Recently, I discussed the denial of racism from Black people. I wanted to analyze what’s happening because I’m obsessed with understanding denial, self-deception and delusion. Similar to the denial of racism, I’ve also been blown away by the denial of white privilege from white people.
In 2020, like millions of people around the world, I saw the video of what happened to George Floyd, and it messed me up. Whenever there are these Earth-shaking events, I just sit there and ask, “How does this happen?” It wasn’t just that another unarmed Black person was killed by the police, but the whole thing was filmed.
These cops were fully aware that people were filming them, and it didn’t even phase them.
Around this same time, it was months after Ahmaud Arbery was murdered while jogging, but we were just hearing news about it. This Black man was murdered in broad daylight for the crime of exercising.
As the conversations, debates and protests began to erupt around these events as well as the death of Breonna Taylor, I did what I always do when I have questions that won’t leave my head: I start reading as many books as possible and doing additional research.
When I really want a different perspective and to understand, I read books by people from that specific group. For example, to better understand feminism, I read books by women who are feminists. To better understand what drives the opposing side, I read books by conservatives.
So, I started reading a ton of books by Black authors, and it hit differently. Why? Well, for those of you who don’t know, I’m half Black, but I look pretty damn white. It’s extremely rare that anyone realizes I’m half Black, and I usually have to show pictures of my dad and show other evidence just short of providing a DNA test. For some reason, Black people know I’m half Black, which I still don’t know how they do, but it’s pretty interesting.
But although I’m half Black, as I read these books, I realized there are just so many things that I’ve never had to worry about. As someone of my complexion, I don’t have to worry about the police kneeling on my neck until I suffocate while they’re being filmed. I don’t have to worry about some hillbillies chasing me down and shooting me while I’m going through a neighborhood.
Even in the case of Breonna Taylor, I’m far less likely for a no-knock warrant to happen. And if it did happen, the research says it’s highly improbable that the police would see me as a threat and shoot me in my bed.
This, amongst many other scenarios, is white privilege. I can’t even imagine how cognitively taxing it must be to worry about so many situations Black people who have a darker skin color than me have to worry about.
As I write this, I just remembered what happened to Philando Castile. The man told the police that he had a license to carry and had a gun in the car, and as soon as he moved, they murdered him in front of his family out of fear. With so many 2nd-amendment-loving people running around and open-carrying, how many of them have had to worry about this?
But when I started to research white privilege and observe the conversations around it, I was blown away by how many white people refused to admit that white privilege was a thing. Although it was as clear as day to me, I kept asking, why can’t they see the same thing?
So, today, I wanted to break it down and try and see if we can understand what’s going on. We’ll start with asking, “What is white privilege?” Then, we’ll discuss how it works. I want to understand why people deny it exists, and we’ll go over a paper that has, what I think is the best theory about this denial. Most importantly, I really wanted to discuss why so many white liberals will acknowledge white privilege but won’t actually do anything about it.
What is white privilege?
In short, white privilege is the advantages an individual experience due to the fact that they’re white. It’s not super complicated, but for some reason, it’s extremely hard for people to grasp. As I mentioned in the intro, I realized there are just so many things that I’ll never have to worry about.
If you really want a good reference for white privilege, I just started an amazing book that I’ve been binging. It’s called Black Fatigue: How Racism Erodes the Mind, Body, and Spirit by Mary Frances-Winters. The author explains all of the things that Black people have to worry about and deal with on a daily basis from racism in the workplace, to getting an education and getting proper healthcare. The book is filled with research, studies and statistics as well.
I think one of the best examples of white privilege that a person can’t deny is just the policing of Black hair. Did you know that Black people literally have to pass a law to prohibit discrimination of their natural hair? The Crown Act was introduced by Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey in 2021, and Black people are waiting to see if it’s cool that they just grow their natural hair.
Do you know how insane that is? If you’re white, how many times have you had to worry about just growing out your hair? Employers see Black hair as “wild” and “unprofessional”. Imagine, for just a second, that your straight hair was seen as “wild” and “unprofessional”.
This is where the white privilege deniers come running in, screaming, “I can’t do my hair however I want! I couldn’t just come in with a mohawk or dye my hair purple in a professional setting.”
What this is talking about is doing something to your hair. This is completely different than its natural state of being, and it’s one of the mental gymnastic routines white people do to deny this is an issue. Black people aren’t fighting to dye their hair a crazy color, they’re just trying to not have their afro policed.
