The term or phrase “white privilege and white fragility ” was popularized by Peggy McIntosh in her 1988 essay “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” This essay helped to articulate the concept of unearned advantages that white people experience in society.
For most individual’s whether white, black, brown etc. Loretta Lynn singing “Coal Miner’s Daughter” about an impoverished family struggling to make ends meet to put food on the table, roof over your head and clothes on your back rings very true for majority of families, of course minus the growing up in West Virginia and working in a coal mine.
Lowest Median Household Income:
- Owsley County, Ky., $19,624
- Jefferson County, Miss., $20,281
- Wolfe County, Ky., $21,168
- Brooks County, Texas, $21,445
- McCreary County, Ky., $21,758
- Hudspeth County, Texas, $22,083
- Hancock County, Tenn., $22,205
- Jackson County, Ky., $22,213
- Clay County, Ky., $22,296
- Holmes County, Miss., $22,335
Six of these counties are in Appalachia, according to a listing by the congressionally funded Appalachian Regional Commission — the five in Kentucky and Hancock County, Tenn. All six have populations that are more than 90 percent white. The two counties in Mississippi are about 85 percent black and the two in Texas are more than 77 percent Hispanic and Latino. Based on Oprah Winfrey’s assessment if a person is white, no matter where they come from or what challenges they have faced, they have it good. According to her view, white people continue to get ahead simply through the good fortune of having been born to white parents. This “white privilege,” she purports, has made it possible for white people to rise above minorities, providing them with an extra boost. And there they stay, even today.
According to this flawed narrative and warped perspective, personal histories don’t matter. Character counts for nothing. Individual circumstances and individual responsibility are inconsequential.
This is far too simplistic a way to look at our world. Moreover, it is blatantly wrong. There are many potential influences that can have a real impact on a person. In the greater scheme of things, skin color is among the least relevant when it comes to predicting a person’s future success.
Economic status, for example, is a far more important determinant. Whether we like it or not, money is truly the great equalizer and enabler in this world. Those with the privilege of financial security certainly have significant advantages over those without. This indisputable fact remains true regardless of the color of your skin.
How do people write bullshit like this link to article Understanding White Privilege and actually believe what they are stating is accurate?
For some historical context the term white privilege originated in the US in the 1980s, referring to both the obvious and the hidden advantages afforded to white people by systemic forms of racial injustice. Unlike terms such as “racial injustice” and “systemic racial bias”, the idea of privilege centers the discussion around individuals.
Focusing the discussion on the individual is especially effective for the purposes of anti-racist teaching and advocacy. Unpacking how whiteness operates to bestow privilege may allow us to understand how ‘others’ are systematically denied those same rights.
By the mid-2000s, the term white privilege had been adopted by many educators and activists in the US. They were seeking to call attention to the myriad ways in which whites, regardless of their class, benefit from white supremacy and are, therefore, implicated in maintaining the system. For whites in the US, where many live in racially homogenous communities, the concept of white privilege could spark individual self-reflection and motivate individual political action.