White Privilege
White privilege. What’s that? White people have choices and advantages simply because of the color of their skin. Many whites are unaware of it. Peggy McIntosh, a noted women’s studies scholar in her classic essay “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Backpack,” wrote: “I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group. 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.”
Speaker
Michael Eric Dyson
Michael Eric Dyson, a globally renowned scholar of race, religion and contemporary culture, is the Centennial Chair and University Distinguished Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies at Vanderbilt University. A dynamic speaker, he lectures widely. Among his many books are April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King’s Death and How it Changed America, Tears We Cannot Stop, Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur, and Jay-Z: Made in America.
kay clement –
Just had the honor to hear Michael Eric Dyson’s talk on white privilege. Powerfully given. With all the unrest in this country, I have been closely, uncomfortably, examining my own naivety about race and the privilege I experienced throughout my life. I was taught to believe we are all the same. I was also taught the subtle levels of being human in this society; male over female, white over people of colors, rich over poor. we were all told in school that we could be anything we wanted to be. I heard how we white people ‘bragged’ about how enlightened we became during the 60’s and 70’s doing away with Jim Crow laws and how we passed laws the make ‘all men equal,’ but it was only surface progress. We did not got into the depths of the continued injustices to people of color, to women, to LGBT folks as well as prejudices aimed at religions that are not Christian. We still practiced segregation to all who were not white or Christian or ‘accepted’ sexual genders.
this time, we have to do the hard work and not be self satisfied with surface progress. We have to delve deep into the not so comfortable waters of how we can do REAL change; with our society, with our community, with oursleves.
Tyler O’Connor –
Excellent! Really interesting and great information. Thank you.
Julia –
I heard the Michael Eric Dyson broadcast and was filed with love for you for
this wonderful program that you provide. You rock!
Ann –
Great talk. What can white people do to help stop the murders by police, and the failure of the system to put the murderers in prison?
Johnathan Christian –
I sat in the parking lot, late to work because I didn’t want to end this early. Very insightful and had Sam Coleman (1 star comment below) actually listened to this and not had a knee jerk reaction, then he might have understood the title and how deftly applied it is. As a white man I do understand the difficulty acknowledging that the bubble I’ve grown-up surrounded by, never knowing for much of my life such a bubble even existed or how large and shiny it is. When we start to examine said bubble and re-balance society in the name of justice, fairness, and equality, then we can begin to heal our nation and chart a tenable course towards a future for all regardless of the social codification we grew-up with.
Sam Coleman –
Whenever I consider all the injustices to blacks in the United States over the years it knocks the wind out of me. The stain of racism may be our single greatest obstacle to national greatness. At the same time, though, I have to express lots of frustration about “white privilege.” So much of this is a variation on what I’ve been hearing for decades now. I can go to every white privilege workshop as a white male, scrub my soul pure pure pure and wake up the next morning to the same shitty racist world.
Professor Dyson, had it occurred to you that the title of your talk will turn off the very people we need to reach? “You’re white so your privilege makes you ten feet tall and bulletproof… whoever you are.” Have you seen the latest stats on suicide and drug addiction among middle aged whites (male and female)? Let’s reach out to them with insights about shared repression and exploitation. Yes, it’s called social class, and I venture to suggest that you can’t understand American racism without studying class dynamics, and you can’t understand American class dynamics without studying racism. Thanks to decades of red-baiting, though, we can’t talk about class and economic exploitation of EVERY working class person, white or not.
Meanwhile, though, next time there’s a “white privilege” workshop I’ll sit it out, thank you. If I missed something in your talk please do forgive me. Given the title and the excerpt I didn’t have time to sit through the whole thing.
Bryan Baker –
Your program – I get to hear it every so often on KALW (San Francisco) is amazing. On Monday, I heard Michael Eric Dyson and I couldn’t get out of the car until the end of the hour. This has happened with A.R. before. Thank you, thank you!
Steven Kloetzel –
Dr. Dyson is brilliant and inspirational, a modern MLK Jr. All high school kids should hear this speech, and as many white Americans as possible. Thank you!!
Çhristina Crawford –
“This was the best talk on race and white privilege that I’ve ever heard. I wish everyone in America could hear this.”