Imagine if white women had their bosses tell them they couldn’t grow their hair out. Maybe some professional settings won’t let men grow their hair super long unless it’s in a ponytail, but this is still different than a well-kept afro or dreadlocks.
Anyways, go get Mary Frances-Winters book.
But aside from just the fatigue Black people deal with, there are some white people who think that they’re the ones being oppressed. They refuse to acknowledge that white is the default in the United States, and that comes with its advantages.
One of the first reasons I think there’s so much denial around white privilege is the same reason nepotism babies refuse to admit they were handed anything. You’ve seen these people born into rich families, raised in good neighborhoods, had their tuition paid for by their parents and then get a great job and say, “I did it all on my own!”
Nobody wants to admit that they got anything handed to them or that they had an advantage. This is a form of self-deception because we want to believe we’ve earned everything we have.
The reality is that you can work hard and have an advantage. What privilege does is give you a head start and additional resources to make your outcomes a little bit easier to come by. White people don’t have to worry about any of the biases that happen when you’re a Black person and trying to simply make a good life for yourself.
And this is when even more denial comes in and white people start telling you about all of the disadvantaged white people who also struggle. This is an extremely weak argument, and I wanted to dedicate an entire section to this topic.
Welcome to the veil of ignorance
One of the common things you’ll hear when white privilege is discussed is that there are so many disadvantaged white people, and how dare you say they’re privileged. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say, “This is why people turn Republican! Do you know how offensive it is to tell a white person who grew up in poverty and in an abusive household that they’re privileged?!”
While I don’t like Robin DiAngelo, I think it’s important to note that this is what she’s talking about when she says “white fragility”. If you’re too sensitive to have this conversation, you’re being extremely fragile and need to chill out. So, if you can’t have an adult conversation, you may want to leave now.
Nobody is saying that some white people don’t have it bad. Hell, nobody is saying white people don’t face their own biases. I think the best example is lookism. If you’re conventionally attractive in this world, you have it better than most people. I’ve been overweight most of my life, and I always have to wonder how much my weight plays a role when something doesn’t work out in my favor.
But although the beautiful people have it better than most of us, if you had a beautiful white person and a beautiful Black person, the white person has the advantage.
The reality is that in literally any situation if you put a white person and a Black person side by side, and both were identical on every metric, the white person has the advantage.
So, yes, there are millions of white people who grew up in traumatic environments with alcoholic or addicted parents who abused them. There are millions of white people who are homeless or are in poverty.
But, if I took a white person in this situation and a Black person in this situation, who is going to have an easier time crawling their way out and getting on their feet?
Which of the two is more likely to be seen as lazy? Which one is more likely to get an entry-level job? If both got an entry-level job and worked equally as hard, which one is more likely to get a raise? Which one is more likely to get government assistance? Which one is more likely to get mental healthcare if they’re struggling with a psychological disorder?
If you’re still not sold yet, let me introduce you to the moral, legal and political philosopher John Rawls.
John Rawls created a thought experiment that showcases white privilege perfectly. It also shows all of the other issues of inequality in America when you run it. Rawls was interested in justice and fairness, so he created a thought experiment called The Veil of Ignorance.
Here’s the Veil of Ignorance with my own little twist on it.
Let’s say tomorrow you die and wake up in a big void of nothingness. There’s a person or some celestial being there who says, “Welcome to death. There’s no Heaven or Hell. You just get reincarnated. You’re going to be born in a new body, but you get to choose the exact circumstances you’re born into.”
From there, this being basically gives you a menu where you can choose whatever you want. Here are some of the categories on the questionnaire:
What race do you want to be born as?
What country do you want to be born in?
Do you want to be born in a rich or poor family?
Do you want to be disabled or able-bodied?
Do you want educated or non-educated parents?
And so on.
Let’s focus on the race question real quick. Knowing everything you know, what race would you want to be born as?
Well, if you would want to be born white, it’s because part of you recognizes the advantages there are to being white. If you’d want to be born anything other than white, ask why. And if you’re lying to yourself, you need to go work some things out.
Another topic I’m passionate about is wealth and opportunity inequality, so I’ll be revisiting Rawls’ veil of ignorance again. But the point Rawls is trying to be is that if you can’t be born into any circumstances and have the same opportunities, something is definitely wrong, and we need to address it.
If the majority of people know for a fact that it’s better to be born white, then we clearly have a white privilege problem.
