White People Make Everything About Race

When we hear the word privilege, many of us envision a worry free life of sunshine and leisure, to many of us it implies coasting through life having our every need attended to. And, to most of us, it bears little resemblance to the daily challenges, worries, frustrations, and struggles that we know all too well. Since the early days of colonial America, in order to maintain the capitalist system that we are under, in order to have enough willing accomplices to keep the social, political, and economic gears churning, and to keep the real benefits accruing upward, token rewards have been placed on offer for those who don’t challenge the system.We are told that the privileges that we and others are afforded don’t exist, but they lurk constantly at the edges of all of our conversations and interactions, they lurk at the edge of our consciousness. They are phantoms, present but unacknowledged, felt but uncomfortable. But if we don’t challenge this system that is predicated on arbitrary advantage and disadvantage, we must accept the unnecessary and cruel disparities that exist in our communities —  disparities that damage our values, our beliefs, and our spirituality — disparities that do irreparable damage to our own humanity on an individual and collective scale.While it is true that white privilege exists, white privilege is a lie -- it is wrapped up in an unholy bargain that hurts us all.See show notes and more at whitepeoplemakeeverythingaboutrace.com

The Fifth Phantom of While Privilege is embedded deep within us, it is baked into our Sense of Self. Those of us who are characterized and treated as white have the privilege of not thinking about race, how it impacts those around us, and the impact is has within us. We are afforded the luxury of seeing ourselves as individuals, not as a part of a racialized group, and this creates the mental space for us to develop and claim an individual identity, to believe deeply that we are one certain way, to see the injustices and indignities carried out by a white-dominated society but separate ourselves from them. Not only do we not have to think about race generally, we don’t have to think about our own whiteness and how our own actions are inherently racialized. Show Notes (listed chronologically):The Souls of Black Folk. W.E. DuBois 1903.All right, “color-blind” colleagues, we need to have a talk. Vu Le. Nonprofit AF. April 24, 2017. nonprofitaf.com/2017/04/all-right-color-blind-colleagues-we-need-to-have-a-talk/Between the World and Me. Ta-Nehisi Coates. 2015. Spiegel & Grau.The Costs of Code-Switching. Courtney L. McCluney, Kathrina Robotham, Serenity Lee, Richard Smith & Myles Durkee. Harvard Business Review. November 15, 2019. hbr.org/2019/11/the-costs-of-codeswitchingFor Black parents, 'the talk' binds generations and reflects changes in America. Gustavo Solis. 2021,March 10. https://phys.org/news/2021-03-black-parents-america.htmlLet’s Reconceptualize “Imposter Syndrome” for People of Color What It Means, How It Affects Our Students, and What Higher Ed Institutions Can Do About It. Cokley, Kevin. August 15, 2024. Harvard Business Publishing Education. hbsp.harvard.edu/inspiring-minds/lets-reconceptualize-imposter-syndrome-for-people-of-colorWhite Supremacy Culture – Still Here. Tema Okun | May 2021. whitesupremacyculture.infoFrom White Racist to White Anti-­Racist: The Lifelong Journey. Tema Okun, dRworks. 2006.Notes of a Native Son. James Baldwin. Beacon Press. 1955.Requiem for a Nun. William Faulker. Random House. 1951.Is Declining Mental Health in the U.S. a White Phenomenon? Racial Disparities in Mental Health from 1997 to 2018. IPUMS Center for Data Integration. ipums.org/sites/www.ipums.org/files/peele.pdfSuicide by mass murder: Masculinity, aggrieved entitlement, and rampage school shootings. Rachel Kalish, Michael Kimmel. SUNY at Stony Brook, NY. Health Sociology Review (2010) 19(4): 451–464.The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. Heather McGhee. Penguin Random House. 2021.Racing to Justice: Transforming Our Conceptions of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society; john a. powell. Indiana University Press. 2012. The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction 1948-1985. James Baldwin. St. Martin’s Press. 1985.See show notes and more at whitepeoplemakeeverythingaboutrace.com