Daily Effects of White Privilege
This portion of a larger study has a very accessible list of the pervasiveness of racism and white privilege in society today. The author is a professor in Gender Studies and has done a lot of research on the subject. The author makes the parallel between male dominance/the patriarchy and racism/white privilege. “I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege”. Just as males have a responsibility to speak out against injustices (and empower women to speak for themselves) towards women, white people should do the same when it comes to issues of race and privilege.
“My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfairly advantaged person, or as a participant in a damaged culture. I was taught to see myself as an individual whose moral state depended on her individual moral will. My schooling followed the pattern my colleague Elizabeth Minnich has pointed out: whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work that will allow “them” to be more like ‘us.'”
The document has a list of the “daily effects of white privilege”. This list could certainly be used in the classroom to enter conversations about deeper issues that surround these statements.
My thought for classroom use was to take each sentence on the list and “unpack” this part of the knapsack. For example:
Number 8, for example–>
8. ” I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.”
–> Could turn into a large class discussion about textbooks – or an analysis of your class’ textbook. They could tally how many times they see their identity represented in photos or words int heir course textbook and compare and contrast.
I am curious what sort of class you would use this for. Are you thinking of a very mixed ESL classroom with many/mostly minorities, or a more homogeneous classroom? It seems like something that should be in mainstream (non-ELL) classrooms in the US, but I guess we can’t have everything….
Thats a great question Melanie! Now that I think about it, this might work best in a teacher training situation with a homogenous group of mostly white teachers. I wonder if a group of minorities would even need this. Presenting this to students that feel these oppressions in the list may not be necessary and cause more harm than good.
Thank you for your question!
Hey Kate,
I think what you said in your response to Melanie holds some truth, but I think the conversation is always necessary. For example, I try to talk about white privilege with my more advanced students from Asia, but because they come from the dominant cultures within their own greater context, it makes no sense to them.
Another way to look at it is as strategies on how to approach others, as a person of color, to talk about white privilege.
I’ve had plenty times (especially here at MIIS) where white people have lectured at me how difficult it is to be a brown person in America. And my sentiments have always been “no …. duh?” A better way to frame their presentations/opionions probably would have been how to make white people (their culture) notice. Like what made them finally realize that it’s pretty good coming from the dominant culture?
Because people telling me how hard my life is isn’t going to help. But if you teach me how to effectively share my message to other camps, that’s gold.
Thanks for your comment, Ann! I hadn’t thought of taking it from that angle. I guess I said it “might do harm than good” in my comment to Melanie because I was thinking a bout the times you have explained that well yea, explaining that life is hard for people of color to people of color is kind of like a ….well duh. But if I were to frame this in a way that draws learner attention to the language features of the statements, and empowers linguistically them to acknowledge white privilege, that would definitely be a powerful lesson.
I am constantly wondering if it is really the responsibility of a person of color to explain white privilege to white people (the topic of the text I chose is kind of intended for white people to come to the realization and stop thinking in black and white terms). In conversations with friends in my social justice group in Undergrad, I remember my Dominican friend saying how she is “tired of having to explain white privilege this to white people”. That’s where my comment to Melanie came in as well. But I get what you’re saying and think that the text could be taken from many angles, it depends on the student body.
I’m curious to learn more about these students you had in Asia. What part of Asia? Did they not understand privilege, or were they simply unwilling to admit their own privilege as members of the dominant group? How did you react?
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