When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
This. From White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh.
Don’t get white privilege? You’re not alone.
I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was “meant” to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools , and blank checks.
Relax–it’s not your fault that it’s there. You didn’t make it; you didn’t ask for it. No one is insulting you personally when they say you have it; they are just trying to make you see.
I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.
There are some glitches, as if someone was transcribing without understanding, but that article is, I think, well worth anyone’s time. Because as the latest kerfuffle over the white-washing of YA book covers shows, we aren’t past this BS yet.