Everyone faces struggles in their lifetime, but you are privileged if the color of your skin has never caused or intensified those struggles.
This statement is the essence of what white privilege is. Everyone has gone through their own set of hardships. However, these hardships vary if you are a woman, of a certain religion that is not Christianity, if you are young, if you don't identify with the cishetero norm, or your economic status. These issues do not necessarily represent the hardships of all people of color and people who fall under these categories may be white. However, as the statement above suggests, one of these hardships has never been the color of your skin if you are white.
Acknowledging white privilege
No-one needs to feel guilty for the family that they were born into and the traits that you acquire. However, acknowledging the advantages and privileges that one has simply because of an inherited or ideological trait is important to recognize not only for equality with others different from you but also with equity in regards to the opportunities open to every racial group. These privileges can be seen in many forms throughout our lives...
Affirmative Action
"Protesters hold signs in front of the US Supreme Court on October 10, 2012, in Washington. The high court is scheduled to hear arguments on Fisher V. University of Texas at Austin and are tasked with ruling on whether the university's consideration of race in admissions is constitutional". (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) (CNN)
Your ability to get educated because white people have inherited wealth and are far less likely to have to work to help their families instead of pursuing an education or a college degree...hence affirmative action. However this very idea has brought its own issues, some saying it discriminates against asian minorities. This shows the complicated basis of many of the potential remedies for the disparate opportunities of white people with minorities.
Central Park 5 (Mass Incarceration)
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(L-R) Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, and Korey Wise, all of whom served prison sentences after being wrongly convicted in the Central Park jogger case, pictured in New York in 2012.
Credit: Michael Nagle/The New York Times/Redux/ (History.com)
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White privilege not only affects your opportunities, but the protections you have as inherently a "better citizen" than people of color. Black and Latinxs people are consistently stereotyped and purposefully criminalized in their actions especially living at higher rates of poverty than any other racial group. The prejudices have engendered the mass incarceration of BIPOC in the prison system. The word of a white person because of white privilege carries more weight in the justice system than that of a person of color. In addition, it can even be said that the rules of the justice system as we uphold it to work, only fully apply to white people. This exact failure of our justice system was seen with the case of the Central Park 5.
Using your privilege for betterment
"Black Lives Matter: If you’re white, pass the mic" PHOTO BY MIKE VON ON UNSPLASH/ FORBES
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In order to get any movement to have national momentum, the voice of the majority and the most privileged helps to get attention and serious political and systemic change done. During the Civil Rights Movement specifically during Freedom Summer, wealthy white college students were recruited to be at the front lines in recruiting Black people to vote and acted as a barrier between Black Civil Rights activists and the police. Their white privilege was used to harness the media and promote the movement itself while exposing the injustices of the law enforcement. With the Black Lives Matters movement, white people as allies are necessary to further the success of the movement and create lasting change against discrimination in the United States. Being anti-racist begins by acknowledging this privilege and using this privilege to eventually eradicate it. The following article from Forbes expresses the very way in which the lived experiences of white people will never be the same as that of a Black person but increasing awareness and activism to address systemic issues is vital for justice.
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