Best White Privilege Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 3

“People buy into this false notion of reverse racism, where they believe that just because there’s a group of people getting together to share something about their heritage that we’re excluding white people. But that’s not the reality.”

Race Racism Racism In America White Privilege Reverse Racism

Author:Simon S. Tam

“I believe our education system as a whole has not integrated the histories of all people into our education system, just the Eurocentric view of itself, and the White-centered view of African Americans, and even this is slim to nonexistent. What I find is that most people don't know the fact they don't know, because of the complete lack of information.”

Knowledge Education System White Privilege Eurocentric Education Anglo Americans Race Inequality Ronald Takaki

Book:A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America

Source: A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America

“Heterosexual choice is allowed to be the background of a writer’s life; its wallpaper. So is maleness. And whiteness. Step out of that and you will be called a feminist writer, a lesbian writer, a gay writer, a woman writer. A black writer. You will never be called a heterosexual writer or a male writer or a white writer. Those signifiers are absorbed into the single word ‘writer’.”

Writers White Privilege Women Writers Heteronormativity Gay Writers Hereosexism Male Priviledge

Book:Love

Source: Love

“Plainly put, the imperative to “be professional” is the imperative to be whiter, straighter, wealthier, and more masculine. A wolf in sheep’s clothing masquerading as a neutral term, professionalism hangs over the head of anyone who’s different, who deviates from the hegemony of white men.”

White Supremacy Professionalism White Privilege Erasure Cultural Erasure Toxic Patriarchy Masculine Patriarchy

Book:Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story

Source: Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story

“At first glance, professionalism tries to convince you it’s a neutral word, merely meant to signify a collection of behaviors, clothing, and norms “appropriate” for the workplace. We just ask that everyone be professional, the cis white men will say, smiles on their faces, as if they’re not asking for much. We try to maintain a professional office environment. But never has a word in the English language been so loaded with racism, sexism, heteronormativity, or trans exclusion. Whenever someone is telling you to “be professional,” they’re really saying, “be more like me.” If you’re black, “being professional” can often mean speaking differently, avoiding black cultural references, or not wearing natural hair. If you’re not American, “being professional” can mean abandoning your cultural dress for Western business clothes. If you’re not Christian, “being professional” can mean potentially removing your hijab to fit in, sitting by while your officemates ignore your need for kosher or halal food, sucking up the fact that your office puts up a giant Christmas tree every year. If you’re low-income or working class, “being professional” can mean spending money you don’t have on work clothes—“dressing nicely” for a job that may not pay enough for you to really afford to do so. If you’re a woman, “being professional” can mean navigating a veritable minefield of double standards. Show some skin, but don’t be a slut. Wear heels, but not too high, and not too low, either. Wear form-fitting clothes, but not too form-fitting. We offer maternity leave, but don’t “interrupt your career” by taking it. And if you’re trans like me, “being professional” can mean putting your identity away unless it conforms to dominant gender norms.”

White Supremacy Professionalism White Privilege Erasure Cultural Erasure Toxic Patriarchy Masculine Patriarchy

Book:Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story

Source: Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story

“When you have only ever experienced privilege, equality feels like oppression.”

Science Education Equality Oppression Genes Genetics White Privilege Racsim

Book:How to Argue With a Racist: History, Science, Race and Reality

Source: How to Argue With a Racist: History, Science, Race and Reality

“Boy-next-door, Rena knew, always meant white boy next door. When America has one natural blonde family left, its members will be trotted out to play every role that calls for someone all-American, to be interviewed in every time of crisis. They will be exhausted.”

