This New Study Explains Why White People Deny Their Privilege
http://mic.com/articles/122149/new-study-explains-the-denial-of-white-privilege
From the disproportionate mass incarceration of people of color, to this nation's stark racial wealth gap, to the overwhelming police brutality people of color face, it's clear that systemic racism is alive and well in America. But while we have at least started a widespread dialogue about racist behavior, it seems we're lagging behind in addressing the dynamics of one of its crucial motivators: white privilege. A new study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, however, finally offers insight into how and why such privilege persists.
It turns out, white privilege may endure not because white Americans uniformly hold racist beliefs about others, but more likely is based on their beliefs about themselves. When people are "faced with evidence that their group benefits from privilege," the study's authors write, they not only fail to take responsibility for such benefits, but find those claims "threatening" and even "claim hardships to manage this threat." Essentially, white people may accept that "group-level inequity" exists but deny that they personally benefit from that privilege in order to protect their own self-conception....
"White privilege is the other side of racism," author Paula Rothenberg wrote in her book White Privilege. "It is often easier to deplore racism and its effects than to take responsibility for the privileges some of us receive as a result of it."
Hopefully this study will serve as an important contribution to these efforts and encourage more white Americans to realize that claiming responsibility for white privilege doesn't mean sacrificing their sense of self, but rather laying the groundwork for a society in which all individuals have the ability to claim their true identities, free from oppression.
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