as non-threatening, not having to educate my children about
racism from a young age for their own self-preservation, etc. Coming
from poverty hadnt reduced or eliminated any of these privileges.
Now, as some twenty years have passed since I Hinally accepted
what it meant to have white privilege and how being a poor white
person didnt erase that. In that time, I have witnessed countless
white people from backgrounds similar to mine struggle more than
any other white people with accepting white privilege. I can
empathize, but if thats you, its time to start making a list.

A Guide to White Privilege for White People Who Think Theyve Never Had
Any was written by Deborah Foster for PoliticusUSA.
PoliticusUSA, Sun, Jan 26th, 2014 All Rights Reserved