Entry 2: White Privilege

Copyright The Tennessee TRIBUNE Sep 1, 1999
White Privilege
Here's what white privilege sounds like:
I am sitting in my University of Texas office, talking to a very bright and very conservative white student about affirmative action in college admissions, which he opposes and I support.
The student says he wants a level playing field with no unearned advantages for anyone. I ask him whether he thinks that in the United States being white has advantages. Have either of us, I ask, ever benefited from being white in a world run mostly by white people?
Yes, he concedes, there is something real and tangible we could call white privilege.
So, if we live in a world of white privilege, unearned white privilege-how does that affect your notion of a level playing field?
He paused for a moment an said, "That really doesn't matter."
That statement, I suggested to him, reveals the ultimate white privilege: the privilege to acknowledge to acknowledge you have an unearned privilege but ignore what it means.
That exchange led me to rethink the way I talk about race and racism with students. It drove home to me the importance of confronting the dirty secret that we white people carry around with us everyday: In a world of white privilege, some of what we have is unearned. I think much of both the fear and anger that comes up around discussions of affirmative action has its roots in that secret. So these days, my goal is to talk openly and honestly about white supremacy and white privilege.
White privilege, like any social phenomenon, is complex. In a white supremacist culture all white people have privilege whether or not they are overtly racist themselves. There are general patterns, but such privilege plays out differently depending on context and other aspects of one's identity (in my other kinds of privilege.
Rather than try to tell others how white privilege has played out in their lives, I talk about how it has affected me.
I am as white as white gets in this country. I am of northern European heritage and I was raised in North Dakota, one of the whitest states in the country. I grew up in a virtually all white world surrounded by racism, both personal and institutional. Because I didn't live near a reservation, I didn't even have exposure to the state's only numerically significant non white population American Indians.
I have struggled to resist that racist training and the ongoing racism of my culture. I like to think I have changed, even though I routinely trip over the lingering effects of that internalized racism and the institutional racism around me. But no matter how much I "fix" myself, one thing never changes-I walk through the world with white privilege.
What does that mean?
Perhaps most importantly, when I seek admission to a university or apply for an apartment.
I don't look threatening. Almost all of the people evaluating me for those things look like me, they are white. They see in me a reflection of themselves, and in a racist world that is an advantage. I smile. I am white. I am one of them. I am not dangerous. Even when I voice critical opinions, I am cut some slack. After all, I'm white.
My flaws also are more easily forgiven because, I am white. Some complain that affirmative action has meant the university is saddled with mediocre minority professors, I have no doubt there are minority faculty who are mediocre, though I don't know very many.
As Henry Louis Gates Jr. once pointed out, if affirmative action policies were in place for the next hundred years, it's possible that time the university could have as many mediocre minority professors as it has mediocre white professors. That isn't meant as an insult to anyone, but is a simple observation that white privilege hat, meant that scores of second-rate white professors have slid through the system I because their flaws were overlooked out of solidarity based on race, as well as on gender, class and ideology.
Some people resist the assertions that the United States is still a bitterly racist society and that the racism has real effects on real people. But white folks have long cut other white folks a break.
I know, because I am one of them.
I am not a genius-as I like to say, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I have been teaching full-time for six years, and I've published a reasonable amount of scholarship. Some of it is the unexceptional stuff one churns out to go tenure, and some of it, I would argue, actually is worth reading. I work hard and I like to think that I'm a fairly decent teacher.
Every once in awhile, I leave my office at the end of the day feeling like I really accomplished something. When I cash my paycheck, I don't feel guilty.
But, all that said, I know I did not get where I am by merit alone. I benefited from, among other things, white privilege. That doesn't mean that I don't deserve my job, or that if I weren't white I would never have gotten the job. It means simply that all through my life, I have soaked up benefits for being white.
I grew up in fertile farm country taken by force from non-white indigenous people. I was educated in a well-funded, virtually all-white public school system in which I learned that white people like me made this country great.
At one time in my life, I would not have been able to say that, because I needed to believe that my success in life was due solely to my individual talent and effort. I saw myself as the heroic American, the rugged individualist. I was so deeply seduced by the culture's mythology that I couldn't see the fear that was binding me to those myths.
Like all white Americans, I was living with the fear that maybe I didn't really deserve my success, that maybe luck and privilege had more to do, with it than brains and hard work. I was afraid I wasn't heroic or rugged, that I wasn't special.
I let go of some of that fear when I realized that, indeed, I wasn't special, but that I was still me. What I do well, I still can take pride in, even when I know that the rules under which I work in are stacked in my benefit it. I believe that until we let go" of the fiction that people have complete control over their, fate-that we can will ourselves to be anything we choose then we will live with that fear. Yes, we should all dream big and pursue our dreams and not let anyone or anything stop US. But we all are the product both of what we will ourselves to be and what the society in which we live lets us be.
White privilege is not something I get to decide whether or not I want to keep. Every time I walk into a store at the same time as a black man and security guard follows him and leaves me alone to shop, I am benefiting from white privilege.
There is not space here to list all the ways in which white privilege plays out in our daily lives, but it is clear that I will carry this privilege with me until the day white supremacy is, erased from this society.
Frankly, I don't think I will live to see that day; I am realistic about the scope of the task, However, I continue to have hope, to believe in the creative power of human beings to engage the world honestly and act morally.
A first step for white people, I think, is to not be afraid to admit that we have benefited from white privilege. It doesn't mean we are frauds who have no claim to our Success.
It means we face a choice about what we do with our success.


In “White Privilege” Robert William Jensen gives his opinions about white-privilege, and his own experiences with having white-privilege. After having a conversation with a white student about affirmative action in college admissions, Jensen realized that the ultimate white privilege is the privilege to acknowledge that one has an unearned privilege but ignores what it means (3A). He calls it the “dirty little secret” that whites have in that in the world of white privilege, some of what they have is unearned. Furthermore, the more that he tries to fix this, it never changes: he still walks through the world with white privilege. He goes on to give examples on how white privilege has helped him. In essence, other whites see a reflection of themselves in Jensen, and his flaws are more easily forgiven because he is white. With all that said, Jensen also believes that he did not get through life with merit alone, but has benefited from white privilege as well. But even so, he has let go of some of this thinking: “We all are the product both of what we will ourselves to be and what the society in which we live lets us be” (3A). Whatever way people decide to see white privilege, one thing is clear to Jensen: he will carry this privilege with him until the day white supremacy is erased from society.

I chose this article because Jensen gives his opinions and first hand experiences about white privilege. I think that it is important to hear these experiences from someone who has actually experienced it, instead of hearing or reading what it may be like. Jensen gives good insight into how white privilege works. I can read about white privilege in books, but to actually read about what a person has gone through and feels about white privilege is more important in giving insight about the subject. Jensen was also blunt about his statements, and it only supported his views even more.

In reference to Jensen’s statements about benefiting from white privilege, this idea goes back to Allan Johnson’s book, Privilege, Power, and Difference, where he states that access to privilege does not determine outcomes, but it is definitely an asset (22). All of the examples that Jensen gave about benefiting from white privilege shows that it is truly an asset, whether it is seeking admission to a university or applying for an apartment. “They (people evaluating him) see in me a reflection of themselves, and in a racist world that is an advantage” (Jensen 3A). This also links to social construction because throughout history being white was given an importance that it previously did not have. Thus, this catapulted it into mainstream society, and led people to believe that being white means being on top. White privilege can be seen as conferred privilege, which gives one group power over another. Jensen believes that he achieved his current position not just by merit alone, but also because of white privilege. This gave him power over other members of minority groups, and it led him to a job as a professor. Even if another professor of a different race was better than him, it does not matter because Jensen is white and the other professor is not.

I think that when Jensen says that his white privilege benefits him in everyday life, he is being truthful and blunt. Whenever I go to school or go to the mall, it is evident that white people just get treated a little bit better than minorities. Whites may not realize this because they are not being singled out, but as non-white female, I see this a lot. So I think that, in a sense, it was brave of Jensen to bring forth these observations because many people do not really realize the power of white privilege. Jensen explains the situation from his point of view and from his experiences, and that definitely translated into something that people can actually understand. His honesty is also very refreshing because not a lot of whites would admit that they have a certain privilege that others do not have.


Jensen, Robert William. "White Privilege." The Tennessee Tribune 1 Sept. 1999: 3A.

Johnson, Allan G. Privilege, Power, and Difference. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006.