The Power of Privilege

JUNE SARPONG OBE is one of the most recognizable British television presenters and broadcasters and a prominent activist, having co-founded the WIE Network (Women: Inspiration and Enterprise) and the Decide Act Now summit. In 2019, she was appointed the first ever Director of Creative Diversity at the BBC.

June is the author of Diversify, an empowering guide to why a more open society means a more successful one, and The Power of Women, which proves the importance of feminism in the personal, social, and economic progress of society as a whole.

Copyright

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

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First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2020

Copyright © June Sarpong 2020

June Sarpong asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © October 2020 ISBN: 9780008435936

To anyone who has the

desire and drive to do better.

Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

The Polarized Present

Our Painful Past

A Fairer Future – The Actions

Action One - Achieve Awareness

Action Two - Make a small step with a big footprint

Action Three - Build sustainable inclusivity

Action Four - Do the white/right thing

Action Five - Educate yourself about the past

Action Six - Create a level playing field for women of colour

Action Seven - Make a bigger pie

Action Eight - Be an ally, inspire more allies

Action Nine - Redefine what it means to win

Action Ten - Act now

Be the Change

Selected Further Reading and Resources

References

About the Publisher

Dear Reader,

Recent events around racial injustice have inspired many with agency and privilege in society to ask, ‘what can I do?’ and ‘how can I be an effective ally?’ We are way beyond the point of empty rhetoric – our actions must embody our ideals. Equality must be designed by each and every one of us. The challenge may be great, but it is certainly not insurmountable, and we all have a part to play.

This book will help to identify the capacity that you, the reader, has to build the fair and just society that the better part of ourselves knows to be possible. I’d like to personally thank you for embarking on this important journey of positive change with me. There will be some uncomfortable moments, but getting comfortable with being uncomfortable is a major first step in making a real difference.

June

THE POLARIZED PRESENT

The white man’s happiness cannot be purchased by the black man’s misery.

Frederick Douglass

Racism

Racism is the belief that people of some races are inferior to others, and the behaviour which is the result of this belief. Racism also refers to the aspects of a society which prevent people of some racial groups from having the same privileges and opportunities as people from other races.

Collins English Dictionary

Anti-racism

Anti-racism is an active and conscious effort to work against multidimensional aspects of racism.

Robert J. Patterson

Other (noun)

A person of a marginalized or excluded group or demographic within society.

Otherize or otherizing (verb)

To exclude or facilitate the exclusion of an individual or group through action or inaction.

Otherism (noun)

A conscious or unconscious bias that is formed through ignorance or conditioning that results in beliefs or actions that exclude individuals or groups deemed different or ‘other’.

Otherizing happens when our brains make incredibly quick judgments and assessments of people and situations, often without us realizing. Our prejudices are influenced by our background, culture and personal experiences. Without us actively exploring and challenging our limiting beliefs we can be inadvertently complicit in fuelling inequality.

Diversify.org

*

As a child growing up on a council estate in London’s East End, I can remember my Ghanaian immigrant parents drumming into me the idea that I was going to need to ‘work twice as hard for half as much’. I don’t remember ever asking them, ‘Work twice as hard for half as much as who?’ And they never explicitly stated who the ‘who’ was. They didn’t need to – the signs were everywhere. From my young, impressionable eyes, I could see for myself that everything that represented power and privilege was white – primarily white and male . . . and the opposite of me.

This is a conversation that every child of colour raised in the West will have had with their parents or caregivers. They might not recall when they first had ‘the conversation’, but they will remember having had it. For non-white children growing up as minorities in Europe or North America, the first uncomfortable conversation with parents isn’t about the birds and the bees – that comes later. Much more pressing matters come first: the harsh realities of the discrimination that is likely to impact them the moment they leave the safety of their parents’ home and enter the world. White children have the luxury of waiting until their tweens before having to learn about the realities of life. Sadly, children of colour are told much earlier, and their conversation is about the inequities they will invariably face at some point, no matter how talented or brilliant they might be.

I describe in the foreword of the British edition of Black Enough, Ibi Zoboi’s book of short stories for teens, that this is a heartbreaking burden that parents of colour or white parents of non-white children have to bear. Children of mixed-race heritage are one of the fastest-growing ethnic groups in Britain, and this is a rapidly increasing trend in the USA too, so now many parents who might not themselves have a lived experience of discrimination are having to have the ‘the conversation’.

