White Privilege

Came in perfect condition. Needed for class.

A great read, worth it for sure

love it !

The issues in this book are hard - they force the reader to look at the lies and stories about our history that we have all been taught, and to look at who we are as a product of the systems those lies and stories have produced.

This is an anthology of various essays written on subjects of 'whiteness' and 'white privilege' by many authors. I bought the book as a requirement for a class. The class was not 'whiteness studies' - but a requirement for 'diversity' for the university I was attending at the time.This was for a normal sociology class at one of our state-funded universities, where I was required to purchase this and a bunch of other similar books for completing that class and this is yet one more demonstration that shows that all this supposedly 'new' ideology has been percolating through higher education for many years now. I bought this book in 2005! At that time, hardly anyone had ever heard of, 'white privilege' and at that time, our teacher was at least kind enough not to beat her students over the head with Peggy McIntosh's strange self-loathing diatribe that is tucked in towards the back of the book and all the 'white privilege' white-bashing that even the Smithsonian seems to have bought into as being the 'solution' to resolving prejudice and bias was yet 15 years in the future. The demographics of the country is different now and a lot has changed in even the 15 years since this book was originally published. Despite those who would claim that no improvements have been made since the civil rights movement, progress and change continues - though I worry the current divisive nature of our politics is not helped by more shame-blame-guilt that only engenders toxic-shame and does nothing to actually bring about reforms or fix the police or actually measure the results of any new policies and see whether we are actually helping or harming people - even with good intentions.The curious thing is that the concept of 'white privilege' and even DiAngelo's runaway best-seller that is based on this work and on Petty Macintosh seems to make the same mistake that other generalizations and prejudice makes - assuming that everyone of a certain demographic think the same, feel the same and have the same lived experience. Just as Black people can have many and diverse opinions and lead different lives - some very privileged and successful and others tragically living in poor neighborhoods, the same can be said of every demographic across our country. When we ignore class in favor of race and when we assume that everyone of one demographic are all the same, we commit the same error as was made when it was popular to assume that all Black people were the same. Prejudice and bias rarely solves anything and the opinions of wealthy, privileged white women like McIntosh and DiAngelo does not fairly represent how all so-called, 'white people' feel and think - no, not even deep-down. Despite what Kendi thinks, you can't solve discrimination with discrimination, especially not punitively and especially not where we are to punish other people based solely on their skin pigmentation instead of doing the far-more difficult, but meaningful work of actually looking at the many factors that can help all people and can help raise all ships.Yes, there is some value to understanding that any demographic that is in the majority will be 'over-represented' in public life and that minorities will feel under-represented as a result. Added to this, there is the stain of slavery, overt racism and jim crow for which there are many understandable long-standing resentments that needs to be healed. I do understand that there is value to understanding the 'privilege' of being in the majority of the population and understanding how not seeing the color of one's own skin ends up making others who are not in the majority feel marginalized or at times is used as a lame rationalization to bolster old prejudices and biases. But here's the thing - demographics change and soon, so-called 'white people' will no longer be the majority or even seen as 'normal' and coming up with elaborate policies that marginalize and scapegoat a different demographic group based on color of skin only repeats the same tired mistakes of our ancestors and it also doesn't resolve the disparities that goes with poverty, education, access to healthcare and affordable housing and it doesn't tackle the issues with our increasing unemployment or recession that is only going to get worse due to the ongoing pandemic and the financial collapse will result to this ongoing crisis. It only gives a convenient scapegoat for all that, without actually finding constructive solutions for all of us.I'm giving three stars - as this is an anthology with many authors and not JUST one monolithic opinion-piece, though there is a definite theme and many of the authors are repeating many of the same beliefs, almost as if religiously rather than anything that is actually backed up by data or statistics. For all the current civil unrest, I feel the solutions to critical social problems can be found when good people are willing to listen to each other rather than shouting each other down.

This book helped open my mind to white privilege and racism from a systemic and structural view point that I had not thought of before. I really enjoyed the essays and the readings helped me think of things in a different frame of mind than before.

For class

The book was bent in some places and had some dirt on the cover. Some advertisements were penciled in the front of the book. The book had some pencil notes. I paid a fair price for this book.

A bitter pill to swallow but necessary if we as as Caucasian people are open to being challenged regarding our place in the world. I am a social worker on a First Nation community and after 30 years of practice, I can and am willing to admit that I have White Privilege. That was the difficult part. The upside is this realization allows me to keep it real and has helped me to connect on a more honest level with my clients

Excellent.