A White person may benefit from fighting White privilege, because if she accepts the existence of White privilege, she will develop a healthier self-esteem.
High self-esteem is not always healthy self-esteem.
High self-esteem is not the same thing as healthy self-esteem, according to psychology research from the University of Georgia. Those with “fragile” high self-esteem are more likely to be verbally defensive compared to those with “secure” high self-esteem.
According to the news release, people with fragile high self-esteem:
- compensate for their self-doubts by engaging in exaggerated tendencies to defend, protect and enhance their feelings of self-worth
- are verbally defensive; they lash out at others when their opinions, beliefs, statements or values are threatened
- feel that potential threats are more threatening and work harder to counteract these threats
This behaviour differs from individuals with “secure” high self-esteem:
On the other hand, individuals with secure high self-esteem appear to accept themselves “warts and all,” and, feeling less threatened, they are less likely to be defensive by blaming others or providing excuses when they speak about past transgressions or threatening experiences.
One reason the study’s findings are important, Kernis said, is that it shows that greater verbal defensiveness relates to lower psychological well-being and life satisfaction.
What does this have to do with Whites and White privilege?
Defensive Whites have a fragile high racial self-esteem.
The study is not about race, but the idea of distinguishing between “secure” high self-esteem and “fragile” high self-esteem can be applied to Whites’ view of themselves. Whites with secure high racial self-esteem can accept themselves “warts and all” and can accept that society confers privilege on them due to their skin colour, while Whites with fragile high racial self-esteem will “lash out” at the mere possibility that our society is not a meritocracy.
A person with fragile high self-esteem has a superficial sense of confidence, but when his self-perception is challenged by reality, he suffers from cognitive dissonance and anxiety. Whites with fragile high racial self-esteem have uncritically bought into the (implicit) culture of White supremacy due to our history books and entertainment media that focus on White achievement and White heroes. Because of this, any evidence that challenges this world view becomes a psychological threat.
For example, if a black person is admitted to an Ivy League university, the fragile White will defend his feelings of self-worth by believing that the black person was admitted because of Affirmative Action. If a black person speaks eloquently, the fragile White will manage her cognitive dissonance by not thinking of him as “black”, and may even state outright, “I don’t think of you as black.” If a black person is more perceptive than the average White person in recognizing racism, the fragile White will blame the black person and lash out verbally by calling her “oversensitive”. If the topic of racism is broached, the fragile White will accuse the topic broacher of playing the “race card” or of “overreacting”, mention that his family never owned any slaves, try to explain away a controversy as a desire to adhere to “political correctness”, mention that minorities can be racist against Whites, or mention that his best friend or spouse is black. If a person of colour says that Band-Aids were designed for Whites in terms of colour, the fragile White will concoct exaggerated rationalizations and say, “the lightness in colour allows us to see cleanliness and hence the sterility of the bandage”, or refute a ridiculous straw man by responding, “my little brother has spiderman band-aids, does that mean that the band-aids were created for spiderman?”
Whites who behave in this manner in discussions about racism or White privilege have fragile high racial self-esteem. Their racial self-esteem is “high” because they stick steadfastly to their opinions despite evidence to the contrary, but their racial self-esteem is “fragile” because they exhibit verbal defensiveness and insecure behaviour.
Defensive Whites have fragile high racial self-esteem, but how does fighting White Privilege give a White person secure high racial self-esteem?
A White person who accepts that she is privileged develops a more secure high racial self-esteem.
A White person who accepts the existence of White privilege and recognizes it as a part of his personal existence will no longer feel threatened when confronted with evidence* for it. She will not suffer from anxiety when the topic of “race” is brought up, and she will not try to ignore the issue by claiming that she is “colorblind”. He will not waste his energy denying that systemic racism exists, and instead will use that energy to explore the complex relationship between himself and the world in which he is embedded.
In other words, when a White person accepts and owns White privilege, she builds secure high racial self-esteem through developing a deeper understanding of herself and her place in the world.
Acceptance of the existence of White privilege is not the same as fighting White privilege, but it is the first step.
