[Libs-Or] More on White Privilege

[Anna Skinner]

Matthew, thanks for these thoughts.

One of the most concise definitions of privilege I've ever heard comes
from Janaya
"Future" Khan
<https://www.facebook.com/NowThisPolitics/videos/wevotenext-summit-activist-janaya-future-khan-on-redefining-privilege/245336409482222/?locale=sv_SE>,
who says: Privilege isn't about what you've gone through, it's about what
you haven't had to go through."

Best wishes,
Anna

On Thu, Mar 2, 2023 at 12:09 PM Matthew Baiocchi via Libs-Or <
libs-or at omls.oregon.gov> wrote:

> Yesterday I wrote a bit about what white privilege is, but it didn't cover
> all of what white privilege is. White privilege is not just not
> experiencing the disadvantages that BIPOC so often face. Peggy McIntosh
> explains in her article from 1989(1), "As a white person, I realized I
> had been taught about racism as something which 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."
>
>
> She explains how whiteness is the dominant culture in so many of our
> institutions and systems and how easily that meant she could navigate those
> systems, "I see a pattern running through the matrix of white privilege,
> a pattern of assumptions which were passed on to me as a white person.
> There was one main piece of cultural turf; it was my own turf, and I was
> among those who could control the turf. My skin color was an asset for
> any move I was educated to want to make. I could think of myself as
> belonging in major ways, and of making social systems work for me. I
> could freely disparage, fear, neglect, or be oblivious to anything
> outside of the dominant cultural forms. Being of the main culture, I
> could also criticize it fairly freely."
>
>
> Finally, Peggy McIntosh lists 26 ways in which she experiences white
> privilege, then states, "I repeatedly forgot each of the
> realizations on this list until I wrote it down. 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."
>
> You should read her list of 26 items from the article linked below and see
> how our libraries, and library organizations and associations promote white
> privilege and white supremacy...and how we benefit from that.
>
>
> ----------------
>
>
>
> 1 -White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack (PDF),
> https://psychology.umbc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/57/2016/10/White-Privilege_McIntosh-1989.pdf
>
>
>
> Matthew Baiocchi
>
> *REFERENCE LIBRARIAN*
>
> __
>
>
>
> City of Lincoln City  *|*  Driftwood Public Library
>
> 801 SW Hwy 101 * |*  PO Box 50  *| * Lincoln City, OR
>
> *P:* 541.996.1261  *|*  *E**:* mbaiocchi at lincolncity.org
>
> *W: *Driftwoodlib.org *| **W**:* LincolnCity.org
>
> ook
>


-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anna Skinner
factwrangler at gmail.com
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