A Riddle for White People
★ text by Ellen Hill ★
edited by Sarah Kadous / graphic by Coco Lashar
A riddle for white people: what do you have but never earned, what do you enjoy but others suffer from, what is invisible but can’t hide once you see it?
Answer: white privilege.
White privilege is something many white people are uncomfortable with and struggle to understand, especially those who are not used to being generalised or defined by the colour of their skin. The word privilege can be hard to claim if you are a person of low socioeconomic status, have a disability or have experienced discrimination as part of the LGTBQ+ community — it can be seen as diminishing the struggles felt by intersecting identities that have been historically oppressed. Everyone has struggled. No one is denying that. But if you are white, I can guarantee those struggles were not generated nor enhanced by the colour of your skin. Admitting this is the first step.
White privilege has deep roots, spanning all the way back to European colonialism and slave trading. Its face has morphed and changed in order to manifest itself in today’s society, and although it looks like it has transformed, the general oppressive philosophy is the same. The term white privilege has always referred to the legal and systemic advantages white people have over people of colour. Historically, people of colour were legally unable to buy houses in unsegregated neighbourhoods or vote. While the U.S. Civil Rights movement changed the literal, written meaning of white privilege, this discrimination morphed into redlining, voter suppression laws, and other versions of the same concept. We are taught that racism occurs when people are mean to people of another race interpersonally, and this is a harmful portion of racism in its own right. What we aren’t taught, however, is that racism has even deeper claws in society; there are social systems and institutions which impose innate dominance over people of colour. We also aren’t taught that different races are affected by institutionalized and systemic racism in unique and separate ways. The struggles of communities of colour may overlap in some ways, but that is not to say that they are identical or equal. The fight against police brutality in particular, isolates the Black community in the overwhelming number of incidents in comparison to other communities of colour.
“What we aren’t taught is that racism has even deeper claws in society; there are social systems and institutions which impose innate dominance over people of colour.”
White privilege is so ingrained into our society that it can be hard to acknowledge its manifestations if you aren’t directly and negatively affected by it. White privilege can protect you from feeling singled out by your skin colour when pulled over by police. It can afford you the opportunity to not be followed around a store whilst shopping as if you are going to steal something. If you haven’t felt patronised or been told “you’re very clever for someone of your colour” after you said something mildly intelligent, you have white privilege.
One of the most powerful videos that I have seen (which I recommend everyone views) is a video featuring Joy DeGruy, who explains how her white-passing sister-in-law had a very different experience to hers when checking out at a grocery store. DeGruy was met with limited interaction and was asked to provide two pieces of identification when paying with a cheque. Her blue-eyed, lighter-skinned sister-in-law was met with pleasant conversation and no issues when paying with a cheque, mere seconds before DeGruy did. DeGruy explains how embarrassed her young daughter was by this, and how she had to choose her battles to avoid being deemed an “angry Black woman.” In the midst of a deeply humiliating situation, DeGruy’s sister-in-law utilised her privilege as a white-passing woman to call out the injustice by questioning the person checking them out and thus influencing everyone in that situation. It’s difficult to say exactly what the outcome would have been if a darker-skinned person had questioned the unfairness, but the privilege DeGruy’s sister-in-law had surely affected the way her point of view was received.
“Our opportunity to stay silent is an inherent part of our privilege.”
It’s not the time for any white person to derail the conversation by touting how much you have struggled too. It’s time for us to listen to people of colour, but not to stay silent. In regards to the international outcry in favour of the Black Lives Matter movement, our silence must not be our sanctuary. Our opportunity to stay silent is an inherent part of our privilege. White people have the chance to ignore this, and consequently have no worries about being negatively affected by it as profoundly as people of colour. We have allowed white privilege to accumulate its power whilst being convinced that it doesn’t exist for too long. When confronted with white privilege, we can’t take our embarrassment or discomfort as an excuse to disengage with this conversation. Now more than ever, we have to use our privileged position to uplift others.