* There is ample empirical evidence in support of White Privilege, from subconscious employment discrimination against job applicants with black-sounding names; to housing discrimination against Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Pacific-Islanders, and Native Americans; to being pulled over for driving while black. These are just the popularized studies. There is a wealth of psychology and sociology literature on bias, stereotyping, and discrimination that are both too pedantic for the general public and unfairly hidden from the general public behind expensive journal subscription walls.
Related webpages:
- Why Should White People Fight Racism? by Carmen Van Kerckhove
- How to Suppress Discussions of Racism by coffeeandink
- Sixteen Maneuvers to Avoid Really Dealing with Racism by Holly at Feministe
- give good audio-visual comments at Stuff White People Do – While grinding away responding to the same old thought processes denying White privilege by a commenter, I was asked by the site’s author about why Whites would want to give up White privilege. This post is an attempt to address that question.
- The other side at resist racism – bell hooks, Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem
Update 20/05/2008: Changed to “high racial self-esteem” because of Macon D’s suggestion; added resist racism link.
Restructure! 
May 15, 2008 at 4:26 am
I’m pretty disappointed you’d resort to using ad hominem to justify your position. Firstly, you are using me as an example from one conversation you’ve had with me on the Internet. A total of one observation to support your inductive argument is not reliable. You don’t know me, neither do you know what race I am. You’ve just assumed. But don’t let that get in the way of your psychological analysis. Perhaps you could go talk to Jay, my co-blogger, he’d assure you that I take the piss out of myself quite often, and I’m also skeptical of my own ideas. You could even read through past blog posts for evidence of this. Hence why I’m working through ideas that I would allow into my head. You’ve mistaken defensiveness for someone who likes reading things and critically thinking about them in depth. I haven’t come to a conclusion yet on whether I think white privilege is a strong inductive argument.
Secondly, claiming I made an exaggerated explanation when your original statement was a universal syllogism that was the following:
“It’s possible for a white person to grow up using Band-Aids and never notice that they were designed for white people.”
Then you qualified yourself later on by stating that you were speaking of a particular colour of band-aid.
I think I was justified in my counterexamples to refute your universal syllogism with specifics because you had not given all the information sufficient for me to look at your argument. Historically, Band-Aids were originally light in colour because of sterility and cleanliness. It is medically useful for adhesive bandages to be this way. Along the way they happened to evolve into various colours, one of which happens to be peach (there are also dark coloured ones now too in case you haven’t noticed). If you want to play rhetorical tricks, suppress premises, and word games, then go right ahead. The dialogue can stop right now and you can go back to your self-sealing arguments.
May 15, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Thank you for the feedback.
I didn’t expect your response in paragraph 1 of your comment, although I expected some further clarifications of the Band-Aid colour issue, if you ended up reading this post.
I think the problem with my post is that it sounded like I was saying that there were only two kinds of White people, fragile and secure, who remain like that permanently. What I was actually thinking in my head but failed to communicate was that people are fragile or secure in specific situations.
Even from my brief communication with you, I would classify you as the secure type in general, and probably very secure compared to most people who discuss things that they are uncomfortable with. I am actually very impressed with your ability to tease out my implicit arguments and phrase them in explicit terms, without making them into straw men (up to the Band-Aid point). However, your response to the Band-Aid point stood out, incongruent with what I deemed a very intellectually-honest and articulate engagement with the White privilege topic. That point annoyed me, and I’m the type of person who will criticize the 5% even if I very much like the 95% rest.
You’re right that my statement was sloppy and could reasonably be read as a universal syllogism. However, I thought that you had understood what I meant, because (1) you used the Spiderman Band-Aid as an analogy, and the part with the Spiderman design is the adhesive tape, not the white gauze; and (2) the part of the Band-Aid that is light in colour signalling sterility and cleanliness is the gauze, not the adhesive tape. Putting these two facts together, you seemed to be either (a) arguing that the light-coloured adhesive tape of peach/beige colour signalled sterility and cleanliness (which would appear to be stretching and is also absurd); or (b) pretending that I believed that the white gauze was designed for white people (which seemed dishonest, since you made the Spiderman connection).
