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.

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

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.

Whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work that will allow 'them' to be more like 'us'.

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