An examination of the mechanisms by which white privilege was created and is maintained today, the advantages of which redound to every white person.
Posted: 2025-Jul-14
I first drafted this essay in 2014 but made no effort to share it. In 2016, I gave a copy to a highly respected journalist friend, who encouraged me to publish it. I updated the statistics and tightened the writing; however, despite the introductions by my friend to various colleagues at suitable media, the essay was universally rejected, to the consternation of my journalist friend. I've made no further updates before posting it now, but, echoing the legal doctrine of 'res ipsa loquitur' (the thing speaks for itself), it is manifestly true that conditions have deteriorated rather than ameliorated. Trump and the MAGA movement are the predictable backlash against the Obama presidency, and the breakneck destruction of both public and private DEI initiatives is intended to restore maximum white privilege in America.
December 12, 2014; updated 2016
During a 2014 cross-country road trip, I entered Mississippi for the first time. My thoughts turned darkly to Mississippi’s reputation of racial discord and violence—from slavery, through the civil rights movement, until today. As I drove, I wondered why Mississippi was this way? The answer came with the thought, "Through the deliberate choices and actions of the white people of Mississippi to elevate themselves above other races.” It was not the soil, nor the air, nor the water of Mississippi that caused its white inhabitants to impose animosity, terror, and torture upon its black inhabitants—it was the result of the individual choices and actions of its white citizens, which collectively gave rise to a culture of establishing and preserving racial entitlement, or white privilege.
In fairness to Mississippi, white privilege did not originate there. From the very outset of the European settlement of the Americas, whites have used physical force, legal institutions, political manipulations, and socio-economic barriers to establish, enforce, and maintain white privilege.
From the earliest colonial times until today, whites have used physical force—including slavery, assaults, lynchings, bombings, and cross burnings—to exploit and intimidate blacks. Klan night riders and lynchings remain enduring symbols of white violence against the black community, but attacks in Sanford, FL, Charleston, SC, and Jasper, TX, have shown violence remains a real threat.
Paradoxically, the black community today faces greater mortal threat from those sworn to “protect and serve” than it ever did from lynch mobs. Between 1882 to 1968, at least 3,445 blacks were lynched, an overall average of 40 per year. Even during the peak years of 1885 to 1935, the average number of lynchings was 63. Though accurate official statistics on police shootings have not been kept, it has been reported that police killed at least 336 blacks in 2015.
Some of the 336 fatalities may have been genuinely necessary to preserve the life of the officer; however, the fact that less than 50% of the victims possessed firearms indicates that a large majority of these killings were avoidable. Those unnecessary deaths are extra-judicial executions without due process—many for non-capital crimes, such as jaywalking, selling loose cigarettes, driving without a front license plate, or playing in the park.
In addition to unjustified fatal shootings, law enforcement also inflicts widespread and openly acknowledged police brutality against the African American community—an issue which I encountered while interning at the public defender's office for Prince George's County, Maryland in the 1990’s. On a daily basis, defendants were in court having been charged with resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer. Never once did I encounter a case in which the defendant had actually resisted arrest or assaulted a police officer. Instead, white officers would routinely beat young black men—often severely—while arresting them on minor drug and theft charges.
One case of police brutality stands out as particularly egregious. My client was a young, black man who had been arrested—he was in the vicinity when a shoplifting was reported—and brutally beaten by the police officers. The case against him was weak, and the arresting officers had not come to court. As the white judge, white prosecutor, and I were was discussing the disposition of the case, the judge winked and chuckled that since “street justice” already had been administered it would be appropriate to defer any prosecution. It shocked me that police violence against the black community would be openly acknowledged and condoned by the criminal justice system. Not once did I see a white defendant in court having been brutalized the way that black defendants routinely were.
Whites used the legal system to entrench and exploit the racial advantages first obtained through brute force. These legally-sanctioned inequalities included colonial slave codes, Constitutional provisions on the Three-Fifths Compromise and slaveholder property rights, the Fugitive Slave Acts, and the Dred Scott decision, which collectively privileged the property and economic rights of white slaveholders above the “inalienable” rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness of blacks.
Notwithstanding the 13th and 14th Amendments, which prohibited slavery and provided equal protection, “Jim Crow” laws privileged whites over blacks in social matters, the economy, education, transportation, lodging, etc. Efforts during the Civil Rights Era and the Great Society to rectify these legal inequalities have been continually assailed and undermined, until now approximately 50% of whites believe their legal status and rights have been subordinated to the status and rights of blacks.
The criminal justice system is notably inequitable, where blacks are disproportionately prosecuted and incarcerated compared to whites. Stop and frisk, “driving while black,” and “broken window” policing are directed at blacks rather than whites. These disparate encounters with the criminal justice system have life-long consequences for those ensnared. While in the Public Defender’s Office, I saw an endless stream of unrepresented, young, black male defendants accepting plea agreements to avoid serving jail time, notwithstanding that a criminal conviction would essentially bar them from future opportunities for employment, education, and civic participation.