May 15, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Restructure! I’m honored that you took up my challenge and so nimbly ran with it.
Before assessing the nimbleness with which you ran, I’d like to address your antagonist.
Ahem. Munzenberg, I doubt you’ll pardon another ad hominem, but it seems to me that if anything in these debates is “self-sealing,” it’s you. Before I say why, let’s keep talkin’ bandages.
Aside from the confusion (the clearing up of which we should probably avoid for now) about the difference between Band-Aid brand bandages and plain old bandages, it surely can’t be the case that either of them merely “happened to evolve into various colours, one of which happens to be peach.”
Yes, bandages probably were white or light colored at first, given the associations of whiteness with sterility, the utility of their whiteness to detecting a lack of sterility, and so on. But their evolution as a consumer product in white-majority countries meant changing them to “flesh color,” i.e., the color of supposedly white skin, so that they would be less noticeable on a white person. Bandages that stood out because they were some other color didn’t sell as well. Are you denying this rather obvious marketing strategy?
Assuming that you’re willing to concede that the evolution of bandages in white-majority countries was primarily mono- rather than multichromatic, and thus that an array of various colors has only become widely available quite recently in response to widespread recognition and tolerance of racial “diversity,” then wouldn’t you agree that the greater ease with which “white” people could (and still can) find bandages that match their skin is a white privilege?
So let’s call them what the manufacturers called them, “flesh-colored” bandages (I challenge you to find a brand that advertised its color as “peach”). What does this say, as just one example among so many similar ones, about whose flesh matters and whose doesn’t matter? People who argue for the prevalence of white-skin favoritism and more general white supremacy often cite bandages as a clear example of something, the existence of which you seem determined to find a way to disprove–that is, white privilege.
The common invisibility of privilege to those who have it is also not a moot point, and pointing out that un-moot point is anything but a devious rhetorical ploy. Surely it is a privilege, in so many particular ways, to be a member of the group that has “normal” skin color, that is, that which matches “flesh-colored” bandages. “White” skin gives one forms of access that others don’t as readily have—a privilege is only a privilege if someone else doesn’t have it. There’s a kind of presumptive entitlement that such a cultural centeredness instills in most white people, to the point where they fail to see that what’s normal for them is not normal for other people. Now, pointing out that “failure to see” (the debating point made by those who argue for the existence of white privilege that prompted you to start this whole kerfuffle) is not usually an effort to undercut a debating opponent’s position, and it’s not an argument for nor a definition per se of white privilege. Instead, it’s an effort to explain why, despite the claims of so many white people that race doesn’t really matter anymore, white privilege is so entrenched. And the taken-for-granted ubiquity of “flesh-colored” bandages, and the pain in the ass it still can be to find differently colored ones, make them useful as a particularly clear, mundane example of white privilege.
Having just read through the comments again at your blog on this topic, it seems to me that while you began by refuting a particular rhetorical strategy commonly deployed in efforts to assert the existence of white privilege, you gradually moved to fuller expression of doubt about the existence of white privilege itself.
If you do still doubt its very existence, why?
Restructure! I think the concept of self-esteem as it pertains to white identity is very convincing. I do think there’s a kind of overreaching generality to your claims in the post, but I can see why you did that (and as I wrote in the comments of a post at my blog today, I for one am tired of constantly modifying my claims about common white tendencies with qualifying additions about how I mean MOST white people, common white TENDENCIES, and so on [props to One Drop for help with this]).
I think it would be further useful to modify your idea by narrowing the estimation of fragile versus secure self-esteem to one’s racialized identity, rather than to one’s self-esteem as a whole. A person’s self-esteem, after all, is the result of so many other factors.
How might we tease out or focus on just those factors related to race? Maybe by identifying a larger, more collective white psyche, that itself suffers from a fragile self-esteem? Then perhaps it would be useful to say that the training of white children into that identity entails the partial development of a fragile self-esteem when it comes to race.
Perhaps that distinction is implicit in your argument–if so, I’m sorry I missed it.
