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

  1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
  2. 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.
  3. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
  4. I can go shopping alone most of the time, 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 widely represented.
  6. 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.