‘The conversation’ meant I didn’t complain when my parents berated me for my less than A* report card, or for my tardiness, or corrected my grammar, spelling or mispronunciations – even though they had heavy African accents themselves, they demanded their children speak the ‘Queen’s English’ – because the stakes were higher for me. I wasn’t on a level playing field. No, it wasn’t fair, but it was the reality, and I had to make the most of the hand I’d been dealt. My parents’ journey to the UK had not been an easy one, so in comparison to all they had experienced, my dose of inequality did not seem worthy of complaint. There were no excuses – no matter what, they still expected the best from me and my siblings. The only problem was that inequality meant second-generation immigrant kids like me might not actually be given the opportunity to be able to do our best.

My first book, Diversify, examined the social, moral and economic benefits of diversity and explained why inclusive societies are better for everyone. While promoting Diversify, I found myself travelling all over the world having conversations around the sorts of prickly subjects we are supposed to avoid in polite company, subjects such as gender, class, sexual orientation, race and religion. I mediated while those from both underrepresented and privileged groups engaged in difficult yet brutally honest and open dialogue. I listened while people bravely voiced their concerns, hurts, frustrations, confusion, shame and guilt. I was heartened and humbled by the sorts of breakthroughs I saw take place between, friends, families, colleagues and strangers. The kind of understanding I witnessed made me more hopeful than ever, even in such divisive times. However, even with these breakthroughs, wherever I went there was an ever-present elephant in the room, the role of the main beneficiaries of our unfair system: white people, particularly privileged white men.

The concept of privilege

The concept of privilege can be a challenging one to get across, but it’s one of the key factors that has shaped the inequalities, imbalances, and prejudices of society today. In order to fix the problem, the first step is acknowledging it.

Nicholas Conley

The term ‘white privilege’ has become part of the common lexicon, but what does it actually mean, how does it play out in real life and how can you become aware of it if you are one of its beneficiaries? In her famed 1989 essay ‘White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack’, American scholar and antiracism activist Peggy McIntosh brilliantly describes her breakthrough in fully understanding this concept and all that it affords her:

I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was ‘meant’ to remain oblivious. 1

It’s so important that those afforded privilege no longer remain ‘oblivious’. This is not about shame or guilt, and certainly not superiority or pity either. It is about understanding this elevated position and exploring the concept of privilege and the systemic benefits universally accrued to members of the majority group. The late US academic Allan G. Johnson spent much of his working life explaining and challenging this concept. In a blog post titled ‘What is a system of privilege?’ Johnson describes privilege as being organized around three principles: dominance, identification, and centredness.

For example, a system of white privilege, through being ‘white-dominated’, results in white people almost always occupying societal positions of power – a person of colour inhabiting this position is consequently seen to be an exception. White-dominance, Johnson explains, can be seen in Barack Obama being described as the black President, and not just ‘the President’.

This white-dominated society further leads to ‘white-identification’, through which white people begin to be identified as the norm. Everyone who falls outside of this category (often people of colour) are defined by what they are not, ‘non-white’, rather than what they are. It would be strange for one group of people to be set as the standard for all humans without there being a reason for it, and so society constructs the most logical explanation: that white people are the norm because they are to be seen as superior. As Johnson goes on to explain:

Several things follow from this, including seeing the way they do things as simply ‘human’ or ‘normal,’ and giving more credibility to their views than to the views of ‘others’, in this case people of color. White-identification also encourages whites to be unaware of themselves as white, as if they didn’t have a race at all. It also encourages whites to be unaware of white privilege. 2

These two principles, combined with ‘white-centredness’ (putting white people in the centre of attention, from newspapers and books to films and TV) result in white people being afforded unprecedented amounts of opportunity and advantage simply because they are white.

How to reimagine a future where the rest of society is afforded the same access to the opportunity that has been the private domain of privileged white men for so long is a question that has long perplexed those of us on the inclusion mission, along with how to honestly call out inequality without demonizing the very group that has the tightest grip on the levers of prosperity. The data is clear: white men account for 72 per cent of corporate leadership in Fortune 500 companies surveyed, and in the UK there are only six female heads of FTSE 100 companies.3,4 So, if more equality in the workplace, and beyond, is the goal, then white men need to be involved. But what can the group who have the most agency in society do to effect long-lasting, positive change? What can the group whose ancestors created the current imbalance we live under do to help create a new, more inclusive normal and perhaps help correct some of the wrongs of the past? In this book I aim to answer these questions as best I can, as well as offering ten concrete actions that people of privilege can undertake to make things better.