The reason I asked you the encouraging question was that I’ve been thinking about how whites could ever be convinced to give up their privileges, assuming they’ve even taken that first step you mention of acknowledging that they have them. A lot of research now focuses on the flip side of white privilege, what some call “white misery.”
I think a fragile sense of self-esteem in racial terms is something whites in general do suffer from. It can mean, as you illustrated with examples, acting defensive when matters of race arise, instead of being open and willing to learn. And yes, it seems certain to me that if a white person who has been trained to avoid race and to pretend it doesn’t much matter anymore would instead admit that it does, and would also try to learn the enormous extent to which it does, then her own self-esteem would grow more secure, and she would be more healthy as a result. First of all, by feeling better about acknowledging the suffering of others, instead of continuing to feel bad, and vaguely guilty, about one’s own racialized connection to such suffering. And then by feeling less anxious and stressed about all those looming, complaining dark people lurking out there, waiting to take revenge.
So yes, thank you, I will definitely add your concept of fragile versus secure white self-esteem to my thoughts about why whites should want to give up white privilege.
May 15, 2008 at 7:29 pm
PS–I posted my comment before reading Restructure!’s reply to Munzenberg. I see I should clarify a bit by saying that the latter seems to me to be the former’s antagonist, even if the former doesn’t seem to think so.
May 16, 2008 at 5:16 am
Restructure, I have responded in full to this post at my blog. For the moment though I have concluded that I don’t want any part of your debate, which I outline why on my post.
Macond, I have stated a number of times that I am middle grounded on the issue of white privilege. I don’t think it is rhetoric anymore, but I’m also not convinced of its inductive strength. I also outline this on my blog post (and I concede the point about band-aids but not without a full explanation that was in response to what I thought restructure was arguing). You also didn’t explain why my position was self-sealing. I’m not defending an ideology here. I’m exploring yours. Once again, why is this a problem? This is why I’m withdrawing from the debate, because where I’m sitting it seems to me as if I’m some sort of enemy to you. It is as if I cannot even explore the issue without having myself questioned on why I am doing it. Anyway, I outline that line of reasoning in my blog post. If restructure thinks I’m too harsh, then hey, that’s because that is the *vibe* I’m getting from the comments and blog posts.
Good luck with what ever endeavours you both choose and your exploration of white privilege.
May 16, 2008 at 5:21 am
Although, I must add that restructures last comment is cordial compared to this blog post.
May 16, 2008 at 5:32 am
Actually, one more comment to fix up my claim up the inductive strength of white privilege as it was wrong. I don’t know if it is inductively strong or not. I haven’t sat down and done analysis of inferences to best explanations, arguments from analogy, stats, or necessary/sufficient condition testing. Until I have done that I’ll withold judgement on its inductive strength.
May 17, 2008 at 11:06 pm
The debate has continued on munzenberg’s blog post, A response to Restructure.
May 20, 2008 at 10:41 pm
I was trying to find information on studies that apparently showed blacks had higher self-esteem than whites, and I found this: Fear of Messing Up May Undermine Interracial Contact:
May 20, 2008 at 11:00 pm
Studies Challenge Belief That Black Students’ Esteem Enhances Achievement:
May 20, 2008 at 11:09 pm
“As a friend of mine says, the only real disadvantage to being white is that it so often prevents people from understanding racial issues.”
– Robert Jensen
May 21, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Nice quote, nice source too. I would add that being white also tends to stunt one’s human capacities, especially empathy (a point that Jensen also makes). It also tends to render one delusional, or at best naive, about realities of race that POC tend to see, live, and understand much more thoroughly.
Thanks for posting the articles on self-esteem. The second is especially provocative.
May 22, 2008 at 11:00 am
PS–A day later, I’m still very intrigued by the article on black students’ self-esteem, because, as its author notes, it runs counter to conventional wisdom. My understanding of this issue parallels that of bell hooks, who writes,
I began thinking about the question of self-esteem precisely because of the extreme levels of self-doubt I was witnessing in the black students I encountered at the Ivy League schools where I taught. Many of these students were coming from materially privileged homes where they were loved and cared for, yet education in an unenlightened predominantly white context had engendered in them a fear of not being worthy. Tatum identifies this as the “syndrome of not belonging,” stating that “the pressures of trying to fit in, conform or communicate in the ‘acceptable’ form of the majority culture results in an anxiety that literally interferes with one’s natural abilities and modes of expression.” . . . It is this feeling of not belonging that leads many black folks to self-segregate.
–Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem
So thanks again–you’ve really given me something to think about.
May 27, 2008 at 10:45 pm
I can’t find a link on your blog to email, so I’m leaving a question here about a message you left at my blog. Thanks, but I went to davita’s page, and couldn’t find the broken link or whatever it was you mentioned . . . . not sure what you meant, or what a relative link is . . .
June 20, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Dont white people find it odd that only “their” nations (simultaneously) are practicing diversity. China, Japan, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, India. etc.. are all homogenous and are not screaming for diversity. This agenda has been being pushed in every white nation at the same exact time, is that a coincidence. Basically what the powers that be are saying is nothing is allowed to be white and we can lay claim to no place on this planet. Everything that is/was ours is equally any brown persons but all of their lands are for them. As far as Afrocentric education that is an oxymoron as we have yet to dig up the African city that housed educational facilities, books etc.. like in Europe so basically it is a plagiarized European model that promotes the black race. Liberalism equals death to a nation and this psychological warfare has been diabolically constructed for our demise. What a shame.
June 20, 2008 at 11:14 pm
I guess im the “fragile white” because I refuse to be subjugated. A good white is a submissive white.
June 21, 2008 at 12:05 am
JD,
I don’t think the concern is with making whites submissive. Rather it is that whites for a very long time have been requiring submissiveness of others: Slavery, The Scramble for Africa, The Great Game, The Boxer Rebellion (in reaction to imperialism), The Black Ships of Matthew Perry, Manifest Destiny, The Roosevelt Corollary, the incorporation of the Hawaiian Islands, The East India Company, and the Sykes-Picot Agreement (partioning the Middle East).
The list could go on for a whole lot longer, but what would be the point. As you can see from just these items off the top of my head, whiteness has being doing the subjugating, and the effects have been global.
June 21, 2008 at 12:12 am
And how far from “nothing is allowed to be white and we can lay claim to no place on this planet.” is the global domination that whites have actually been claiming, and forcibly seizing, for themselves?
June 21, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Once again many white liberals seem to forget that whites have been subjugated by brown people in the past. The Barbary Pirate wars was stopped in good part to end white slavery in Northern Africa where more whites were slaves to Arabs (with assistance from blacks) than blacks were to whites in America. Turkey was originally a white European nation and was taken over in the most blood thirsty manner, Attilla the Hun as well as many attempts by Arabs and Persians long before the crusades. Anything negative whites have done has been done to us. In liberal quarters their can only be one slave trade, only one holocaust, we must forget Armenia or the Jewish Bolshevik’s murdering over 10 million Russians in an attempt to set up a Jewish state in Russia. Pol Pot, Japans enslavement of the Chinese, etc… It is this mentality that puts all the sins man has committed on the soulders of one race while every other group perceives themselves as exempt. Anything negative white people have done has been done by every group. I have no guilt. That does not mean I do not acknowledge that wrongs have been committed.
June 21, 2008 at 12:07 pm
As far as your other comment. Whites actually have a very small part of this planet and you are saying it all must be integrated and split up evenly. Europe, Canada, US, and Australia. Every group attempts to dominate, dont fool yourself. The only difference is some groups actually have something to offer and others dont.
June 21, 2008 at 1:11 pm
JD, you seem to be having some difficulty seeing the forest for all the trees. I doubt there is much else I could say that would change this for you. It is a sad little world you live in where whites can systematically rape the world and you still don’t feel secure in it. I would suggest a video for your reflection, but I doubt you would get it.
Kudos to Macon for the video. I didn’t actually think it was all that perceptive until I “met” JD.
June 21, 2008 at 8:40 pm
JD,
Dont white people find it odd that only “their” nations (simultaneously) are practicing diversity. China, Japan, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, India. etc.. are all homogenous and are not screaming for diversity.
