Say His Name: Police Brutality, Extra-Judicial Killings and Achieving Racial Justice in the American Legal System

to race, there is often a negative effect on people of colour. 97 Another common statement is that ‘all lives matter’. The
Black Lives Matter is not to say that black lives are more important than others, it is to acknowledge that black lives
are undervalued, and this needs to come to an end. Kris Straub, a cartoonist, demonstrates this well. If a house was
burning down, you are going to focus on that house, you would not water every house on the street. In this case, the
black community lives in the burning house whereas everyone else lives more comfortably in the house that is not
burning down. 98
For people of colour, understanding white privilege is understanding that there are differences in treatment and that
they are wrong. While I have never experience racism to the degree of my black brothers and sisters, I can speak from a
place of some understanding. As an Indian-British woman, all my life, I had experienced differences and not
understood why, believing that I simply lacked the qualities of a likeable person such as attractiveness or intelligence.
Eventually, I began to spot the difference in treatment I would receive compared to my white peers. I was often told
that this was not the case, that I am imagining things and that I am not treated differently. As a result, I began to
accept it, that I was just insecure. Now it is clear to me, it is not something to take, it is something to fight against.
Recognising inequalities is harder than it seems, many people of colour argue that they do not feel like they are
disadvantaged, I was one of them, especially concerning the job market but you don’t realise until you look at the
statistics.
Understanding White Privilege
White privilege is a concept many white people have difficulty understanding and identifying. Robert Amico puts it
well in his book Exploring White Privilege, reading the experiences of Peggy McIntosh, a feminist and anti-racism
activist. McIntosh came to realise her advantages when first understanding her disadvantages as a woman and observing
men’s inability or unwillingness to recognise their advantages. Amico understood this and acknowledged his prior
belief that the idea of men being privileged came from bitter women who couldn’t make the grade.
McIntosh gives the following explanation of white privilege:
I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assert, which I can count on
cashing in each day, but about which I was ‘meant’ to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an
invisible weightless backpack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and
blank checks. 99
She then gives examples of privileges she experiences: ‘I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the
paper and see people of my race widely represented… 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 which fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser’s
shop and find someone who can cut my hair…. I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my
race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen… I can choose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh”
colour and have them more or less match my skin.’ 100
These are small everyday examples which expose just how much racism influences every part of life. Many other
modern-day cases were seen earlier in this essay when looking at the role of the media in institutional racism. The key
is to use white privilege to help. To illustrate the usefulness of white privilege, Heather M Rasinski and Alexander M
97
ibid
98
German Lopez, ‘Next time someone tells you “all lives matter” show them this cartoon’ (11 July 2016, Vox)
<https://www.vox.com/2015/9/4/9258133/white-lives-matter> accessed 2 June 2020.
99
Peggy McIntosh, ‘White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack’ (1988)
100
ibid
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