White privilege
[8][9] For example, American academic Peggy McIntosh described the advantages that whites in Western societies enjoy and non-whites do not experience as "an invisible package of unearned assets".
These include cultural affirmations of one's own worth; presumed greater social status; and freedom to move, buy, work, play, and speak freely.
[1] The American Anthropological Association states that, "The 'racial' worldview was invented to assign some groups to perpetual low status, while others were permitted access to privilege, power, and wealth.
[20][21] As such, most definitions and discussions of the concept use as a starting point McIntosh's metaphor of the "invisible backpack" that white people unconsciously "wear" in a society where racism is prevalent.
[5][6] Academics, such as Charles V. Hamilton, have explored how European colonialism and slavery in the early modern period,[7] including the transatlantic slave trade and Europe's colonization of the Americas, began a centuries-long progression of white privilege and non-white subjugation.
[4] Sociologist Bob Blauner has proposed that this era of European colonialism and slavery was the height, or most extreme version, of white privilege in recorded history.
Their increasingly anti-slavery policies were seen as a threat by the Dutch-speaking settlers, who were afraid of losing their African and Asian slaves and their superior status as people of European descent.
[25] In 1932, Zaire Church News, a missionary publication in the Zaire area, confronted white privilege's impact from the European colonization of central and southern Africa, and its effects on black people's progress in the region: In these respects the ambitions of profit-seeking Europeans, individually and especially corporately, may become prejudicial to the educational advance of the Congo people, just as white privilege and ambition have militated against Bantu progress on more than one occasion in South Africa.
By June 15, 1969, The New York Times reported that the National Office of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was calling "for an all-out fight against 'white skin privileges'".
"[40] In the late 1980s, the term gained new popularity in academic circles and public discourse after Peggy McIntosh's 1987 foundational work "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack".
[47] The concept of White privilege marked its transition from academia to more mainstream prominence through social media in the early 2010s, especially in 2014, a year in which Black Lives Matter formed into a major movement and the word "hashtag" itself was added to Merriam-Webster.
"[53][54] A 2022 study found that mentioning white privilege results in online discussions that are "less constructive, more polarized, and less supportive of racially progressive policies.
Critical race theorists such as Cheryl Harris[57] and George Lipsitz[58] have said that "whiteness" has historically been treated more as a form of property than as a racial characteristic: in other words, as an object which has intrinsic value that must be protected by social and legal institutions.
Because of this, academic and societal ideas about race have tended to focus solely on the disadvantages suffered by racial minorities, overlooking the advantageous effects that accrue to whites.
"[15]: 311–312 According to Blum, in workplace cultures there tends to be a partly ethnocultural character, so that some ethnic or racial groups' members find them more comfortable than do others.
[72]She does say, however, that defensiveness and discomfort from white people in response to being confronted with racial issues is not irrational but rather is often driven by subconscious, sometimes even well-meaning, attitudes toward racism.
[79] Drawing on political scientist Danielle Allen's analysis that demographic shifts "provoke resistance from those whose well-being, status and self-esteem are connected to historical privileges of 'whiteness'",[80] Smith explored the interconnectivity of the concepts: The hallmark of addiction is "protection of one's source."
[87] Research conducted by the Journal of Southern African Studies in 2008 has investigated how white privilege is generationally passed on, with particular focus on the descendants of German Namibians, who arrived in the 1950s and 1960s.
Laws such as the 1950 Population Registration Act established criteria to officially classify South Africans by race: White, Indian, Colored (mixed), or Black.
These elements of "whiteness" establish social status and guarantee advantages for some people, without directly relying on skin color or other aspects of a person's appearance.
[101] In 2009, writer Jane Jeong Trenka wrote that, as an adoptee to a white family from the United States, it was easier for her to recognize its function in Korean culture.
[103] In 2014, the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario received media coverage when it publicly advertised a workshop for educators about methods of teaching white privilege to students.
The federation stated that it required the offender to demonstrate that he had taken measures to increase his awareness of white privilege before he would be allowed to attend any future congress.
[107] Later in the year, a former First Nations in Manitoba grand chief stated how many indigenous Canadians perceived the court system of Canada to discriminate against them under the structure of white skin privilege.
[112] Some social scientists also suggest that the historical processes of suburbanization and decentralization are instances of white privilege that have contributed to contemporary patterns of environmental racism.
[131] Daniel A. Farber and Suzanne Sherry argue that the proportion of Jews and Asians who are successful relative to the white male population poses an intractable puzzle for proponents of what they call "radical multiculturism", who they say overemphasize the role of sex and race in American society.
[119]: 5 The FHA also channeled money away from inner-city neighborhoods after World War II and instead placed it in the hands of white home buyers who would move into segregated suburbs.
[161] In 2019, a National Bureau of Economic Research study found white privilege bias in Harvard University's application process for legacy admission.
[167][168] Catherine Koerner has claimed that a major part of white Australian privilege is the ability to be in Australia itself, and that this is reinforced by, discourses on non-white outsiders including asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants.
[188] Similarly, Massey University scholar Malcolm Mulholland argued that "studying inequalities between Māori and non-Māori outcomes allows us to identify Pākehā privilege and name it.
