DEI Collab: Privilege and Defensiveness

In light of recent Black Lives Matter movements and other efforts to combat the inequalities that still run rampant in today’s society, white privilege is becoming a much more widely vocalized topic. As white people begin to understand, or at least listen to, the experiences of black people in America, they subsequently turn inward, and reflect about what this implies about their own experience.

Many white people, including myself, understand that while we may never truly know what it’s like to experience the world as a black person, it’s our time to step down and listen. When internalizing and confronting the racism that has been so normalized by society that we didn’t even notice it, there can occur a lot of growing pains as we recognize where we’ve been wrong. While necessary, this can be deeply uncomfortable for multiple reasons, and some people appear to be reacting in unproductive ways.

In general, no one wants to feel like an immoral person (Lowery, 2016). If you’ve spent your life exuding kindness and respect to people regardless of their skin color, it may be hard to hear that you still have unconscious biases that have implored you to perpetuate racial stereotypes or inequalities. The guilt that accompanies this may be unpleasant and feel undeserved, causing people to react defensively and begin to view themselves as the victim (Andy, 2016).

Further, pointing out to white people the societal privileges that have inherently benefited them since birth can feel like a diminishment of that person’s hardships or achievements (Lowery, 2020). Undermining that people have worked hard or overcome hurdles can trigger people’s self-serving attributions, i.e. their psychological inclination to view their successes as earned by efforts of their own making. Another defensive reaction stems from this, as people feel the need to cite and highlight their personal hardships as reasons why they’re exempt, and don’t benefit from unearned advantages like the rest of the white demographic (Dolan, 2015).

These mindsets can be damaging when striving for equality if they cause people to distance themselves from the issues at play. Herd invisibility is a concept that explains how white people, sometimes even devoid of their conscious efforts, block out the reality of existing inequalities and the benefits they receive from them by surrounding themselves with people who are also ignorant to these realities (Lowrey, 2020). Creating a segregated bubbled enables the blindness of those people to the hardships that those outside the bubble face.

Psychological studies have shown that there is a way to turn off this denial effect through affirmation exercises (Dolan, 2015). Giving people an opportunity to talk about their sense of self and what they value turns them off the defensive, so that they have an easier time acknowledging that white privilege exists. This is a huge step that could allow for a greater backing behind policies that combat structural inequalities. Further psychological evidence can help us figure out how to circumvent these defensive reactions and push forward in dismantling structural racism in America.

References:

Andy. “Defensive Reactions to White Privilege.” Social Psych Online, Mar. 2016, socialpsychonline.com/2016/03/defensive-reactions-to-white-privilege/.

Dolan, Kerry. “Why White People Downplay Their Individual Racial Privileges.” Stanford Graduate School of Business, Aug. 2015, www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/why-whites-downplay-their-individual-racial-privileges.

Lowery, Brian. “Speaking of Psychology: The Invisibility of White Privilege with Brian Lowery, PhD.” American Psychological Association, July 2020, www.apa.org/research/action/speaking-of-psychology/white-privilege.