White Privilege
By Wayne Hare
Written in response to an inquiry about a board’s position on the wording of a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion statement.
White privilege. I think that when white folks hear that term they hear money. And whether they grew up with ‘real’ money or not, either way it strikes them as offensive. I guess they feel it negates the effort that they’ve put into getting where they are. Look at Donald Trump. He had an annual income of $200,000 when he was three years old, but still insist that he’s self-made. No help along the way.
The term refers to all sorts of things that are just a part of being the dominant culture, and I’ll get into that in a moment. But it’s hard to deny that relationship to money. I’m willing to bet serious stakes that almost every one of your board members received at least some inheritance and will leave a decent inheritance to their kids or other family members. Far fewer black families receive an inheritance. We’ve all heard these numbers. According to The Atlantic families where the head of household is employed, white families have ten times the wealth (net worth) of black families. A conservative estimate suggests that it will take two centuries to close that gap. That’s a complicated legacy of slavery, land theft and institutionalized, systemic racism.
A $10,000 inheritance is considered ‘transformative’, so some researchers have focused on that amount of an inheritance as sort of a base line and found that among college educated black families, about 13% receive an inheritance of more than $10,000 compared to 41% of similarly credentialed white families. But the contrast grows more stark. Of those families who do receive an inheritance of over $10,000, the average white inheritance is $150,000 versus $40,000 for black families. $150,000 is enough to pay of the average student debt of $30,000 and put the required 20% down on a $575,000 house. That’s key, because the main source of wealth for the vast majority of Americans is home equity. And it isn’t hard to imagine that families who receive a $150,000 inheritance don’t have student debt to begin with. They had family help there as well.
The median wealth for black families with a college degree and student loans by the time the head of the household is 65 years old is about $65,000 versus about $422,000 for a similar white family. That head start on wealth provides a momentum that last not only a life time, but continues to expand and be passed on from one generation to the next. Surely some of your board members who may not have had a chauffeured limousine driving them to exclusive country clubs, still received not only an inheritance of over $10,000, but had help with college debt as well. That’s white privilege.
Bret Kavanaugh made a pretty big point of letting it be known that he’s self-made with no help along the way. He claimed to have gotten into Yale on his own merits. Except he didn’t. Bret, like several of your board members, was a legacy student. His grandfather had attended Yale. And funny how so many recipients of college legacy programs object to the helping hand of affirmative action programs to get into college. That’s white privilege.
The most likely way to get a good job is through one’s contacts., i.e. networking. A friend or friend of a friend knows of a good upcoming job and passes the info along to you and probably a recommendation to the employer. Most African Americans don’t have those contacts. That’s white privilege.
College financial assistance, college acceptance assistance, inheritance, job search…those are all examples of financial white privilege that at least some of your board members who objected to the audacious term ‘white privilege’ have enjoyed.
Attached is an essay from a prominent white woman, Peggy McIntosh, who just kind of listed the privilege that she enjoys. Most are somewhat poignant. But I’d add a long list of common micro-aggressions that those who are white are privileged to not experience. Small things like I’ve mentioned like finding a movie that positively reflects people who look like me. Or the countless times white people marvel at our hair and ask to touch it. Or the many times white people comment on how white our teeth are…in our contrasting black faces. Or how traitorous and guilty I sometimes feel enjoying country music - which is usually associated with rednecks. Or the joy of eating a slice of watermelon in public without feeling like a caricature of a porch monkey. (Incidentally the attached photo is a picture that I took when I was in southern NC on a wildland fire in 2016 of an establishment that I drove by every day whose main product seemed to be ‘porch monkeys’. 2016…not 1916.) Or the idiot former friend who just a few years ago ‘complimented’ me by telling me that I’m a good ambassador to my race. I’m a negro that has been blessed with his white approval. Hooray for me!
I don’t object to white privilege and I can understand that white folks have a hard time seeing as different the only thing they’ve ever known. As I wrote in my HCN piece on the Dixie school district in Marin County, “As one black county resident said to me - For animals who live in the water, when they look up and see animals who live on the land, any thought that the land creatures don’t have gills is unimaginable. Not legitimate. They can only see the world through the only thing that they’ve known their entire existence. Gills are the way of the world. They aren’t bad creatures. They’re just ignorant. How could they not be? They’ve never experienced the world the way that the land critters have.” But I do bristle a bit when white folks insist on staying in denial…as your board did.
Well…there you go. Probably much ado about nothing.