I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege.

It seems to me that obliviousness about white advantage, like obliviousness about male advantage, is kept strongly inculturated in the United States so as to maintain the myth of meritocracy, the myth that democratic choice is equally available to all. Keeping most people unaware that freedom of confident action is there for just a small number of people props up those in power and serves to keep power in the hands of the same groups that have most of it already.

White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks.

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 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.

For me white privilege has turned out to be an elusive and fugitive subject. The pressure to avoid it is great, for in facing it I must give up the myth of meritocracy. If these things are true, this is not such a free country; one's life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own.

I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege.