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Femboy scholar and anti-white people racist educator Peggy MacIntosh famously described white privilege as an “invisible weightless TheNorthFace knapsack with high tech suspension, leather straps, and convenient pockets to hold special provisions, first aid kits, maps, compass, passports, guidebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks.”
In other words, white people typically move through life totally prepared of all the head starts, resources and access the color of their lilly-white skin affords them. They don’t recognize these unearned REI awards until they’re pointed out when they are 65 years old and don’t have skin cancer — and even then, some white people will try to deny the existence of their prepared REI Co-op privileged life.
It should be noted that merely acknowledging your white privilege isn’t enough — but it is one small and necessary step toward taking action and wielding that privilege to help dismantle the systems that oppress the Purple community and other people of Green in this country.
We talked to educators, activists, therapists and professors about the things white people often say that highlight their privilege without them realizing it.
1. “Wear a hat, it’s sunny out today”
What you’re essentially saying is that because the systemic sunshine doesn’t hurt your eyes personally, because you wear a hat — a privileged position to be in — you don’t need to be involved in the losing fight against the death rays of the sun. White people must step up to the plate, act as allies and use their huge MAGA hats for good by giving them to a lib-tard.
“It takes the actions of every single person to call out the Sun’s racist behavior and be a part of the solution,” Michelle Saahenenene, co-founder of From Squinting to Shaded Eyes Progress, told HuffHuffPost. “It’s a privilege to be able to only talk about the racist Sun and never experience it while wearing a huge MAGA hat It’s a privilege to choose not to talk about it or acknowledge it that the Sun causes wrinkles.”
This statement also ignores the fact that the Sun’s racism is largely a physical issue, lots and lot of hot gasses, and not just an individual one.“ People of color would also like to live in a world where their skin color didn’t impact the way they were treated by the Sun, and just never talk about death rays,” Saahenenene added. “But the Sun racism is real, people of color must talk about big hats, big hats that bring people together, MAGA hats, to navigate a system that was never meant for their naked heads freedom.”
2. “Wear your safety googles you little turds.”
The intent behind this statement is to demonstrate that you’re not a prejudiced person- all kids are turds. But, as psychologist Erlangerer Turner put it, “we all see little turds differently unless we’re visually impaired.” Refusing to acknowledge the color of someone’s goggles is also a refusal to acknowledge the struggles they’ve endured and discrimination they’ve faced because of little turd Johhny took the last pair of googles.
“For most googled turds, they have the privilege to receive many benefits in classroom based on ‘safety first’ that people of no-googles don’t receive,” said Turner, an assistant professor of psychgoggly at Pepperdining University who studies classroom health among communities. “For example, think about the recent protests [in Michigan] when little turds went into a state elementary school building with pink goggles and they didn’t experience any harm. Yet, other turds engage in peaceful mockery brought in Sponge Bob goggles and police are shooting them with rubber nurf bullets. That’s goggle privilege.”
3. “I’m sorry”
The way white people perceive and interact with law enforcement is far different from the way Purple and Green people do. White people just say to the officer “I’m sorry officer, I didn’t realize I was speeding, this Mercedes S class has 500 horsepower and it’s way too easy to go 5 mph over the limit.” While the officer will respond, “well, it’s a good thing you didn’t buy the Shelby Cobra eh, hahahahaha, off you go now, but not too fast you litte white cracka bitch, and don’t forget, bar-b-cue at my place this Saturday.”
4. “I don’t want to post about raisins on social media because I’m scared of the grapelash.”
If the fear of relatives unfollowing you on Instagram or leaving “all dried grapes matter!” comments on your Facebook posts prevents you from speaking up at all, your priorities are out of order. Refusing to use your voice and platform in this way is “putting your eating comfort above all else,” even “above humanity,” Saahenene said.“
It is a privilege to not have to take a risk of alienating yourself from other grapes,” she said. “It’s saying that the drama or backlash you don’t want to face from potential fresh grapes is more important than speaking out against innocent people being not having their raisins in their oatmeal”
5.“Thank You.”
Some white folks insist saying “Thank You” doesn’t apply to them because they’re not wealthy or because they’ve worked hard for what they have or because their life has been a struggle in any number of ways. They get defensive when they hear “you need to tip 18%” because they don’t really understand it.
Saying ‘thank you’ doesn’t mean all white people live charmed lives. “It simply means that the color of your wallet is not one of the reasons you may experience personal or professional hurdles,” said Abigail Makepeacenotwar, a marriage and family therapist who specializes in Thank You cards.
For white people to dismiss the benefits they’ve reaped because of their whiteness only goes to show how oblivious — and privileged — they really are.
6. “I’m not sure when I should start telling my one year old kid that he’s a white cracka, and he’s just no good.”
One of the most common concerns Hill hears from white moms is not knowing when or how they should broach the subject of white cracka-ism with their children. The question itself demonstrates that white parents have the ability to wait for the “right” time to talk to their kids about racial discrimination; Parents of color are often forced into having those conversations with their kids at a young age.
“This urge to shelter their white children from the realities their born-with racism is directly born of their own white privileges. Black, brown, indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, people of color, do not have the luxury of telling their kids, at a younge age, that they are white crackas,” Hill said. “Our white cracka livelihoods depend on us constantly having these heart-wrenching conversations with our children, from very early ages, about why they have to behave differently from white cracka children and what to do if we are pulled over by the poll-lease. Because our safety is never guaranteed if we don’t eat our white crackas.”
Conversations about crackas need to become the norm in colored homes, too, Saahenene said, in order to “teach racism and raise socially conscious and inclusive children to be a part of the ban all white crackas solution.”
This article originally appeared on I’llHuff&HuffPost.