We hear a lot about 'privilege' these days. Whites, particularly males, deny they have any special privileges. Blacks and other people of color insist whites do have privilege. This use of the term seems to be of recent currency, though for some white folks, the first introduction to the term 'white privilege' came in 1989 in Peggy McIntosh's article, White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. She brought the point home by asking people to answer 26 questions such as:
13. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.
14. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
15. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
But I'd like to point out that white folks unconsciously acknowledged the idea of privilege (if not exactly white privilege) well before that. As we looked for more delicate terms for 'poor' we hit upon "underprivileged."
Find synonyms for:
Adjective
1. underprivileged (vs. privileged), deprived, disadvantaged, underclass(prenominal), poor, unfortunate
usage: lacking the rights and advantages of other members of society"
Jeff Kunnerth wrote in the Orlando Sun in 1989:
Euphemisms have eliminated old people from America, a place now populated by "senior citizens." They have done away with the poor, retarded and ambitious, replacing them with the "underprivileged," the "mentally handicapped" and the "upwardly mobile."
And people in the US tended to think of blacks as poor, so underprivileged has a racial tinge too.
Writing in 2009, Marcus Bell, in Reflections of Whiteness: The Origins, Progression, and Maintenance of White, writes:
"Today there is a term used to describe people who are at the bottom of the socio- economic spectrum. The term is “underprivileged.” This can be applied to poor people, minorities, women, or any group of people who are now, and have historically been exploited or discriminated against. Paraphrasing Tim Wise (2004), the passive voice of the term underprivileged implies that no one did anything. “It’s as if one day someone said ‘here is privilege and I’ll be damned, there you are under it’” (p. 36). This addresses the overall structure of American society as it pertains to race. Speaking socially, culturally, politically, and economically, America was initially shaped and flourished under the banner of white supremacy. As a result, America has established generally accepted “race neutral” policies that inherently advantage whites but are not considered racist because these policies do not specifically mention race."
So, the term "underprivileged" has been around a long time and has been used as a euphemism of poor.
As Bell writes, the term doesn't mention race. It just implies people who did not get all the 'privileges.' Who then, gets the privileges?
The implication - since this is about being poor - is people who aren't poor. The term, again, following Bell, doesn't mention social, economic, and political structures that keep the poor 'underprivileged.' It's a step up from the belief that the poor are poor because they are simply lazy and don't want to work, but not by much. It still implies that fixing the problem means fixing the individuals by providing them something that will allow them to get out of poverty.
This is a long introduction to the idea that the term "White Privilege" doesn't ring true to many whites.
First, because 'underprivileged' means to them neutral (race-less) poverty. Privilege, in reverse, is not something you get because of race, but by having enough money.
Second, whites, particularly blue collar males, in the US have seen their economic status slip over the years. Unions that protected them have been badly weakened. Blue collar jobs have been sent overseas or lost to automation. Pensions have evolved from defined benefit to defined contribution, or disappeared altogether. Health insurance tied to jobs disappeared with the jobs. Minimum wage has been stagnant while maximum wage seems to be limitless for the few. Though, Republicans have blamed the change in economic security on others - particularly immigrants - who are willing to work their jobs for less money.
So, when people talk about White Privilege, these folks don't see any privilege attached to being white. They see it attached to not being poor. And as their own economic situation worsens, they feel more and more that they themselves are underprivileged. So their whiteness gives them no special privileges. They don't see that their whiteness gives them a privileges compared to blacks in their same economic situation.
And while it's true that a larger percentage of blacks and other POC are poor than whites, whites still make up the largest number of poor people of any ethnic group.
And, of course, this doesn't account for the whites who still are economically comfortable. What they can see, though, is that today they are competing for jobs with women and POC. In the 50s and 60s this was pretty much NOT the case. Women were to stay home and take care of the kids, and POC were simply not given access to the better jobs. These are people whose power was taken for granted. And with the idea of the work ethic part of the mythos of the United States, those who succeeded understood it was because of their own superiority and hard work, not the fact that women and blacks were not in the competition.
The ironic part of all this is that we now 'see' whiteness. White people conscious now, in a way they weren't 40 years ago, that they belong to a group called white. Sure, they knew that in the past, but then it was conflated with American. Now, lots of people who are not white, are also claiming their equal rights as Americans.
I think it's the losing of privilege that is freaking whites out. And their resistance, in part, stems from still being in denial that their relative good life in the past was due, not to their own merit, but to their own privilege compared to people of color.
And some are coming out from hiding and declaring publicly the supremacy of whiteness.
