Most talk by whites about equal opportunity seems to me now to be about equal opportunity to try to get into a position of dominance while denying that systems of dominance exist.

I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having my co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of my race.

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

I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group

As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.

one question for me and others like me is whether ... we will get truly distressed, even outraged, about unearned race advantage and conferred dominance and, if so, what we will do to lessen them.

Power from unearned privilege can look like strength when it is in fact permission to escape or to dominate.