White privilege, or White Skin Privilege, is a popular social concept today denoting a social relation that can exist as a right, advantage, exemption or immunity granted to or enjoyed by white persons beyond the common advantage of nonwhites. It is a form of racism expressed as preferential treatment within a society. As racism is usually understood to be punitive towards people of color, white privilege is said to be a universal benefit to its recipients. It explains such phenomena as Caucasian boxer, Gerry Cooney, receiving an very large amount of money for his 1982 fight with African American Larry Holmes, even though he was an untested contender. Examples from popular music include Elvis Presley, credited with popularizing "black music" with white audiences, as well as Eminem's popularity as a rap singer. The adjective social implies that the verb or noun to which it is applied is somehow more communicative, cooperative, and moderated by contact with human beings, than if it were omitted. ... Immunity confers a status on a person or body that makes that person or body free from otherwise legal obligations such as, for example, liability for damages or punishment for criminal acts. ... Whites (or White) is a broad term used to describe people of ethnic European, Middle Eastern and North African descent, especially those with fair skin. ... An African-American drinks out of a water cooler designated for use by colored patrons in 1939 at a streetcar terminal in Oklahoma City. ... Colored and person of color (or people of color in the plural sense) are terms that were commonly used to describe people who do not have white skin or a Caucasian appearance. ... Gerry Cooney (Born August 4, 1956) was a boxer from Manhattan, New York, who carried, perhaps on the same level as Max Schmeling, what could have been one of the unfairest labels in the history of boxing. ... 1982 is a number and represents a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar Events January January 6 - William Bonin is convicted of being the freeway killer. January 8 - AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions January 11 - Mark Thatcher, son of the British Prime... African Americans, also known as Afro-Americans or black Americans, are an ethnic group in the United States of America whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Sub-Saharan and West Africa. ... Larry Holmes (born November 3, 1949) is a former world heavyweight boxing champion considered one of the fiercest fighters in the history of heavyweight boxing. ... Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), also known as The king of Rock and Roll, or as just simply The King, was an American singer who had an effect on world culture rivaled only by The Beatles and Chuck Berry. ... Eminem Eminem is the stage name of Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972 in St. ...

Parallels are often drawn between white privilege, male privilege and heterosexual privilege. The white skin privilege theory is often sympathetic to black nationalism and other forms of ethnic nationalism and identity politics. Male Privilege Male Privilege or Sexist Privilege, is a popular social concept today denoting a social relation that can exist as a right, advantage, exemption or immunity granted to or enjoyed by male bodied people, or people passing for men beyond the common advantage of women and transgender people. ... Black nationalism is a political and social movement prominent in the 1960s and early 70s among African Americans in the United States. ... Ethnic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state derives political legitimacy from historical cultural or hereditary groupings (ethnicities); the underlying assumption is that ethnicities should be politically distinct. ... Identity politics is the politics of group-based movements claiming to represent the interests and identity of a particular group, rather than policy issues relating to all members of the community. ...

Critics of white skin privilege from the political left sometimes point out that the white skin privilege analysis belittles or ignores the class and economic nature of racism (i.e., that racism ultimately hurts every person, including whites), and that in its zeal to brand all white people regardless of economic stature (including, presumably, working-class whites) or social or cultural history as "beneficiaries" of racism, proponents spend less time actually taking concrete actions against racism on the job, in surrounding culture, etc. However, such criticism is not widespread, and most left groups -- including some favoring socialism and communism as endgoals -- fully endorse and support the white skin privilege analysis. In politics, left-wing, political left, leftism, or simply the left, are terms which refer (with no particular precision) to the segment of the political spectrum typically associated with any of several strains of socialism, social democracy, or liberalism (especially in the American sense of the word), or with opposition... A social class is a group that shares the same or similar social status. ... Stereotypical living conditions of White Trash As an epithet, white trash, or poor white trash, first came into common usage in the 1830s. ... An African-American drinks out of a water cooler designated for use by colored patrons in 1939 at a streetcar terminal in Oklahoma City. ... The color red and particularly the red flag are traditional symbols of Socialism. ... Communism is a term that can refer to one of several things: a social and economic system, an ideology which supports that system, or a political movement that wishes to implement that system. ...

Proponents of this concept maintain that often whites, especially those considering themselves "liberal," are unaware of how their skin privilege operates on a daily basis. Thus they may consider themselves anti-racist but are not pro-actively conscious of their own unfair advantages. Because it has a tendency to be invisible to the very people that profit from it, many argue that white privilege is a particularly insidious construct to combat. Anti-racism, like other general social attitudes, ideas and movements, has many variations and faces. ...

Whiteness studies is a branch of academia that emerges from the desire to address white privilege and to understand and dismantle it. Whiteness studies is a controversial branch of academic scholarship in America which began appearing as early as 1983 (see the works of Marilyn Frye). ...

References

• WhitePrivilege.com, an anti-racism resource (http://whiteprivilege.com)
• Roediger, David R. The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0860915506/103-4162510-3131014) (Verso, 1999)
• Rothenberg, Paula S., ed. White Privilege: Essential Readings on the Other Side of Racism (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0716787334/qid=1116184921/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-4162510-3131014) (Worth, 2004)
• Williams, Linda Faye. Constraint Of Race: Legacies Of White Skin Privilege In America (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0271025352/qid=1116184921/sr=2-5/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_5/103-4162510-3131014) (Penn State, 2004)
• Wise, Tim. White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1932360689/qid=1116182846/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/103-4162510-3131014) (Soft Skull, 2005)