Below I've typed out one of the many difficult exercises that we were asked to engage with. We were given a series of scenarios in which we were asked to rate how true the statement is for ourselves - ranging from "never happens" to "this is always true." I'd love to hear your thoughts/responses or for you to actually take the test and share your score. I got a 117 after adding up all of the numbers. I felt sad and naive because it's the fact that I don't ever have to think about these things that is, essentially, my white priviledge. I had no idea.
White Privilege Exercise:
5 - this statement is always true for you
4 - this statement is mostly true for you
3 - this statement is sometimes true for you
2 - this statement is rarely true for you
1 - this statement is never true for you
Because of my race or color...
1. I can be in the company of people of my race most of the time
2. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area I can afford and in which I would want to live.
3. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
4. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
5. When I am told about our national heritage or about 'civilization,' I am shown that people of my race made it what it is.
6. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely and positively represented.
7. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
8. I can go into a bookshop and count on finding the writing of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple food which fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser's shop and can find someone who can do my hair.
9. Whether I use checks, credit cards, or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance that I am financially stable.
10. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time form people who might mistreat them because of their race.
11. I can swear and dress in secondhand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or illiteracy of my race.
12. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
13. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
14. I can remain oblivious to the language and customs of persons of color without feeling, from people of my race, any penalty for such oblivion.
15. I can criticize our government and talk bout how much I fear its polices and behavior without being seen as a racial outsider.
16. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to 'the person in charge,' I will be facing a person of my race.
17. If a police officer pulls me over, I can be sure I haven't been singled out because of my race.
18. I can conveniently buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, and children's magazine featuring people of my race.
19. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied-in, rather than isolated, out of place, outnumbered, invisible, feared, or hated.
20. I can take a job or attend college with an affirmative action employer without having co-workers or colleagues suspect that I was hired or admitted because of my race.
21. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.
22. I f my day, week, or year is going badly, I do not have to do any mental work trying to figure out whether my race played a role in it.
23. I can worry about racism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking.
24. I can comfortably avoid, ignore, or minimize the impact of racism on my life.
25. I can choose blemish cover or bandages in 'flesh' color and have them more or less match my skin.
Adapted from Peggy Mcintosh, White Privilege and Male Privilege: A personal Account of Coming to See Correspondence through Work in Women's Studies (1988).
And adapted form Beyond Diversity: A Strategy for De-Institutionalizing Racism and Improving Student Achievement (2001 - 2002).
