Top 1200 White Privilege Quotes & Sayings

Explore popular White Privilege quotes.
Last updated on April 17, 2025.
Privilege is not in and of itself bad; what matters is what we do with privilege. I want to live in a world where all women have access to education, and all women can earn PhD’s, if they so desire. Privilege does not have to be negative, but we have to share our resources and take direction about how to use our privilege in ways that empower those who lack it.
I have never been political, which for a straight white man that's kind of a byproduct of privilege growing up that I was kind of like, "Who cares who the president is, everything is coming up privilege." But now things are so scary and crazy and I have to say I'm not a fan of Trump at all. I don't agree with him in any way.
As a white queer person of a certain degree of economic privilege, I think that my ability to pass as straight is a privilege that other folk I know don't have. It's important to keep in mind who really is in the most trouble and to direct our attention to assisting those people.
White privilege is the other side of racism. — © Paula Rothenberg
White privilege is the other side of racism.
My privilege as a white man, my privilege as the mayor and the leader of the institutions of power in this community I believe shielded me from time to time from the many difficult and uncomfortable truths about our history and about our society.
Of course, the opposite of white privilege is not blackness, as many of us seemed to think then; the opposite of white privilege is working to dismantle that privilege. But my particular hip-hop generation proved to be very serious about figuring it all out and staying engaged.
In this system called America, white privilege reigns supreme but to me, I have to embrace what I am and how special we are as a people. I have to know that God put me here for a real reason and He blessed me with divine privilege and there's a divine system that I can tap into that can help me overcome any obstacle that stands in my way.
White privilege is the other side of racism. Unless we name it, we are in danger of wallowing in guilt or moral outrage with no idea of how to move beyond them. It is often easier to deplore racism and its effects than to take responsibility for the privileges some of us receive as a result of it... Once we understand how white privilege operates, we can begin to take steps to dismantle it on both a personal and institutional level.
I'd say it's never a challenge to present white and heteronormative privilege. The hard thing is to write any other way.
Light-skinned privilege is largely through a white lens. It is exploited by oppressive forces... It was always a facade.
I love when white people use their privilege to combat prejudice.
If you're White then yes, you have White privilege. It's there for the taking if you choose to use it, you know, just keeping it 100.
As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.
White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks. — © Peggy McIntosh
White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks.
The more divided people of color are in a system of white supremacy/privilege, the weaker they will be, both individually and collectively.
While I was able to pass as white as soon as I came to America, this was not really possible while I was growing up, as it was pretty obvious that I wasn't 'all German.' So my privilege was that in America, I could conveniently withhold one of my bloodlines and avoid racism and discrimination. That is not a privilege most people of color have.
You can't be in business with international development and not understand basic issues of colonialism, postcolonialism and white privilege.
To have privilege in one or more areas does not mean you are wholly privileged. Surrendering to the acceptance of privilege is difficult, but it is really all that is expected. What I remind myself, regularly, is this: the acknowledgment of my privilege is not a denial of the ways I have been and am marginalized, the ways I have suffered.
The White Savior Industrial Complex is not about justice. It is about having a big emotional experience that validates privilege.
I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege.
Being 'out and proud' can feel like a real luxury of Western culture, where people are often white and see existing white gay people in their culture. That's a kind of privilege people don't know they possess.
I take it seriously that it's a privilege and honor to be a role model to young girls, both black and white. It's not something I take lightly.
However, white male privilege means white men are not collectively denigrated/targeted for those shootings - even though most come at the hands of white dudes.
There is a privilege in American society to being male and being white, and I think it's hard for white males to understand that privilege, because we've never experienced the opposite. When I sought out mentors to try to move forward, there were white males in virtually every position from which I was seeking mentorship. There was a natural simpatico or natural comfort. And so if you believe that's true, and I believe it's true, then we have to change that. We have to try to equalize opportunity and privilege.
Many white people sense that they are being blamed for the sins of white slave owners and imperialists merely through some lineage of ethnicity. Activists' constant stress on white privilege can lead to an unhealthy defensive posture of white victimhood.
If your white privilege and class privilege protects you, then you have an obligation to use that privilege to take stands that work to end the injustice that grants that privilege in the first place.
I said, "OK, Ammon [Hennacy], I will try that." He said, "You came into the world armed to the teeth. With an arsenal of weapons, weapons of privilege, economic privilege, sexual privilege, racial privilege. You want to be a pacifist, you're not just going to have to give up guns, knives, clubs, hard, angry words, you are going to have lay down the weapons of privilege and go into the world completely disarmed."
I definitely think the fact that I come from a multicultural background, my mother living life in a white skin and having white skin privilege from the time I was little, I was aware of that.
Those who politically theorise the artificial concept of 'whiteness' infer that anyone who has white skin cannot escape their unconscious bias. If you object, you are accused of failing to come to terms with your white privilege.
There is a consciousness as an agent of one's own destiny as a person in America, there are things that can be done, there are advantages and benefits which exist that are directly related to - and even rest upon - white privilege.
When you talk about "white privilege", you're talking about something systemic. When you're talking about "black privilege" it's something spiritual because we as black people tap into a divine system that a lot of other cultures and races can't tap into and that system allows us to prosper in spite of everything that's been thrown our way from slavery to segregation to mass incarceration. We have a privilege pre-ordained by God that nothing and no one can stop.
