I recently completed a course called Race and Healing, and I’ve come away from the experience more bothered and even more convinced that education policies driven by standards and accountability will further marginalize and disempower people who are already deprived of full equity and justice in our society. (See Confronting Racism in Literacy Education and Research, Journal of Literacy Research, Spring 2005, by Jacqueline Edmondson, for a critical analysis.)
Last week, on the final evening of the class, we participated in what was called the “Privilege Walk.” Each person took one step forward when they could affirmatively respond to a statement based on their race. There were about two dozen statements.
A sample of some of the statements
- I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
- 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.
- I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
- I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
- I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
- When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
The list was read item and by item, alternating between each of the two facilitators. The class members advanced one step at a time toward a line, all moving in the same direction, some more steadily than others. The statements were taken from an article called White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, by Peggy McIntosh. [pdf version]. Most of the White people in the room advanced every step, which I expected given the point of the exercise. What surprised me, was how far back in the room the Blacks, Native Americans, and Asians were. It was sobering. When asked how she felt being in the back, a Native American woman said, very frankly and matter-of-factly, “I wish I was up there,” and she gestured forward toward the front of the room, as if to say “anywhere but here.” I was touched by the overwhelming realization that I had no idea how it must feel to be standing where she was. I learned that
Taking white privilege for granted is one of the benefits of white privilege.
Peggy McIntosh echoed my thinking.
I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group.…I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was “meant” to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks.
Describing white privilege makes one newly accountable…
An excellent place to start would be for those with privilege to acknowledge it.
Reading multicultural literature is a great place to begin this discussion with kids. We also need to share alternative definitions of literacy with them, definitions that are not based on right and wrong answers to questions. We need to teach kids to respect their own understandings and to express their ideas in language that is clear and authentic.
We all need to talk about the injustices of racism and its connection to schooling. It’s unpleasant and difficult, but pretending it isn’t there won’t make it better. There’s a lot more for me to say, but it’s too big of a topic for a single blog entry. We exposed a malignancy that touches everyone. I’ll need to process the meaning of this for a long time.
12 Comments
Now there’s a thought-provoking way to start my day. Thank you.
This is a very important post. Reading the McIntosh article as a sophomore in college changed my life, and set me on the path that I am on today. I’ve actually used this article to start a conversation with high school students. It worked incredibly well when I had a class of all white students. It had some limitations in a more racially diverse classroom, but was still useful in starting an interesting conversation. I think the real power of white privilage is its invisibility, and that you are right when you write that the place to start for is perople, like us, who benefit from white privilage to acknowledge that we have it. The Privilage Walk sounds like a very powerful experience, one that I will use the next time I am teaching this topic to white sudents.
I’m going to copy this post and hand it to every person who complains about “playing the race card” as a way to dismiss any discussion of race in society. It’s become a piece of the “invisible” racism that allows white priviledge to maintain its “comfort zone”.
An interesting discussion on this topic took place at Practical Theory back in March.
This reminds me of an old Elton John song:
“Can you feel the self-loathing tonight?”
1. I can, if I wish, arrange not to be in the company of people of my race, the human race, most of the time.
2. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in which I would want to live.
3. I can be pretty sure that I will be neutral or pleasant to my neighbors in such a location.
4. I can go shopping alone most of the time in areas and at times I am pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
5. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race, the human race, widely represented.
6. When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people made it what it is today, for better or worse.
7. I can not listen to the prattle of others on a daily basis as espoused by 99% of the MSM and universities in the US.
8. I can choose to live in a country that denies me most of the rights given to US citizens, like France, PR of China, Russia, Vietnam, Cuba, or Mexico.
9. I can choose to value people based upon their character and actions instead of the color of their skin, political or sexual orientation.
10. I can choose to be an American, and not a hyphenated Native “Indian” – American (Abenaki).
11. I can choose to point out color injustice, wherein someone is singled out just because of the color of their skin; like when “White Privilege” is used to stop a discussion on the topic of color.
True enough, we are all members of the human race. The concept of race is a social construct – not a biological difference. On the other hand, self-loathing has not been my experience. Nor has anyone said anything to make me feel such a thing. The notion of privilege is simply an accounting of the advantages some gain through no effort of their own. Without recognizing it, I’d have a harder time understanding the discussion.
I have followed a couple threads about the Privilege Walk and found it very interesting where they lead. I run a youth personal development and leadership organization and we have used the Privilege Walk for years in some of our workshops, but I have to saw that I never even considered it to be based on White privilege.