Just because these countries look homogenous to you, it doesn’t mean that they actually are. There are ethnic minorities in China, for example, and they are exempt from the one-child policy.
As far as Afrocentric education that is an oxymoron as we have yet to dig up the African city that housed educational facilities, books etc..
Libraries in the sand reveal Africa’s academic past (10 Nov 2006)
It’s really hard to argue with people like you, because I don’t even agree with the premises of your unsound arguments.
June 21, 2008 at 11:45 pm
I never said that the American Indian did not get screwed or that whites have never done wrong my only point was that every group of people has done what whites have Turks vs Armenians, Jews (Bolsheviks)vs Russians, Japanese/Chinese, Rowanda, Dafur, Persian Empire vs Europe, and it is a human issue not a whites only problem. You apparently chose not to read my post and acknowledge ethnic atrocities against whites like the enslavement of whites in N. Africa (Barbary) during the times of American slavery. Their were more white slaves in N. Africa than black American slaves (it was a terrible habit of people, Saudi Arabia only ended slavery in the 60’s). Open your mind to the truth no matter how much it hurts your fragile inconsistent thought process.
June 22, 2008 at 1:06 am
I acknowledge your point. Now here’s mine. The scale and pervasiveness of white oppression has never been seen before. They’ve sabotaged entire continents, and moreover, they’ve done so through the instrumentality of race.
The only other conquest I can think of on a similar scale is the Mongol Empire. If you can sleep better by thinking that because the Mongolians slaughtered millions that somehow justifies the rape and pillage done in the name of white privilege, well, I just wish someone could bottle it. The insomniacs of the world would suffer no more.
December 17, 2008 at 7:56 am
There is no such thing as white privilege. It is an invention of gramsican victim groups, notably feminists and minorities. The constant vilification of whites, especially men, and especially by whites against whites, is wrecking this country and is uncalled for.
As to black on white crime, DOJ statistics show that blacks are unusually violent towards whites. Furthemore, 60% of all felonies in this country are perpetrated by blacks. To rape: look at the statistics by the DOJ and you will see that there is a nugget of truth in the myth.
My point to you: just because you make yourself last in line to get eaten y the alligator, don’t think you won’t get chomped. Have a backbone and defend the constant attacks on whites by minorities.
December 17, 2008 at 7:59 am
>>The scale and pervasiveness of white oppression has never
LLB I would reword this as:
The scale and pervasiveness of societal advancement due to white ethnicity has never…
You just can’t accept it. Listen, I am not suing the Olympics for having a wall of black sprinters in the 100. Why can’t you accept that there are just some things other ethnicities aren’t good at. *ITS TOO HARD TO ACCEPT*
December 17, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Nogu Bahamrian..
Please humor us on how White Privilege and the Olympics are the same.
December 19, 2008 at 6:08 pm
“There is no such thing as white privilege. It is an invention of gramsican victim groups, notably feminists and minorities. The constant vilification of whites, especially men, and especially by whites against whites, is wrecking this country and is uncalled for.”
Mr/Ms. Bonbon not only tries to deny the reality of White privilege (not to mention White hegemony itself), but s/he attempts to suggest that Whites are now somehow the poor innocent victims of racism!
This is equivalent to asserting that the slaveower was in actuality the victim of the slave.
In the “reality” of the White apologist, the victimizer now becomes the victim; the oppressor in fact is the oppressed.
Truly Orwellian.
Notice also how Bonbon predictably tries to discredit those minorities who speak against or oppose White racial oppression as “gramsican victim groups” (whatever that means), yet s/he turns around in the next breath and peddles the idea of … White victimhood!
Call this White victomology–the newest mask of White Supremacy.
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/freelance/whiteprivilege.htm
http://www.afro-netizen.com/2008/09/explaining-whit.html
January 26, 2009 at 4:56 pm
[…] Restructure! – I don’t actually know what this blog is yet, but now I want to. Primarily because of this: “How Whites Benefit from Fighting White Privilege pt. 1″ […]