The most glaring aspect of white privilege is that when someone is described neutrally - without indicating color or ethnicity - more often than not, people will assume that the person is white. That assumption indicates an uncomfortable truth: in our society, whiteness determines humanity.
The privilege of privilege is that the terms of privilege are rendered invisible. It is a luxury not to have to think about race, or class, or gender. Only those marginalized by some category understand how powerful that category is when deployed against them.
I want you to admit that there is such a thing as white privilege.
Living in Portland, which is a predominantly white city, the privilege and the luxury to be able to obsess over a certain kind of minutia, that I think, if you did not have that privilege, would never be bothersome. When people are worried about whether "local" means 100 miles, or 50 miles, or 10 miles from a grocery store, I just think, "Wow. What a privilege it is to have that as a major concern in your life." As opposed to, "Can we afford food tonight?" Sometimes I'm just shocked at what becomes concerning in these kind of communities.
When you serve, whether it's here in the House or in the White House or anywhere else, it's a distinct honor and privilege and so that's about the extent of it.
That's why you have to keep your mind open - so that you can be given the privilege to have five weeks in Japan and take all of that in. I mean, that's privilege to be able to do that. And you have to give that privilege back - it doesn't belong to you. It belongs to the madding crowd.
This is really skin privilege, the ranking of color in terms of its closeness to white people or white-skinned people and its devaluation according to how dark one is and the impact that has on people who are dedicated to the privileges of certain levels of skin color.
I'm obviously a white woman with privilege. I want to make sure I always collaborate with people who aren't like me so we can create a work that isn't one dimensional. — © Petra Collins
I'm obviously a white woman with privilege. I want to make sure I always collaborate with people who aren't like me so we can create a work that isn't one dimensional.
White people are so unappreciative, they don't even acknowledge and understand what it means to be white in Canada, and all the layers of privilege that come with that. So they're shocked when somebody says, 'What just happened is racist,' and they said, 'Oh no, couldn't possibly be.' They see racism as people with KKK gowns and pointy hoods with eyes cut out. And we had those too.
You don't necessarily have to do anything once you acknowledge your privilege. You don't have to apologize for it. You need to understand the extent of your privilege, the consequences of your privilege, and remain aware that people who are different from you move through and experience the world in ways you might never know anything about.
I have never experienced racism in the feminist movement, so it concerned me to think that I was unable to see the subject clearly because I came from white, middle-class privilege.
The journey of making 'Hidden Figures' has shown me the automatic privilege that all white men are afforded in America in 2017 and in any and every year before that.
White privilege is the unquestioned and unearned set of advantages, entitlements benefits and choices bestowed on people solely because they are white. Generally white people who experience such privilege do so without being conscious of it.
As a white male in America, I have privilege. As a white male who happens to be an artist with a fan base, I have a platform to spread awareness about that privilege. However, songs about race and privilege are very difficult to A) write and B) dissect as a listener. They're heavy.
Atheism is like the highest level of white privilege. It's like having a black belt in white privilege.
Obviously white privilege is a thing, 1000%.
We question these issues of race and struggle and white privilege because we know that those issues are real and because those issues have real implications in black communities. And white supremacy is not only dangerous, but it is deadly.
We should self-examine and talk about things like our own white privilege and these phony senses of being an artist. — © Geoff Rickly
We should self-examine and talk about things like our own white privilege and these phony senses of being an artist.
I think white artists have a responsibility to be not only naming white supremacy, but to be using their power and privilege to support artists of color.
Trying to convince someone that they are a racist or they have White Privilege - if it's in the air they breathe and the culture supports them, sometimes they never have to think about it at all.
We know that racism and white privilege are both very much alive today.
The only privilege literature deserves - and this privilege it requires in order to exist - is the privilege of being in the arena of discourse, the place where the struggle of our languages can be acted out.
We as black have to remind ourselves that we are a great people and we come from a great lineage. How can we say that we were Kings and Queens during ancient civilization but then turn around and say, 'we don't have privilege.' Who said that? What is that based on? Is that based on the white man's definition of privilege and what this system is showing us? Yes, of course.
Many white people experience themselves as powerless, even in the face of privilege. But the fact is that we all have a sphere of influence, some domain in which we exercise some level of power and control. The task for each of us, White and of color, is to identify what our own sphere of influence is (however large or small) and to consider how it might be used to interrupt the cycle of racism.
When I reflect on the Colbert interview, it moved so quickly that what we didn't do was define white privilege, and I wish we had done that. White privilege is the benefit resulting from white being seen as the standard, regardless of gender and income.
In America, many marginally competent or flatly incompetent whites are hired every day -some because their white skin suits the conscious or unconscious racial preference of their employers. The white children of alumni are often grandfathered into elite universities in what can only be seen as a residual benefit of historic white privilege.
Feminists must denounce the use of white insecurity - whether in relation to white womanhood, white neighborhoods, white politics, or white wealth - to justify the brutal assaults against black people of all genders.
White privilege allows a certain kind of leisure that can be deployed by white people of advantage toward our restoration. That's all true and good. But it also suggests that there is an individual approach to the issues that many of these white people have taken up as a recognition of their tie to and responsibility for some of the inequities that exist. And I don't think it has to be an either-or. I think it has to be a bifocal approach.
For me, being part of the WTA tour is a privilege. Every day I wake up, it's a privilege to be able to go outside and do what I love. It's a privilege to be able to make my own hours, even though they're long, but I make them.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!