How does privilege affect our biases?
Unpacking Privilege
This activity is used to show how privilege is seen as an invisible backpack of earned privileges. The metaphoric backpack involves asking a series of questions that entail concrete examples of benefits that go unnoticed. In addressing these questions, we begin to realize the ideologies that form social inequality. This is a great activity to stimulate self-reflection by teachers when discussing Indigenous Peoples and other marginalized groups within the classroom.​
Questions:
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I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
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If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.
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I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
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I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
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I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
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When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
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I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
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If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.
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I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods that fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can cut my hair.
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Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.
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I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.
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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.
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I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.
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I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
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I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
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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.
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I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.
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I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to “the person in charge,” I will be facing a person of my race.
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If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race.
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I can easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children’s magazines featuring people of my race.
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I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, or feared.
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I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of race.
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I can choose public accommodations without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.
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I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.
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If my day, week, or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it has racial overtones.
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I can choose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more less match my skin.