Racism Stereotypes Whites White Privilege Blondes All American

Book:The Office of Historical Corrections

Source: The Office of Historical Corrections

“Maybe that’s too big of a question. Let’s back up. May Ling has been with you for fourteen months now? What have you done, in the time she’s been with you, to connect her to her Chinese culture?” “Well.” Another pause, a very long one this time. Mr. Richardson willed Mrs. McCullough to say something, anything. “Pearl of the Orient is one of our very favorite restaurants. We try to take her there once a month. I think it’s good for her to hear some Chinese, to get it into her ears. To grow up feeling this is natural. And of course I’m sure she’ll love the food once she’s older.” Yawning silence in the courtroom. Mrs. McCullough felt the need to fill it. “Perhaps we could take a Chinese cooking class at the rec center and learn together. When she’s older.” Ed Lim said nothing, and Mrs. McCullough prattled nervously on. “We try to be very sensitive to these issues wherever we can.” Inspiration arrived. “Like for her first birthday, we wanted to get her a teddy bear. One she could keep as an heirloom. There was a brown bear, a polar bear, and a panda, and we thought about it and decided on the panda. We thought perhaps she’d feel more of a connection to it.”

Culture Race Ignorance White Privilege Transracial Adoption Little Fires Everywhere

Book:Little Fires Everywhere

Source: Little Fires Everywhere

“Does May Ling have any dolls?” Ed Lim asked. “Of course. Too many.” Mrs. McCullough giggled. “She loves them. Just like every little girl. We buy her dolls, and my sisters buy her dolls, and our friends buy her dolls—” She giggled again, and Mr. Richardson’s jaw tensed. “She must have a dozen or more.” “And what do they look like, these dolls?” Ed Lim persisted. “What do they look like?” Mrs. McCullough’s brow crinkled. “They’re—they’re dolls. Some are babies, and some are little girls—” It was clear she didn’t understand the question. “Some of them take bottles, and some of them, you can change their dresses, and one of them closes her eyes when you lay her down, and most of them, you can style their hair—” “And what color hair do they have?” Mrs. McCullough thought for a moment. “Well—blond, most of them. One has brown hair. Maybe two.” “How about the doll that closes her eyes? What color are her eyes?” “Blue.” Mrs. McCullough crossed her legs, then uncrossed them again. “But that doesn’t mean anything. You look at the toy aisle—most dolls are blond with blue eyes. I mean, that’s just the default.” “The default,” Ed Lim repeated, and Mrs. McCullough had the feeling of being caught out, though she wasn’t sure why.”

Ignorance Representation White Privilege Transracial Adoption Little Fires Everywhere

Book:Little Fires Everywhere

Source: Little Fires Everywhere

“You're a Black educated fool, son. These white folk have newspapers, magazines, radios, spokesmen to get their ideas across. If they want to tell the world a lie, they can tell it so well that it becomes the truth; and if I tell them you're lying, they'll tell the world even if you prove you're telling the truth. Because it's the kind of lie they want to hear.”

Hate Media Racism Bigotry American History Racism In America Invisibility White Privilege Racists Invisible Man Shame Of Society American Today

Author:Ralph Ellison

“Yet, we must remember that even White privilege is not distributed evenly among Whites. Many White people never get a piece of the pie. This fact, sadly, instead of making them unite with other marginalized and oppressed American employees, it makes them unload their rage and disappointment on the already suffering low-income, refugee, or poor ethnicities, accusing them of ‘stealing our jobs’, or ‘destroying our country and values’. In doing so, they miss the chance of working together with a significant number of allies for real change. Furthermore, they vote for and side with their oppressors thinking that voting for racist and supremacist candidates will change this ugly reality. What they fail to realize is that politics is literally a nasty business that is fed by the masses’ hatred and, once in power, that business never thrives by changing the way the business is done. If all these supposed problems are solved, where will future politicians get their fodder to feed hatred to masses who will bring them to power?”

Hate Politics Ignorance Racism Propaganda White Privilege Divide And Conquer Power Relations

Author:Louis Yako

“Racism isn't just what you say, think, do, and feel. It is also what you allow.”

Hate Racism Prejudice Discrimination Bias Racism In America Racism Quotes White Privilege Discrimination Quotes

Author:DaShanne Stokes

“If you defend free speech for bigots but not to combat bigotry, then you believe in bigotry, not free speech.”

Hate Racism Discrimination Bigotry Free Speech Freedom Of Speech First Amendment Homophobia White Privilege

Author:DaShanne Stokes

“I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege.”

Thinking White Taught Males Privilege White Privilege Male Privilege

Author:Peggy McIntosh

“There is no birthright in the white skin that it shall say that wherever it goes, to any nation, amongst any people, there the people of the country shall give way before it, and those to whom the land belongs shall bow down and become its servants.”

People Way Giving Country Nations White Land Racism Skins Down And Servant Bows Birthright White Privilege White Skin

Book:Wake Up, India: A Plea for Social Reform

Source: Wake Up, India: A Plea for Social Reform

“We live surrounded by white images, and white in this world is synonymous with the good, light, beauty, success, so that, despite ourselves sometimes, we run after that whiteness and deny our darkness, which has been made into the symbol of all that is evil and inferior.”

World Has Beens Made Sometimes Light Running Evil White Darkness This World Racism Deny Despite Symbols Inferiors Whiteness White Privilege

Book:Reena and Other Stories

Source: Reena and Other Stories

“It seems to me that obliviousness about white advantage, like obliviousness about male advantage, is kept strongly inculturated in the United States so as to maintain the myth of meritocracy, the myth that democratic choice is equally available to all. Keeping most people unaware that freedom of confident action is there for just a small number of people props up those in power and serves to keep power in the hands of the same groups that have most of it already.”

People States Hands Seems Action Choices White United Numbers United States Groups Racism Advantage Democratic Males Available Myth Props White Privilege Small Numbers Meritocracy

Author:Peggy McIntosh

“one question for me and others like me is whether ... we will get truly distressed, even outraged, about unearned race advantage and conferred dominance and, if so, what we will do to lessen them.”

Ifs Race Racism Advantage Like Me Dominance White Privilege Outraged

Author:Peggy McIntosh

“Most talk by whites about equal opportunity seems to me now to be about equal opportunity to try to get into a position of dominance while denying that systems of dominance exist.”

Trying Seems Opportunity Position Equal Racism Dominance Equal Opportunity White Privilege

Author:Peggy McIntosh

“For me white privilege has turned out to be an elusive and fugitive subject. The pressure to avoid it is great, for in facing it I must give up the myth of meritocracy. If these things are true, this is not such a free country; one's life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own.”

People Ifs Giving Country Life Is Certain White Virtue Doors Subjects Giving Up Racism Pressure Privilege Myth Elusive White Privilege Fugitive Meritocracy Free Country

Author:Peggy McIntosh

“The new racism, like God, works in mysterious ways and is quite effective in maintaining white privilege. For example, instead of saying as they used to say during the Jim Crow era that they do not want us as neighbors, they say things nowadays such as 'I am concerned about crime, property values and schools.'”

“I don't care if I tell that story and John Roderick gets up afterward and yells, 'I hope you enjoyed the white privilege, mortality comedy of John Hodgman!' That's me!" I'm going to play a sad Handsome Family song at the end and I guarantee you everyone is going to love it because, sometimes, you need a grown man or woman to tell you what you like.”

Ifs Men Needs Ends Sometimes Play Stories Care Song White Comedy Privilege Don't Care Get Up Enjoyed I Don't Care Guarantees Mortality Handsome White Privilege Grown Man

Author:John Hodgman

“We should self-examine and talk about things like our own white privilege and these phony senses of being an artist.”

Should Self Artist White Privilege Senses Being An Artist Phony White Privilege

Author:Geoff Rickly

“She [Hillary Clinton] knows the people well. I think there is - you know, also talking about breaking down barriers and talking about that, whether we`re talking about that in economic terms. I mean, she`s the only person who has been out there talking about white privilege and talking about sort of the intersectionality of some of these issues.”

People Thinking Knows Wells Mean Persons Has Beens Term White Talking Issues Economic Clinton Privilege Barriers Breaking Down White Privilege Intersectionality Breaking Down Barriers

Author:Killer Mike

“Trying to convince someone that they are a racist or they have White Privilege - if it's in the air they breathe and the culture supports them, sometimes they never have to think about it at all.”

Ifs Thinking Trying Sometimes Culture White Support Air Privilege Breathe Convince Racist White Privilege

Author:Nate Parker

“If your white privilege and class privilege protects you, then you have an obligation to use that privilege to take stands that work to end the injustice that grants that privilege in the first place.”

Ifs Firsts Ends Use White Class Protect Injustice Privilege Obligation Grants Protect You White Privilege Class Privilege

Author:Ayelet Waldman

“If white privilege is a thing, why are people working so hard to be black? All of the award shows and cultural events favor black culture.”

People Ifs Hard Shows Culture Black White Events Privilege Favors Awards White Privilege Award Shows Working So Hard Black Culture

Author:Milo Yiannopoulos

“There is a consciousness as an agent of one's own destiny as a person in America, there are things that can be done, there are advantages and benefits which exist that are directly related to - and even rest upon - white privilege.”

Persons Done America White Consciousness Destiny Benefits Advantage Privilege Agents Related White Privilege

Author:Michael Eric Dyson

“White privilege allows a certain kind of leisure that can be deployed by white people of advantage toward our restoration. That's all true and good. But it also suggests that there is an individual approach to the issues that many of these white people have taken up as a recognition of their tie to and responsibility for some of the inequities that exist. And I don't think it has to be an either-or. I think it has to be a bifocal approach.”

People Thinking Kind Certain Individual White Responsibility Issues Taken Approach Advantage Privilege Recognition Ties Leisure Restoration White Privilege Either Or

Author:Michael Eric Dyson

“Race doesn't really exist for you because it has never been a barrier. Black folks don't have that choice.”

Choices Black Race Folks Barriers White Privilege

Author:Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“The police can go to downtown Harlem and pick up a kid with a joint in the streets. But they can't go into the elegant apartments and get a stockbroker who's sniffing cocaine.”

“Why must we always talk about race anyway? Can't we just be human beings? And Professor Hunk replied - that is exactly what white privilege is, that you can say that. Race doesn't really exist for you because it has never been a barrier. Black folks don't have that choice.”

Humans Choices Black Human Beings White Race Folks Privilege Barriers Professors White Privilege Hunk

Author:Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks.”

White Special Clothes Tools Privilege Invisible Checks Maps Blank Provision Passports Visa White Privilege Blank Check

Author:Peggy McIntosh

“As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.”

Persons White Taught Racism Advantage Aspect Privilege I Realized Disadvantages White Privilege

Author:Peggy McIntosh

“Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege. In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America.”

Firsts America Race Ignorance Consequence Privilege White Privilege Race In America

Author:Tim Wise

“Yes, racism looks like hate, but hate is just one manifestation. Privilege is another. Access is another. Ignorance is another. Apathy is another, and so on.”

Looks Hate Ignorance Racism Privilege Access Manifestation Just One Apathy White Privilege White Racism

Author:Scott Woods

“White privilege is the other side of racism. Unless we name it, we are in danger of wallowing in guilt or moral outrage with no idea of how to move beyond them. 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... Once we understand how white privilege operates, we can begin to take steps to dismantle it on both a personal and institutional level.”

“White privilege is the other side of racism.”

Sides White Racism Privilege White Privilege

Author:Paula Rothenberg

“White privilege is the unquestioned and unearned set of advantages, entitlements benefits and choices bestowed on people solely because they are white. Generally white people who experience such privilege do so without being conscious of it.”

People Choices White Benefits Conscious Advantage Experience Privilege Inequality Equal Rights Entitlement Equal Opportunity White Privilege

Author:Peggy McIntosh

“I want you to admit that there is such a thing as white privilege.”

Want White Privilege I Want You White Privilege

Author:Jon Stewart

White Privilege Quotes

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White Privilege Quotes