White Privilege From the Perspective of a White, Privileged, Woman
- Elle
- Feb 12, 2020
- 7 min read
Updated: Jun 24, 2021
*Disclaimer: I write this text from the perspective of a white Swiss person, born and raised in Switzerland but thinking very often within the context of the US. I believe this issue is one of global importance but also one that manifests itself slightly differently throughout the world. This is my very limited perspective on a larger phenomenon.
My mother is a wonderful human being: not more or less flawed than any average human. However, this story is not about my mom’s many accomplishments or her wonderful qualities and for that, I ask forgiveness. This story is about something that my mom has absolutely no power over: the color of her skin.
My mother is white.
My mother is also the daughter of an Italian mother and a Hungarian father, born in a small Swiss town in the year 1960. But more than that, my mother is the child of an economic migrant and a refugee.
My grandpa fled his home in Hungary in 1956 when the Russian occupation was starting to make life insufferable. Starting his flight -- from rude Russian officers firing guns, scarcity of food, and the memory of the bombs being dropped from fighter jets during the previous war -- on a bicycle, he magically made his way to Switzerland. And by “magic” I mean the combination of his fear of airplanes and the unequal length of the lines for the two country options: It made him choose Switzerland over the United States when transitioning through an Austrian refugee camp.
My grandma grew up in the northern Italian city of Bergamo where being hard-working is, to this day, a distinguishing factor: they are no Southern Italians after all. My grandma really wanted to become a (psychiatric) nurse but her family couldn’t afford that training and so she came all the way to Switzerland to sit in a factory all day and make a living as a seamstress.
My grandparents did not have an easy start in Switzerland, what with my grandpa’s refugee status and my grandmother not having spoken a single word of (Swiss!-) German and they experienced more than their fair share of xenophobia and discrimination. However, they were hard workers and unwavering optimists and they not only made significant progress in their respective careers -- while being significantly held back by their immigrant status -- but also became the most “Swiss” Swiss people there are (hiking and skiing were a must every weekend despite both of them not exactly being the "sporty" types).
I have always known my mom wasn’t really “of” this country. We visited relatives in Hungary and Italy at least once a year and my grandparents -- while having long been fluent in Swiss German -- have thick and distinct accents that would make it hard to forget where they came from.
But my mom, while having grown up in a household in which a Swiss German learned by chance was the Lingua Franca, grew up to become a teacher of German as a second language. My mother’s success story wasn’t an easy one and many of the obstacles in her way were not fair. But one obstacle my mother never had to overcome was racism.
My mother was not a Swiss citizen for a long time and none of her ancestors were born in the country in which she lived. And yet, because she didn’t look different, nobody ever questioned her right to this country by simply looking at her. It might well have been one of the reasons she was able to spend lunches and after-school hours at a Swiss family's house profiting from many aspects of integration: Because you cannot see that she is “different.”
And that, my friends, is white privilege.
I am by no means saying that having a migrant background would justify discrimination. But the fact that my mother's belonging, her rightful place in her own society, her identity just as she pronounces it: as a Swiss woman, is not questioned because you cannot see her story on her skin: that is white privilege.
When I, a second generation Swiss-born girl am deemed to be more “Swiss,” despite my two additional passports, than a classmate whose grandparents were born in this country, but who happens to have dark skin: that is white privilege.
When a recent immigrant to the US from Ireland is considered more of an American than a black American whose ancestors literally built the nation, then that is white privilege.
When I never have to think about the color of my skin because it simply isn’t a relevant factor in anything concerning my daily life: that is white privilege.
When I get to write a text like this one, making explicit my invisible “other” past, and there being no consequences: that is white privilege.
Is it my mom’s fault that she has white privilege? No.
Is it all of our fault that my mom is able to have white privilege? Yes.
Because, as a society, we determine what is “Other” (and that there even is an “Other”) and only by creating an “Other” can we have a “norm” and thus privilege associated with a random skin color.
Should all of us who have white privilege observe how this shapes our lives? Yes.
And, while maybe we cannot dismantle the concept within a useful time frame, is the least that white (-perceived) people can do, to use their white privilege to dismantle the system that enables it? Absolutely, yes.
I do not think that awareness is enough to solve any problem. But I think in this specific case it is an important first step for all of us profiting from white privilege because only if we stop being defensive and fearful of losing an undeserved privilege can we even dream about taking a next step towards true racial equality.
Personally, how I experience white privilege?
I have never had to apply a band aid that was so far from my skin color that it garnered more attention than the wound it protected.
I have never been stopped or searched by security personnel because I look suspicious, strolling the isles at the supermarket because I cannot figure out what to cook for dinner.
I have never been asked to speak for a whole group of people -- white people -- complying with the expectation that we are all the same anyway.
I never had to worry about the chances of my life expectancy being lower than the average white person, simply because of the strain of fighting racism on a day-today basis.
Growing up, I did not experience any lack of role-models in the media, fictional or factual, who looked like me (except for the gender bias).
I was never taught to behave cautiously in the world because my pure existence will be read as a threat by some people.
I have never had to think about the whiteness of my skin. Why? Because not once in my life has there been a negative consequence caused by my level of melanin.
This is white privilege. I have it; every white person has it. It doesn’t mean we don’t struggle. It means that, if we are in the same exact situation as a person of color, we will still be treated better -- because of the color of our skin.
It has very real consequences, from the mundane to the essential: economic, health, social consequences. Every single day.
White privilege is not a right. It is not a pure advantage over somebody else. It is part of a system which makes racism possible. White privilege is racist. If I don’t want to be racist I have to somehow dismantle the system that produces my white privilege.
You know what else is tragic about all of this? While I certainly don’t recognize my own white privilege all of the time, I find that acceptance and recognition of the phenomenon comes quite easily to me -- and I think it is because I am a woman. I know what it feels like being looked at as “Other,” entering the lecture hall creating the assumption I must be a student and not the lecturer; being in a male space feeling threatened because I start perceiving my own gender and the vulnerable position it puts me in.
My dis-privileged status as a woman makes it easier for me to understand the privilege of whiteness. I would like to think that I would be emphatic even without this “advantage” but I cannot say for sure. This is why I see that understanding and accepting white privilege as a white person can be difficult. But I nevertheless think it is possible and much more importantly: necessary!
I believe that this starts with educating ourselves about the ways in which we profit from white privilege on a day-to-day basis and, just as urgently: how these instances dis-privilege people of color. For me, much of this task is listening. I only know what white privilege feels like, I do not know what the (much more dramatic) flip-side feel like. Listening is 90% of understanding. But it is also speaking up when I can, in environments where my voice is still privileged to spread the news: All white people have white privilege and it’s damn time we get rid of it. It is our duty.
Here are some resources that do a much better job than I did at explaining the concept and at drawing up possible solutions. Educate yourself before going around asking people to do the educating for you (especially people who suffer from white privilege)!
- The original article by Peggy McIntosh who coined the term: WHITE PRIVILEGE AND MALE PRIVILEGE: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women's Studies (1988) B
- Interview with McIntosh: The Origins of “Privilege”
Podcasts:
- With Friends Like These, Episode “Teacher, Explainer, Soldier, Spy: Doing Solidarity Work with Nausheena Hussain and Beth Gendler.”
- The Goop Podcast, Episode How We Misunderstand Privilege
- Regularly listening to the Pod Save the People podcast can help fill the brain with different perspectives on life which might automatically result in a more open-minded way of looking at the world and one's own position within it: Pod Save the People
One article/the whole book only as link
article: Understanding White Privilege
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