I saw the news of this study that came out about two weeks ago and wondered why I'd seen no mention of it here. Its findings should show us how far we've got to go in this country before many whites can accept that we as individuals benefit from white privilege.
Study: White people react to evidence of white privilege by claiming greater personal hardships
DAVID EDWARDS
In a study published in the November issue of Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, L. Taylor Phillips and Brian S. Lowery point out that progress on racial equality is limited by the fact that many whites deny the existence of inequities.
“Despite this reality, policy makers and power brokers continue to debate whether racial privilege even exists and whether to address such inequity,” the researchers noted. “One reason for this inaction might be an unwillingness among Whites to acknowledge racial privilege — acknowledgment that may be difficult given that Whites are motivated to believe that meritocratic systems and personal virtues determine life outcomes.”
“However, claiming personal life hardships may help Whites manage the threatening possibility that they benefit from privilege.”
The researchers argued that understanding the reaction to evidence of racial inequality was important because whites who did not feel that they personally benefited from their ethnicity would be less willing to support policies that were designed to reduce racial inequality.
Subjects in the study were separated into two groups. The group that was shown evidence of white privilege “claimed more hardships than those not exposed to evidence of privilege,” the study found.
A second experiment suggested “that people claim more life hardships in response to evidence of in-group privilege because such information is threatening to their sense of self.” Researchers observed that whites who read self-affirming statements before completing the survey claimed less hardships, and they found that self-affirmations could actually reverse the denial of white privilege.
“Furthermore, Whites’ claims of life hardships mediated their denials of personal privilege, supporting our hypothesis that hardship claims help people deny they personally benefit from privilege — that White privilege extends to themselves,” Phillips and Lowery wrote. “Importantly, these denials of personal privilege were in turn associated with diminished support for affirmative action policies — policies that could help alleviate racial inequity.”
Researchers recommended that efforts to reduce racial inequalities also include the education of advantaged populations.
We whites are like fish swimming in a sea of white privilege who can't see the water. I don't think many of us realize just how pervasive it is either.
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack