White Privilege

Jesse A. Steinfeldt & Janice E. Jones & Paul E. Priester

White privilege is the concept that European Americans benefit from specific advantages—denied to people of color—solely because of their nonminority status. These are unearned benefits derived not from merit, and these benefits are often taken for granted, if even acknowledged at all. White privilege generally refers to White, male, Anglo-Saxon, middle to upper class, heterosexual, able-bodied individuals. The concept of White privilege has been evident in discussions of prejudice for some time, but Peg Mclntosh articulated it in a way that was able to reach European American counseling students and scholars of all backgrounds. Mclntosh, a feminist author writing in the area of male privilege, began to speculate, not about how she was oppressed as a woman, but whether she herself was privileged due to her status as a White person. She used the analogy of a backpack filled with unearned privileges that White persons are given at birth. Her ...

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