'It's not my fault I'm white'

Privilege works in a funny way. Most of the time, privilege is either something we are born with or something we are born without. Black or white. Male or female. Gay or straight. The list goes on. Yet for some reason, the human race still, often unknowingly, gives a privilege to certain types of people. After participating in an in-class activity in which students gained a sweet for each privilege they had, I came away feeling something that is almost unexplainable. Sure, it’s not my fault that I was born with so many privileges, but that’s not the point.

As British people, we live in a society that has roots in racism. We live in a society that was built from men in power. We live in a society that does not realise the effects of privilege. For example, a study measuring modern prejudice found that white people’s perceptions of non-white people were easily changed depending on how the study influenced them to feel (Perry, Murphy & Dovidio, 2015). This suggests that how we act is influenced greatly by others and their opinions. Growing up in a society that values one over another, through no individual’s fault, results in some of those values being unconsciously carried with us, unless we are aware of the problem and act upon it. I have never been so aware that in this country, as a white person, I am more likely to get a job compared to someone from a BAME background (Zwysen & Demireva, 2018) but I am less likely than a male counterpart to get that job (Fernandez-Mateo & Fernandez, 2016). I am unknowingly benefitting from my white privilege, so unknowingly that I have not considered what it may be like for someone who is not white. I am white, and it is not my fault. But I have to acknowledge this privilege in order to be a part of the solution to stop the inequality it causes for others. I can either feel embarrassed by it or I can be a part of the change. We need to become a part of the solution, rather than letting feelings of guilt overwhelm us and let that guilt enable any and all privileges to linger.

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References

Fernandez-Mateo, I., & Fernandez, R. M. (2016). Bending the pipeline? Executive search and gender inequality in hiring for top management jobs. Management Science, 62(12), 3636-3655.

Perry, S. P., Murphy, M. C., & Dovidio, J. F. (2015). Modern prejudice: Subtle, but unconscious? The role of Bias Awareness in Whites' perceptions of personal and others' biases. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, (61), 64-78, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2015.06.007.

Zwysen, W., & Demireva, N. (2018). Ethnic and migrant penalties in job quality in the UK: the role of residential concentration and occupational clustering. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 1-22.