"WHITE SKIN privilege" first appeared as a codified body of analysis in 1967. working class has a long history of standing up to racism. This erasure, or amnesia, is a historical marker of successful and ongoing attacks on the social welfare state, trade unions, workplace labor organization and public education-all arenas where the U.S. Yet the popularity of "white skin privilege" theory also speaks to capitalism's capacity to obliterate histories of real interracial struggle that challenged racist "hegemonic structures, practices and ideologies." Pulido's description of white skin privilege is powerful and useful in some ways for describing the unintended effects of racist behavior. In this scenario, whites do not necessarily intend to hurt people of color, but because they are unaware of their white-skin privilege, and because they accrue social and economic benefits by maintaining the status quo, they inevitably do. It refers to the hegemonic structures, practices, and ideologies that reproduce whites' privileged status. But it is also distinct in terms of intentionality. It underlies them in that both are predicated on preserving the privileges of white people (regardless of whether agents recognize this or not). White privilege is a form of racism that both underlies and is distinct from institutional and overt racism. But there is more specific meaning to the theory of a white skin privilege, as it was forcefully described by scholar Laura Pulido: Many young activists who use the term privilege are really talking about oppression and inequality. The contribution of the concept of privilegeĪ dialectical approach to privilege theory Roots of the white skin privilege analysis Making sense of society in order to change it The article that sparked the discussion is: Socialist Worker readers debated the analysis of white skin privilege and how to organize the anti-racist struggle in a series of contributions. ![]() Because all whites gain from this arrangement, most are loathe to fight against it. Fundamentally, the idea is that racism is inevitable under capitalism because all whites, no matter their class, benefit from the unequal distribution of social resources along racial lines. Many good anti-racist activists have adopted some or all aspects of the "white skin privilege" argument. Some commentators, bloggers and activists put forward what is sometimes called "privilege theory" or a "white skin privilege" analysis to explain these conditions. Widening gaps in income and wealth between whites and non-whites wage gaps between men and women, and whites and non-whites the continuation of a ruling class that still looks and speaks in the name of white men (along with, increasingly, white women) egregious judicial miscarriages of justice like the acquittal of George Zimmerman the ongoing epidemic of police violence the eruptions of mad-dog racism among the Tea Party and the Religious Right-all of this naturally increases skepticism about the potential of whites and non-whites to link arms in successful campaigns for racial and economic justice. Harlem marches to defend the Scottsboro Boys It can be no surprise that one effect of this climate is to undermine confidence about the possibility of building interracial struggles for equality-certainly not at a moment of seeming hard times for any grassroots struggles. facing the sharp end of the neoliberal stick. Supreme Court, gerrymandering of congressional districts along racial lines, and new restrictions on democratic rights in the form of voter ID laws-not to mention the mass deportation of immigrants and attacks on reproductive rights-have left the poor, disproportionately non-white population in the U.S. ![]() In the political sphere, the gutting of the Voting Rights Act by the U.S. Current Black unemployment remains at nearly double the national average for whites predatory subprime lending caused foreclosure rates to skyrocket among non-white homeowners when the Great Recession hit and mass incarceration and "stop-and-frisk" police policies continue to make African Americans and others doubly vulnerable to state-sponsored racism. CAPITALISM HAS had devastating effects on people of color in the U.S.
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