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White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Backpack by Peggy McIntosh explains how men and white people are taught not to recognize their privilege, but to dismantle systemic racism, they must actively acknowledge their privilege. It is easy to be oblivious to the injustices that others face solely because of their gender or skin color.

Those with privilege must actively partake in recognizing where the privilege has gotten them. In a country with racism built in the fabric of societal structure, recognizing privilege and actively making change for marginalized communities will begin to dismantle systemic racism using the privilege you hold. Abolition and the recognition of privilege are imperative to redesigning social systems.

This article by the Chicago Tribune asks white people to recognize their white privilege, just as McIntosh asks, as a step towards racial equality.

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Fredrik deBoer, a lecturer at Purdue University and a writer whose work has been published in numerous newspapers and publications, recently wrote a piece entitled "Admitting that white privilege helps you is really just congratulating yourself," which was published in The Washington Post on Jan. 28. This is an attempt to respond to his thoughtful article.

Before we can even admit that we benefit from white privilege, we need to first truly understand what it is. White privilege is a set of advantages or immunities that white people benefit from on a daily basis beyond those common to all others. It is the presumption of white superiority within various structures and systems, which help to maintain the racial hierarchy in this country. Here's a lengthy list of white privileges articulated by Peggy McIntosh, a well-known feminist and writer on this topic, as well as a few I'll share here:

"I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race."

"I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed."

"I can choose blemish cover or bandages in 'flesh' color and have them more or less match my skin."

"I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me."

This everyday presumption of white superiority is rarely self-consciously held and is often a challenge for many to even see because they are built into our institutions and practices. It is like expecting a fish to see water. This is so because the presumption is simply the norm in U.S. culture and society. This norm of white superiority is deeply historical and manifested throughout United States legal history.

I also believe that acknowledgment of white privilege does nothing to dismantle institutionalized white superiority and, on the flip side of the same coin, structural racism. Public acknowledgments of white privilege, according to Fredrik deBoer, may simply serve to "deepen the self-regard of the educated white elite" when not accompanied by action that alters the status quo. The acknowledgment, whether public or private, may also indicate a step in a process that leads toward action. I find it is most helpful to think of white awareness as a continual process of acknowledgment, education, reflection and action. For one who is entering the process for the first time, it is a challenge to identify enactments and the presence of white superiority before one's eyes, much less work to extract it from institutions, practices and human interactions.

I would like to offer some next steps for those who have acknowledged their white privilege but who are not demonstrating to demand sentencing reforms, not crafting legislation to reform police practices and training, and are not on the front lines of Black Lives Matter. Be very quiet for a period of time (maybe four to six weeks) and listen. Hear some of the experiences, concerns and desires from various communities that are not white. Read their writings to add texture and depth to your understanding. Commit to learning some of the history of this nation so as to understand at least some of the ways in which it has imposed and required white superiority as a matter of law and policy from its founding. Find a way to support your processing of this learning; attend a seminar or institute, take a course, attend the White Privilege Conference (April 14-16), keep a journal of your thoughts on white privilege as a way to assist you in processing all of the information you will come across during this "listening and learning" period.

Like the acknowledgment of white privilege, this does absolutely nothing to create social change. It does, however, provide an important foundation that will help one to enter organizations and efforts underway to dismantle white superiority without inhibiting those efforts. Join a group that is taking action. Support those candidates whose policies and track record indicate the greatest opportunity to move your local community and the nation toward racial equality. Keep growing in your own understanding of white privilege, keep learning the history of white superiority and racial hierarchy, keep listening to the experiences of those whose racial label has ensured a dramatically different experience in society than your own. And continue to take action, to do work that creates structures, practices and relationships that reflect racial justice.

Disavowing white privilege is a critical step in a process that can lead toward racial equality, but it is only one step with more to follow. Fredrik deBoer offers an important challenge to those whites who can acknowledge white privilege: Don't stop with acknowledgment. It is only through action that structural white superiority will be dismantled. The question is whether those who can acknowledge it will prove to be merely jockeying for a position of greater righteousness, as deBoer suggests, or taking a courageous first step that will be followed up by actions that fracture and crumble one of the core pillars of social inequality: institutionalized white superiority.
Jacqueline Battalora, Ph.D., J.D., is the author of "Birth of A White Nation," a professor of sociology and criminal justice at St. Xavier University and a former Chicago police officer.

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Recognizing white privilege is a first step

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Fredrik deBoer, a lecturer at Purdue University and a writer whose work has been published in numerous newspapers and publications, recently wrote a piece entitled "Admitting that white privilege helps you is really just congratulating yourself," which was published in The Washington Post on Jan. 28.

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Intersectionality and the Abolition of Privilege

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Intersectionality and the Abolition of Privilege

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The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House by Audre Lorde discusses the role of intersectionality in the feminist movement. In particular, she discusses the role of queer black women within this context. She emphasizes that it is crucial to include queer black women in the discourse and to uplift them. Attempts to dismantle sexist oppression without the recognition of the effect that many people’s lived experiences have on their relationship to structures of power and oppression will never work.

Queer and black women must be brought into the conversation in order to dismantle structures of power and oppression.  Intersectionality is a crucial aspect of abolition. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other structural forms of oppression rely on each other to maintain power. Until people recognize their relationship, change cannot occur.

This image shows the layers of intersectional identity and the importance of recognizing them all. This image echoes the asks of Audre Lorde to recognize all layers of intersectional identity and uplift them all in the conversation.

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In her piece A Letter to White Southern Women, Ann Braden speaks to southern white women as a call to action to help wrongly accused Thomas Wansley. She describes how a black man is automatically assumed to be guilty when charged with rape by a white woman. White southern womanhood characterizes white women as needing protection and paints them as weak, fragile creatures while reinforcing their role as oppressors. White privilege and male privilege allow these women to be perceived as weak and allow the further oppression of black men under the guise of protection.

The myth of the white southern woman represents an attempt of white women to gain power within a patriarchal societal structure, but in this manner, these women inadvertently submit themselves as pawns in the white man’s game. Without the abolition and recognition of white privilege within this context, white people will continue to actively consent to the oppression of black men. White women must realize their intersectional role in the oppression of black women and men.

This photo says, "White Silence=White Consent, Stand Up!". Relating to Braden's article, the silence of white women has contributed to the systemic incarceration and genocide of Black men.