Day 3 – Unearned Advantages

Examining the unearned privilege of Whiteness

Before we can meaningfully engage in decolonizing, abolitionist, or anti-racist work, we must first turn inward. Liberation is not just about dismantling external system, it requires white-bodied folks to examine how those systems live inside them. Whiteness is not only a sociopolitical identity; it functions as a mechanism of protection, credibility, and access that many move through the world with, often without noticing. This first reflection is not about personal shame, but about clarity and accountability. If whiteness continues to shape who gets heard, who gets hired, who gets to feel safe, and who gets to heal- it is imperative to ask: What do you gain from whiteness? And at whose cost? Naming unearned advantages is an act of honesty and a first step toward disrupting a system that depends on invisibility and silence to survive.

Prompt: What are 5 unearned benefits or privileges you’ve had simply for being white?

Further Context:

Before we engage any liberatory praxis - whether abolition, decolonization, or anti-racism, we must first turn inward. Without internal examination, the work becomes surface-level. Whiteness is not only structural; it is also embodied, practiced, and often invisible to those who benefit from it.

In her landmark essay “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” (1988), Peggy McIntosh described white privilege as “an invisible package of unearned assets.” These are the daily, often unconscious advantages white people receive - such as being presumed competent, welcomed into professional spaces, or feeling physically safe in public.

But white privilege is more than social comfort - it is a systemically maintained position of dominance. Legal scholar Cheryl Harris (1993), in Whiteness as Property, explained how the law has historically encoded whiteness as a form of ownership , granting white people access to safety, legitimacy, education, and land, while systematically excluding others.

Building on this, Layla F. Saad’s Me and White Supremacy invites white people to “interrogate the ways white supremacy shows up in your life, often unconsciously” and challenges readers to reckon with how those unearned advantages are maintained through silence, avoidance, and complicity. Saad emphasizes that privilege is not neutral, it comes with responsibility and accountability.

These privileges are not always visible to those who hold them - but they are felt daily by those denied them.

Action:
Write down five specific privileges you’ve experienced because of being white. These might include:
– Not being racially profiled by police
– Being assumed “safe” or “neutral” in professional spaces
– Seeing people who look like you in leadership
– Being able to access therapy without explaining your culture
– Being given the benefit of the doubt in conflict

I highly recommend reading both McIntosh’s essay, Harris’s Whiteness as Property, and the opening chapters of Me and White Supremacy.

Sit with the discomfort.

These privileges are not individual accidents; they’re the results of systems designed to keep whiteness protected and centered.

Gentle reminder: Deep change takes time. Some days will feel harder than others. Your discomfort is not failure it’s information. Breathe. Pause. Come back to your body. And keep going.

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Feel free to comment below, journal privately, or join our group chat for community support (paid membership). In this space, we honor communal learning - not one person is the holder of all knowledge. We learn beside and with each other, not above one another.

Yes, I intentionally kept the comment section for paid members only. Why? Because too often, when Black women and femmes speak truth, especially about whiteness those spaces get flooded with pushback, centering, and emotional extraction and all out bodily violence. This isn’t just about protecting feelings; it’s about honoring labor. Our words are not free-for-alls for debate or dissection. We are not here to educate for free, to soothe white guilt, or to make ourselves perpetually “accessible” at the cost of our time, energy, and nervous systems. If you’re here, it means you chose to be. You’re investing in this work, not consuming it—and that matters.

🖤 This work isn’t meant to be easy. It’s meant to be real. And you don’t have to do it alone. We’re unlearning together.

Always in Solidarity,

Pat