Perhaps that is because I am white, naive, or simple an idealist, but in South Florida, where I live, there is rarely a high school or college group that we work with that doesn’t have 10 or more races/ethnicities represented. When we run the activity, the races are split – some minorities in front, some in back and the same with white students.
This process usually stirs up great conversation with the students, and students equally vocal whether they are at the front or back. The conversation inevitably shifts to valuing people for other reasons, not based privilege…and this is where the learning comes from.
Something I haven’t seen spoken about is the second part to the activity. We then have the students line up again and read a second set of statements…this time, all based on choice. These second statements are all things they have conscious choice over, regardless of their starting point (privilege) in life.
It’s incredibly powerful for the students who end up in the back of the line with the first statements and end up in the front on the second set. It’s equally as awakening for the student who finished further back the second time than the first – a waking up to how they have perhaps squandered their opportunities.
I’ve read some of the threads of people who have criticized this activity. All I can is that in my experience, when done well and processed effectively, this has been a very powerful exercise for people of all races.
Keith,
Thanks for your contribution to this thread. I like the idea of trying out different sets of questions since they would sort with different criteria. It would be interesting to see if a group, after doing the exercise, could develop a set of questions they believed would tell them something about themselves.
In the group of people I was with, the members of racial minorities were not all in the very back, but scattered, which seems to say something about the uneven workings of racism in our culture. For me, I knew where I would end up when the exercise began, even though I don’t normally think of myself as Privileged. I would say that I was naive. I didn’t know how the taken-for-granted leaves people feeling when they don’t have it, or when they have to fight to get it.
I agree, it is a powerful exercise and needs to be handled with skill and sensitivity.
I missed this somehow. Awesomely done. I was a McIntosh, think it’s a cousin?
I have no idea how to relate inside a “white group” anymore I’ve been so long enjoying this world I came to live in. Of late I think I want to just be in more space so much seems to be going downhill.But I do teach immigrants, some illegal, that are the current political football.
I have really enjoyed reading this blog about the “Privilege Walk”. I am a white, heterosexual male in America and I run workshops on racism, privilege and alliance building for high school students. I, too, have facilitated the privilege walk, but I am always curious to see the different ways it is managed.
For instance, as Keith said above, I have usually run it as an exercise about privilege, but not specifically about white privilege. Although I have done it with the focus being on white privilege as well. The results are different, but I would still say that in either form, there are more white people up front by the end of the exercise and people of color near the back, regardless of which list I read. The most recent time I facilitated the exercise, I had an interesting discussion with the participants (students and teachers). Someone said, “I didn’t think you were asking the right questions.” This, I thought, was a fascinating point. That I – a white male – was making up the rules for the exercise, was a good metaphor for privilege in society.
The question is, who is asking the questions? Who is making up the rules? It is true in my experience that the list of privileges is almost entirely focused on externalities and not personal choices. Keith, I would love to hear more about how you run the second half of your “Privilege Walk” (the part that focuses on choices).
Justice then Peace,
Lance
Thanks, Lance, for your contribution here. It’s been a while since I read this. I’m wondering about the implications of using “choice” as a filter because opportunity is still a necessary factor for any choices we could seriously consider. Without opportunity, our desires are wishes, or hopes.
This idea of white privilege is one of the most vile and evil forms of racism which has come down the historical highway. The language of 20th century genocides and general class hatred ring loud and clear through the vague and empty words of Peggy Mc Intosh and fellow travelers like Tim Wise.
Just look at Mc Intosh’s list most of them are based on feelings not facts plus they would fit nicely into the social fabric of any other of the world’s nations. Such activities as the privilge walk are meaningless, solve nothing, opens the door for animosity, guilt, handwringing expressions of false guilt and a denial that (real) differences exist. And, by the way, for those who have made a religious mantra about white privilege which ones of peggy’s privileges can you give up?
I noted the words Justice then Peace. Telling one particular ethnic group that they are racists because they have privileges over which they have no control is not Justice and I can assure you that Peace will not be the end result of this blatant racism.
Learning, by definition, is not meaningless. Constructing meaning is the primary function of human consciousness. And it, alone, solves nothing. However, if new knowledge leads a person to be more considerate in the choices he makes, immeasurable benefit to the world accrues. This is an old teaching which is apparently difficult for some people to understand. I’ll have more to say about this in due course.
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White Privilege and Racial Healing…
…The fight against structural racism, and the unjust privileges that ALL white people gain from it, must start by acknowledging this privilege, as Doug eloquently argues. And then the next step, which Doug took by posting, is helping other whites t…..
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