Customer Reviews

White Privilege

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This book was an uncomfortable read because I was unaware of the privileges white people have and take for granted. The book provided me with a new view of race and prejudice. White Privilege describes how other races feel and forces you to develop empathy with that race or gender. I would recommend this book to anyone, especially those that have not or rarely experienced other cultures or races. Great read, well written and moves fast.

This book is incredible and informative book. I got it for my multicultural psychology course, and it is very easy to read. I am happy with it, and would recommend it to everyone. It arrived on time and was packaged well .

Absolutely necessary for all students, educators, therapists, human services employees, activists, bankers, politicians... well everyone!

This book is an excellent way to learn about how white privilege benefits this dominant group, even if most white individuals do not feel the benefits. This is not an attack on white people and it is not meant to instill white guilt/shame or self hatred as one reviewer suggested. Rothenberg has written this in the hope that whites who read it will learn how to use the unearned power and privilege given to them to "combat racism." It usefully references Peggy McIntosh's White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack list to begin to understand how white privilege benefits whites if ways they don't see of feel:

1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.

2. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area, which I can

afford and in which I would want to live.

3. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.

4. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.

5. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely

represented.

6. When I am told about our national heritage or about "civilization," I am shown that people of my

color made it what it is.

7. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their

race.

8. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.

9. I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket

and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser's shop and find someone

who can cut my hair.

10. Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the

appearance of my financial reliability.

11. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.

12. I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute

these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race.

13. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.

14. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.

15. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.

16. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world's

majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.

17. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being

seen as a cultural outsider.

18. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to "the person in charge," I will be facing a person of my race.

19. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven't been singled

out because of my race.

20. I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children's

magazines featuring people of my race.

21. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than

isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, or feared.

22. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having coworkers on the job suspect that

I got it because of race.

23. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be

mistreated in the place I have chosen.

24. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help my race will not work against me.

25. If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it

has racial overtones.

26. I can choose blemish cover or bandages in "flesh" color and have them more or less match my skin.

Easy, fast transaction thank you! Items as described and some in better condition than described. Will do business again!Thanks again...

The book is hard hitting and timely. Well written chapters speak to the America we live in. The discussions are long overdue!!

This book is AWESOME! It helps to explain a lot of the racial problems we have in this country. It also can help ethnic minorities (like me) find the words to discribe our experiences in America!!!!

Having grown up white in america and taught to be shameful of my race, my history, in the public schools, as well as being instructed in the media and life in general that I am always "wrong" and i have to prove my innocence at any time, this book was a sad screwed up look at white privilege. Perhaps people of the authors generation benefited, i have only been made to suffer for it. I have extracted no divinable benefit. Sure you can say my parents, a cop & a secretary, got an education and I too got an education while others did not. However at 45 I daily imagine the cost of one inadvertant slip of the tongue.

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Someday the meritocracy will rise and those who fall behind will be pointed to their own failures and victimhood will be the new scarlet letter. Someday.

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This book of course is an apology to the non whites and reinforces the victimhood and places false guilt so the cycle goes on and someday is not here yet.