The Colour of Privilege

In our past blogs, we have looked at how privilege plays out in society from magazine covers (see Vogue February 2022) to the actions of the UK Government during lockdown.??We know privilege comes in various forms such as gender privilege, socio-economic status privilege and religious privilege.??However, what about race???Are privilege and race connected????We sure hear a lot about ‘White Privilege’ but what does that really mean???Also, if racial privilege exists does it also exist the other way too such as ‘Black Privilege’?!

Let’s examine what ‘White Privilege’ is exactly as that is what gets the most airplay when discussing diversity and its impact.???According to the Oxford Languages dictionary ..

white privilege

inherent advantages possessed by a white person on the basis of their race in a society characterized by racial inequality and injustice.

"I'll be the first to acknowledge that I do benefit from white privilege"

For those that don't have white privilege, it feels like they are oppressed, they are unfairly treated. They do not have access to many of the benefits that white people seem to have.???It feels to non-Whites almost as if white people get a pass whilst they themselves do not.??To illustrate this point even further we only have to look at recent situations and ascertain if the outcomes would have been different if the main players were non-white.???Firstly, right now, in real time, we have a situation with Prince Andrew being played out where he has been accused of sexual assault by a woman who, at the time of the alleged offence was, considered to be, underaged and trafficked from the USA.??Imagine for one moment that this was a non-white man accused of the same crime … would an out of court settlement have been enough to draw a line under this debacle?????It was not so long ago that Donald Trump tried to eradicate any privileges previously afforded to Muslims and non-Whites (particularly Mexicans) in the USA.??Whilst these actions sparked global outrage, Donald Trump still had overwhelming support for these initiatives amongst his supporters.???This is not too dissimilar to the wave of support that Brexit initially had back in 2016 when it was thought that the main beneficiaries of Brexit would be ‘sovereign citizens’ and not non-whites i.e immigrants.???

All of the above examples can also be viewed through the lenses of other privileges such as religion and socio-economics as well as race.???This is why the perspective of privilege purely through race can be misleading.???It’s not that White Privilege does not exist, because we know it does and see it in action on a daily basis, but privilege is evident in all aspects of our society.???We all benefit from privilege though some privileges are more obvious than others.??Bearing all this in mind, do you consider yourself to be privileged???What privileges do you think you are afforded due to your gender, race, socio-economic status, religion or even heterosexual privileges?

Listen to The Privilege Eruption Podcast (available on all platforms) to hear our discussions and findings from our recent Privilege Conundrum Survey, where Leaders and organisations provide insight into how privilege plays out in their teams, productivity and diversity and inclusion policies.??