Roberto Schiraldi and Fern Spruill will moderate Continuing Conversations on Race and White Privilege on Monday, May 5 at 7 p.m. at the Princeton Public Library. All are welcome to these safe, friendly, confidential sessions for asking questions and sharing opinions.
Among the points to think about: Simply by being born a citizen of the U.S.A. gives you certain privileges that others do not have. Being born male gives you another set of privileges — that you can walk through a parking lot at night and not worry about being raped. By being born able bodied means you don’t have to structure your life around disability.
So says Gina Crossley-Corcoran, who grew up poor and, from that perspective, has a different view of various “privileged states. She wrote a very interesting post, Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person on her blog “The Feminist Breeder.” The ideas behind this post will be the topic for the evening.
Here is a comment in response to the question from the post:
Tell me, are you a White Person made uncomfortable by the term “While Privilege?” Does a more nuanced approach help you see your own Privilege more clearly?”
“I appreciate this post. I am an upper middle class white woman and I have experienced and continue to experience privilege in lots of facets of my life. To me, it is not about feeling guilty or bad about having privilege. It is about living my life in a way that acknowledges that privilege exists and using my privilege to work hard to fight against injustice, inequality, inequity (because that is a very different from inequality), and oppression. I don’t think you have to feel bad or guilty about yourself to acknowledge that white privilege (and class privilege) exist, that racism and oppression exist, and that those things are not good, even if they benefit you (against your will). The trick is to figure out how to talk about this in a way that doesn’t scare away.other well meaning privileged men and women. Thanks for trying to do that!
The above blog article is exerpted with permission from the author, Gina Crosley-Corcoran, http://the feministbreeder.com/explaining-white-privilege-broke-white-person., November 20,2013.
A white male at Princeton University writes about how assumptions are made in this essay.
I am white and mentally-ill and unable to find real work. So I do collect disability, which bothers me greatly. I do , indeed, structure, my month-by-month existence around getting that disability check on the 3rd Wed. I always refer to that day as Super Wednesday.