{"id":250,"date":"2020-06-25T09:25:53","date_gmt":"2020-06-25T08:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/pgrsociology\/?p=250"},"modified":"2021-04-29T14:55:57","modified_gmt":"2021-04-29T13:55:57","slug":"white-privilege-and-systemic-silence-a-case-for-education-as-the-key-to-its-dissolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/pgrsociology\/2020\/06\/25\/white-privilege-and-systemic-silence-a-case-for-education-as-the-key-to-its-dissolution\/","title":{"rendered":"White Privilege and systemic silence: A case for education as the key to its dissolution"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Siddy Nicholls (@siddynicholls<\/a>)<\/strong> is a Newcastle Sociology and Philosophy graduate who, here, writes about the need to make in-depth discussion of racism compulsory in the British education system. Fourth in our ongoing series on <\/em>Black Lives Matter.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

White privilege. A phrase that until very recently, most white people either did not know, or were painfully reluctant to say. Unready to give in to the idea that, due to the colour of their skin, they are in a privileged position. Instead, white people have always been quick to assert that \u201cNo! We white people have struggles too! What do you mean we\u2019re privileged?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If we look back on our compulsory education, it becomes clear that this is something that goes unaddressed. We learn about social disadvantages and disparities largely in peripheral ways through news outlets, TV shows and films. The extent of most people\u2019s knowledge of inequalities is limited to either what they experience or what they passively pick up through the media. But mainstream media very rarely draws attention to race issues or to whiteness and the privilege it brings, meaning that for people who do not experience racism, it can easily go unnoticed. Where attempts are made to bring attention to racism, they are often suppressed. One need only look at the government\u2019s handling of their report on disparities in Covid-19 outcomes for ethnic minorities to see this. The impact of race is silenced and white privilege remains a reticent permeation in white people\u2019s lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Systemic silence breeds white\nprivilege, so exposing it is the first step in unraveling it. Until very\nrecently, a critical understanding of white privilege had to be more actively\nsought out. Yet, with an influx of educational graphics about white privilege\nacross social media and the increasing global awareness of brutal events like\nthe murder of George Floyd, this covertness is hopefully at risk as it is\nbrought into the open. This risk will only be actualised once racial issues\nbecome compulsory <\/em>education, as this information is still largely\navoidable. But why would a system teach about a concept that threatens its\nentire infrastructure? White people becoming aware of their own privilege\nallows its dismantlement to begin but this requires seismic change. It is\nintrinsic to white privilege that white people are unconscious of it or can\neasily deny that it places them at advantage, so undoing race and challenging\nwhite privilege poses a threat to the racist system that instilled it in the first\nplace. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If it weren\u2019t for my choice of degree programme and modules, this could easily have been an entirely new concept to me, as it is to many. Although racism has shaped my life, I had not reflected before on the fact that racism truly has no concrete or biological basis but is an entirely constructed reality underpinned by white supremacy. These kinds of discussions had not featured in my school education, in which experiences of racism in Britain did not feature. Following a seminar on my degree programme last year, where I first had an opportunity to discuss critical whiteness and white privilege, all I could think about was how menial the basis of racism is. This insanely unnecessary reliance on inferiority\/superiority based simply on skin colour, where the smaller the evidence of blackness, the less disadvantage endured, and the more white privilege prevails. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As a generally white-passing mixed-race\nperson, white privilege and racism have intersected throughout my personal\nencounters and identity. I have undoubtedly struggled with race-based\ninsecurity. I have resented looking \u2018different\u2019 and have straightened the life\nout of my very curly hair. Yet I am also conscious that my lighter skin is\nsomething that places me at an advantage over black friends and family. Whilst\nmy black father was victim of racial slurs, discriminated against in the\neveryday but also within institutions, I have been complimented for my\n\u2018tanned\u2019, \u2018olive\u2019 skin tone. When asked, \u201cWhere are you really <\/em>from?\u201d,\nit is his belonging<\/em> that comes into question when my Dad asserts his\nCaribbean ethnicity. Yet when I disclose I am partly Caribbean I am met with\ncompliments about my \u2018exoticness\u2019: \u201cThat\u2019s so lucky! I wish I was exotic like\nyou – you must tan so easily\u201d, as though blackness becomes exoticised when\ndiluted with the whiteness and privilege that comes with lighter skin. My mixed-race\nidentity leaves me racialised, while I simultaneously benefit from white\nprivilege. I recognise this and the critical problems with this evidence of\nrace in my own experience, as well as in wider society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have seen videos of young boys\nlooking for \u2018the right mix\u2019 when asked their opinions on mixed race girls.\u201cI\ndon\u2019t look exotic. I wish I looked exotic\u201d<\/em>: <\/strong>words of a white YouTube\ncreator taking an ancestry test wishing for just a bit of an \u2018exotic\u2019 ancestry.\nWhite people fetishizing or glamourising this idea of a little bit <\/em>of\nblackness, but not too much. Not enough to the point where it could threaten\nthe white privilege they have. This is the same white privilege and\nglamourisation in play with instances of cultural appropriation: appropriating\nthe \u2018desirable\u2019 elements of black culture while avoiding the racism the\ncommunity faces with a shield of white skin. This is severely problematic, a\ndimension of race and white privilege that needs more exposure to threaten its\nsubsistence. Race is social, with whiteness and blackness constructed within\nsystems and disseminated into society. Our task is therefore deconstruction,\nwhich relies on systemic changes. It is a lack of education around race that\nallow these instances of white privilege exertion to persist. My education is\nwhat made me recognise this, and necessitating such content nationally will\nencourage this recognition on an instrumentally larger scale. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are countless more layers to\nwhite privilege than are mentioned here, all of which rely on a collective\nsilencing. White privilege and the general lack of awareness of it is the\nproduct of a racist system. A consciousness of one’s privilege and how this\nrelies on the oppression of ethnic minorities is what poses a threat to the\nsystem itself, which is why it is so vital to this movement. For this to occur,\nit is imperative that something in our education changes. Though an incredible\ntool, we should not be relying on Instagram graphics to educate us on the\ntruths of our society, nor be relying on victims of racism to teach us about\nit. Already from social media, literature and tragic events like George Floyd\u2019s\nmurder and the deaths of black people in custody in the UK, white people are\nlearning an instrumental amount about systemic and enduring racism. If this\nsame energy and commitment to truth could be pushed to a national, compulsory\nlevel through the education system, this threat to society\u2019s racist\ninfrastructure becomes even stronger. Perhaps, and here\u2019s hoping, this movement\nwill draw these humanitarian issues of justice, generally exclusive to social\nscience and humanity studies, into required education. White privilege will\nbecome common knowledge and in time become dismantled, along with the racist\nsystem that breeds it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Siddy Nicholls (@siddynicholls) is a Newcastle Sociology and Philosophy graduate who, here, writes about the need to make in-depth discussion of racism compulsory in the British education system. Fourth in our ongoing series on Black Lives Matter. White privilege. A … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7295,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blm-series","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/pgrsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/pgrsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/pgrsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/pgrsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7295"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/pgrsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/pgrsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":289,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/pgrsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250\/revisions\/289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/pgrsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/pgrsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/pgrsociology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}