Addressing White Privilege
Image courtesy of Vice
By NEHA MODAK ‘22
Most band-aids are supposedly “flesh colored.” However, the light tan color that band-aids come in certainly does not match the color of everybody’s skin. Band-aids’ not matching everyone’s skin tone may seem like a small and irrelevant inconvenience. However, it represents an example of white privilege that often goes unnoticed. As Mark Heath, a member of the history department and OMCD, points out, “It’s hard for white people to see that they exist in a culture of whiteness because white norms and white culture just function as normal.” In order to address problems like the band aid issue that may seem “normal,” Mr. Heath helped organize a workshop for white students.
The students of color who attended the Transitions program in the summer did some follow up activities once school started, such as going on a retreat. This workshop was intended to be a follow up for the white students. Both Mr. Heath and Alli Reilly ‘20 (a Transitions mentor involved in the program), made it clear that the program was not an affinity group, as the conversation did not center around white culture or identity. Instead, the intention was to facilitate a discussion about unrecognized privileges white people have and their role in a diverse community.
Alli Reilly ‘20 said that they started out by highlighting guidelines for the discussion and conversation goals. They then discussed “the invisible knapsack.” The term comes from Peggy McIntosh’s essay, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” which centers around fifty examples of hidden benefits white people experience in day-to-day life. An example Reilly provided is, “[She] can get pulled over and not have to worry about being singled out due to race.” During the workshop, participants read the examples aloud and then discussed how they were feeling. They defined and addressed white fragility, white guilt, and white fatigue, and how they connected to white privilege. Participants then did a bingo activity where the sheet was filled with phrases such as, “I don’t see color,” or, “I’m not racist because I have a black friend.” The students talked about which phrases they had heard at Milton, and the flaws in such statements. The workshop ended with reflections, goals, and how to apply concepts like awareness of unrecognized privilege to Milton and the outside world. Reilly said the workshop was, “really productive”, and that they have hopes of continuing such conversations in the future.
Both Mr. Heath and Reilly acknowledged that a group of white people meeting to discuss being white sounds strange and possibly daunting. However, they maintain that the intention of the workshop was to help white students grasp unrecognized white privilege and to understand its role in a community like Milton. Additionally, Mr. Heath pointed out that since students of color continue doing reflective diversity work due to necessity, white students should also do the same. While plans for the future are unclear, Reilly hopes that this message reaches more students. Conversation for the workshop was productive but turnout was lower than they would have hoped. One suggestion Reilly had was making discussion on white privilege part of the affective education curriculum. As Mr. Heath said, “Before we as white people can even engage in conversations about diversity, there first has to be an examination of things that we consider to be normal but aren’t normal for everyone else.” This workshop was certainly a step in addressing the hidden bias present in societal standards, and this conversation will hopefully continue on a larger scale.