Again, most people recognize that it’s advantageous to be born white in America as well as many of the other successful nations around the world. So, why do they deny it? And more importantly, why don’t we do anything about it?
Why we won’t give up our privilege
I was actually first introduced to the concept of white privilege from one of the first standups I ever watched, and still one of my all-time favorites. It was Chris Rock’s 1999 standup Bigger and Blacker.
In it, he says, “There’s a white one-legged bellboy in the lobby who wouldn’t switch places with me!...AND I’M RICH!” and he discusses how the bellboy is like, “Nah man. I want see how this white thing plays out.”
While hilarious, it’s extremely true. Regardless of how many people lie during the veil of ignorance thought experiment, we know that many white people would prefer being white. Why? Because it comes with its advantages. One must wonder how far off Chris Rock is when he makes the joke about a one-legged bellboy.
Sure, having one leg is rough. But is it rougher than being Black?
Since my main area of interest is psychology and human behavior, I started searching to see if anyone had done any research on white privilege. Specifically, I wanted to know if there was any research on why people are in denial about it.
Well, not only did I find some research, the authors also have a separate study that provides some evidence-based solutions.
This research has been conducted by Dr. L Taylor Phillips and Brian Lawery, Ph.D. Lowery is a professor of organizational behavior and senior associate dean for academic affairs at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He’s also a social psychologist by training. Phillips is a professor of management and organizations at NYU Stern School of business who focuses on diversity, equity and inclusion.
I first came across their work when I read their paper titled Herd Invisibility: The Psychology of Racial Privilege.
The abstract states:
Whites’ everyday experiences and behaviors to underlying motivations (i.e., innocence and maintenance) shaped by their privileged position in the social hierarchy.
So, they wanted to understand what the motivations are behind the denial of white privilege from white people. Economists understand that humans are driven by incentives. As rational as we think we are, there’s always an incentive at play, and sometimes, these incentives are unconscious.
It’s important to highlight that these can be unconscious because most people aren’t purposely racist, nor do they want people of other races to be mistreated.
The other issue we face is something called “identity protective cognition”. We all have an image of “self”. We have an idea of who we are and what type of person we are. When something challenges that self-perception, we go into this protective mode that causes a ton of dissonance as we try to rationalize the situation in order to avoid disrupting who we believe we are.
Lowery and Phillips theorize there are two main motives at play when white people deny their privilege:
We suggest that this strained relationship with reality, while not in the same league as that of our churchgoing ancestors, requires management of the obvious existence of racial privilege. However, privilege is often experienced as invisible to those who have it. How can this be? Here, we suggest that individual actors, motivated to maintain either positive self-regard (innocence motive) or privileges associated with their group’s dominant status (maintenance motive), will engage in behaviors to cloak their privilege. As a result, invisibility emerges at the societal level and can thus protect both the privileges and the innocence of individual privileged actors—even when they do not individually engage in these protective actions.
This, right here, explains why it’s so difficult for white people to see privilege, and it’s the best explanation I’ve seen for what’s going on.
That innocence motive is basically the identity-protective cognition we just discussed, but I think the one that’s much more difficult for people to face is the maintenance motive. And honestly, I don’t know what the solution is.
They go on to say:
Whites want to maintain privilege, and racial privileges depend on the stability of an unequal racialized social system that tends to provoke resistance.
What they’re saying is that it’s good to be white, and this is a zero-sum game. For every advantage a white person has, in order to have a truly equal society, they’d have to lose that advantage.
I could write another 20 pages on this topic alone because it’s the same challenge we face with wealth and opportunity hoarding. It’s why there’s so much slacktivism in the world today.
It’s easy to sit back and talk the talk and say that you want people to have it better, but the second that means we’re going to have to give something up, the mental gymnastics begin.
A few weeks ago, I made a video about Hasan Piker being a fake socialist, and this is the same issue. He can sit back and scream about progressive ideas and equality so long as it doesn’t mean he has to give up that sweet, sweet lifestyle he has.
But I digress. In the case of white privilege, think about the opportunities afforded to white people when it comes to going to good schools and getting a good job. Schools only have so many openings, and it’s the same for jobs. For white people to give up their privilege, they’re basically shooting themselves in the foot.
Due to identity protective cognition, you’ll rarely get a person to admit this. Everyone sees themselves as a giving, altruistic person. So, you’ll hear every excuse in the book to not actually make our society equal.
