White Privilege

History of Research on White Privilege

In the United States, the current understanding of the term “white privilege” became common in the late 1980s and 1990s after authors and social scientists began addressing the issue of implicit racial bias and systemic oppression. One of these writers, Peggy McIntosh, was a women’s studies professor who compared white privilege to male privilege. She described it as an invisible knapsack, full of special provisions, codebooks, tools, and other unearned assets that help white people navigate through society in a way that people of color cannot. These invisible benefits could always be counted upon, even if the bearer did not recognize it. White people in the United States are generally taught that racism is something that creates a disadvantage for people of color, but they do not always see the other side of that experience, which means that white people have an advantage. McIntosh theorized that white people in the United States are carefully taught to not recognize these invisible benefits and, therefore, can experience strong emotional reactions whenever they are forced to recognize these benefits. These strong emotional reactions can take the form of defensiveness, anger, and/or disbelief and can result in cognitive reactions such as dismissing evidence, denying others’ experiences, or even trying to turn the experience around and claim to be disadvantaged themselves.

At various times throughout history, people in the United States have declared that race problems in the United States have effectively ended, including when Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president, was elected. However, a review of history and current events reveals that race is still very much a problem in the United States, from racial discrimination in housing and job opportunities, to vast disparities across all sectors of the judicial system, to differing treatment for school children of different races in the areas of tutoring, career counseling, and punishment.

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