Regrettably, more than 20 years after my experiences in the Maryland Public Defender’s office, I recently observed similar racially inequitable prosecutions in suburban Atlanta. In December 2015, I accompanied an acquaintance to court in Douglasville, GA, for his felony arraignment for indecent exposure arising from an incident of public urination. As I sat in the courtroom, I observed that, notwithstanding relatively balanced local demographics, nearly all the defendants were black. Most proceeded without legal representation and quickly accepted the plea agreements being offered by the prosecutors. Despite being charged with relatively minor offenses, these defendants will now have a felony conviction on their records. One case, in which a black woman was pleading guilty to felony assault for pushing her ex-boyfriend out the door when he refused to leave her home, gave the white judge obvious discomfort; however, he ultimately accepted the plea and entered the felony conviction on her record.
In contrast to the daily injustices of the criminal justice system against blacks, the experience of the white, 18-year-old son of a friend who was charged with felony shoplifting was radically different. He was neither brutally arrested nor compelled to accept a felony conviction. Rather, his case was resolved without a criminal conviction on his record. To his credit, he became a productive citizen, a successful business owner, and a social entrepreneur. Unfortunately, young black men are not afforded equal opportunity to move beyond minor mistakes.
Whites manipulate the political process to control the institutions of power through which they preserve and expand their racial privileges. Gerrymandered congressional districts and denial of voting rights enable a diminishing white electorate to maintain political power. The “southern strategy” of the Republican party and the use of coded “dog whistle” language to foment racial fears has given way to explicit, white Christian demagoguery. At the same time, Citizens United has given legal sanction for the privileged elite to buy political power and favor through unlimited campaign contributions and political expenditures. Lobbying on behalf of corporate and elite interests also ensures that government policies and programs benefit the elite at the expense of the diminishing middle class and the poor. White political power is a privilege that keeps on giving.
In every meaningful indicator—income, employment rate, wealth, home-ownership, education, life expectancy, de facto segregation of communities and schools, etc.—whites enjoy substantial advantages over blacks. The socio-economic barriers that inhibit the opportunities for blacks are real and powerful. Often they are subtle; sometimes they are explicit.
While working at a large corporation in Los Angeles between university and law school, I witnessed a colleague who was responsible for the hiring process mock an eminently qualified applicant—whom he assumed to be African American on the basis of the applicant’s name and biographical data—and theatrically throw the resume in the trash. (The fairness of my complexion often leads whites to act in ways they wouldn’t in an obviously diverse group). I am ashamed to say that as a newly-hired and young employee, I was too intimidated to call out the explicit discrimination. When I spoke privately with other colleagues about the incident, it was simply shrugged off.
While attending Georgetown University Law Center, classmates who had darker complexions than mine regularly encountered whites who would cross the street to avoid them as they walked between Union Station and the law school. No matter that they were attending one of the premier law schools and were dressed “business casual,” they were perceived as a threat merely by walking in public. Such reactions of whites are both common and insidious. Sadly, a recent study demonstrates that white fear of black men applies even to young boys.
Some years ago, a big-box store was scheduled to open in the suburban Maryland community where I lived. A friend from church, who was also African American, stopped to inquire about employment on behalf of members of our congregation, which ironically was overwhelmingly white. Her request for application forms was refused, and she was brusquely informed that no hiring was being done at that time. She immediately recounted her experience to me and suggested that I go to the store to make a similar request. Within a few hours, I stopped at the store and made an identical inquiry to the very same store employee. In contrast to my friend’s experience, I received a warm and friendly explanation of the hiring process and was given a dozen applications to carry with me. The only factor to account for our very different receptions was my ambiguous complexion.
Such instances of bigotry that serve to protect white privilege are not isolated. Many studies have shown that anti-black bias is manifested so commonly in various socio-economic aspects that it is simply the norm.
White privilege is demonstrably real, and it impacts virtually every facet of life. White is the default and favored value in American institutions, both public and private. A white person is unavoidably a participant—whether wittingly or unwittingly, actively or passively—in the system that privileges them above non-whites, and they can neither avoid nor deny the benefits redounding to all white people by virtue of their racial status. Every white person is, at a minimum, a beneficiary of the white privilege created, enforced, and sustained by their fellow whites.
I was born in the last year of the Baby Boom into an essentially all-white, all-Mormon community in Southern Utah. Six decades later, I am no longer Mormon, no longer white, and finally ready to share my story. The map is not yet complete, and new pathways beckon. Shall we see where they lead?
If these words resonate in your own journey, I'd love to know which passages lingered with you. Let's continue the dialogue.