Although I’m a leftist, this is much worse when it comes to white liberals. It’s worse because white liberals virtue signal by saying they want this equality, but when it comes down to it, they aren’t willing to make the sacrifice. That’s why we get so many NIMBYs.
“Yeah, I’d love if underprivileged Black kids could go to better elementary schools, but just not the one in our neighborhood.”
“Yeah, I believe in equity, but I don’t think someone should get into a good college or a job because of their race if it’ll affect me.”
Chris Rock’s bit ends with him saying, “For white people, the sky’s the limit! But when you’re Black, the limit is the sky.”
So, what’s the solution?
Well, while researching this, I realized Lowery and Phillips actually have more papers they’ve co-authored. In a separate paper titled The hard-knock life? Whites claim hardships in response to racial inequity, they found a way to get white people to tune down their denial a little.
The abstract starts off by saying the following:
What happens when people are faced with evidence that their group benefits from privilege? We suggest such evidence will be threatening and that people will claim hardships to manage this threat.
Sound familiar? It should be because we discussed this at the beginning.
These claims of hardship allow individuals to deny that they personally benefit from privilege, while still accepting that group-level inequity exists.
Again, this is extremely common. Look at the people who grew up wealthy and never had to have real struggles. All of them believe they worked hard and have had a difficult life. In a previous video, I discussed Netflix dating shows and lookism. Something I regularly notice is how these beautiful people who also grew up in rich families have to find something in their life that was difficult.
It’s like, as humans, it’s impossible to state we had it pretty easy.
Well, Lowery and Phillips were able to figure out a hack to get people to recognize their privilege.
What they did was run two experiments. In the first, they show white people evidence of privilege and inequality. This first group got defensive and would then state the personal hardships they experienced. But in the second experiment, the experimenters had the participants do self-affirmations.
Once these white people were feeling good about themselves, not only did they recognize more personal privilege, but they also showed increased support for inequity-reducing policies.
Pretty cool, right? So you just need to make white people feel good, and we’ll get more equality.
I kid, but in all seriousness, I’m skeptical of these results in practice. There’s a major difference between supporting something and actually going through it. While these people may have vocally supported these things, I’d be curious to see them put their money where their mouth is and take action.
What would happen if you had these people do the self-affirmations and then immediately vote on something that would take away some of their advantages? Would they still support these policies that promote equality? Or would they snap out of it?
I’m usually a pretty bright-eyed optimist, but based on my experience, it’s extremely hard to get people to make a sacrifice for the greater good. We can’t even get universal healthcare when we’re basically the only advanced nation that still doesn’t have it. Why? Because people would have to pay more taxes to give people equal access to medical care.
People don’t like their money messed with, and I get it. We all have families, and we all want what’s best for ourselves as well.
Trust me, as someone who thinks about this stuff all the time and rants about people like Hasan Piker as well as just about every other rich person, it’s regularly on my mind. I think if we hope to get anywhere near an equal society, we all have to start asking ourselves what we’re willing to sacrifice.
Are you willing to potentially not get a great job with great pay so an equally qualified Black person can get it? Are you prepared to have your son or daughter miss out on an opportunity to create a more equitable opportunity for a Black kid?
These are tough questions to ask ourselves, and it’s even tougher to make the noble choice. But until we start recognizing our privilege and getting past our denial of privilege, it’s impossible to make progress. So, hopefully, now that you’re armed with the information, you can start considering what you’re willing to sacrifice so we can counteract the inequality that Black people are still facing in 2022.
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I wouldn't exactly say that white privilege never exists, but I'm generally very skeptical of people who make a bid deal about it. Some reasons:
- Police killings of unarmed Black people are widely publicized but actually very rare, averaging roughly one a month in a nation of over 300 million. The riots seem to have caused a homicide spike that killed more Black people in 2020 than the cops did. See https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/what-caused-the-2020-homicide-spike.
- I have almost never encountered overt anti-Black racism (and only in rural Idaho where there were no Black people to be inconvenienced by it), but most major institutions have some sort of equal opportunity or DEI function office trying to improve prospects for Black people. It doesn't seem to be working that well, but they're trying and I'm not convinced there's much more they could do.
- Race is only one variety of privilege in the world. It seems like people who talk about white privilege are usually well-educated urban professionals who are hardly underprivileged by most standards. If I see somebody talking about improving the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (for example), I am much more likely to believe that they are actually concerned about the most vulnerable members of our society.
Do you take critical feedback and/or insight?