"The Elusive System of White Privilege"

By Peggy McIntosh in 1988, on the "invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was meant to remain oblivious"

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

- I can avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my kind or me.

- When I am told about our national heritage or about civilization, I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.

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

- I can be pretty sure of having my voice heard in a group in which I am the only member of my race.

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

- I can be pretty sure that my children's teachers and employers will tolerate them if they fit school and workplace norms: my chief worries about them do not concern others' attitudes toward their race.

- 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.

-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.

- I can worry about racism without being seen as self-interested or self-serving.