Though I have so far mainly mentioned privileged white men, there is also an incredibly important role for allies across the board, particularly white women. Amongst the groups representing those of diverse characteristics, white women from affluent backgrounds undoubtedly are those with the most agency in society and are likely to have the closest proximity to their male equivalents who are in the most privileged group. This enables white women of privilege to be powerful allies for any of the other groups. Because of the sheer number of those impacted, gender equality, as an inclusion discussion, is usually be led by white women. But there is an easy opportunity here to display inclusion by highlighting intersectional aspects of gender, such as race, and sharing platforms with other groups of women marginalized by additional characteristics of exclusion. Having an understanding of discrimination based on gender, white women have an opportunity to empathize and build coalitions between a range of diverse groups, using their position in the power structure to build bridges.

It is also important to note that as we strive towards gender parity, I do not assume that all white men have privilege – not for one second. Of course, race and sex are physical characteristics that can easily be recognized on sight and used to positively or negatively classify an individual depending on how similar or different they are from the ‘norm’. However, even individuals who have the elevated characteristics of being male and white may also be denied the level of agency that often flows from that association. Obviously, the lived experience of working-class or low-income white males greatly differs from that of elite or privileged white men, as does the experience of white women of differing socioeconomic backgrounds.

This is something we have witnessed in recent years with the rise of forgotten white working-class males who are not succeeding in state schools and who as a result of globalization are losing their traditional manual and semi-skilled occupations. This, ironically, is due more often than not to more affluent, more educated white men outsourcing jobs abroad and creating innovations in technology that undermine traditional working-class jobs. These economic shifts have placed the white males who rely on manual work at a disadvantage to educated non-whites and women, who are more able to attain or develop the skills needed for well-paid, highly skilled jobs. A degree of resentment has therefore understandably arisen from less-privileged white men whose issues have been ignored because they are lumped in with white male privilege at large.

Another group of white males whose elevated characteristics do not insulate them from discrimination are those with (L)GBTQ+ identities. They might not be ‘out’ or visibly or audibly different from other elite white males, so they may avoid some elements of prejudice. However, at some point in their lives – perhaps when they begin to recognize their true identities – many will experience alienation from a society that was not designed with them in mind. The added burden of knowing that you are perceived by some (30 per cent in the USA and 20 per cent in the UK) as a moral problem and that strangers have opinions about what you should be allowed to do with your life is an extra layer of baggage that gay men must contend with, irrespective of how well off they are. Societal rejection is also something that white males with a disability experience, albeit of a different kind to that of gay men. In this case, moral outrage is instead replaced with pity, misunderstanding and gross underestimation.

With all of that said, and allowing for instances of intersectionality, there is no getting away from the fact that if you are a white, non-disabled, educated, heterosexual, middle-aged, middle- or upper-class male adhering to a version of Christianity or atheism that fits within the confines of a secular liberal democracy, then you are part of a minority that is not deemed as ‘other’ on some level by Western society, sparing you from the most obvious levels of discrimination.

From accusation to conversation

When it comes to inclusion, of course everyone must play their part in creating the change we seek. However, those with the most power can have the maximum impact, whether that be positively or negatively. This book aims to help assist those with the most privilege to become effective allies – those perched at the top of the hierarchy of inclusion and fortunate enough not to be ‘otherized’ by mainstream Western society, who not only want to understand their privilege but also to use that privilege for good.

The circulation across social and traditional media of the video of the horrific and inhumane killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, at the hands of police officers in the USA in 2020 has meant that people across the world have been exposed to the brutality of racism.5 Opinions about the wider severity of racism will usually depend on proximity and exposure. Generally, white people in majority-white countries will have had limited exposure to racism, whereas black people, especially from lower socioeconomic groups, will have had direct experience of it and will therefore have a more pronounced view of its severity and prevalence. However, witnessing the same incident through the same mobile-phone lens meant that the racism experienced by black Americans suddenly became a visual reality for white people. There was no escaping it, no justification or narrative to present the killing as accidental or in some way caused by the action of the victim.

The full implications of white privilege were cemented by the George Floyd murder and video coming just twenty-four hours after the circulation of another video. This video depicted Amy Cooper, a white woman, threatening to call the police on Christian Cooper (no relation), a black birdwatcher in Central Park in New York, after he had asked her to put a leash on her dog, which was running free in an area of the park where that was prohibited. As she became increasingly annoyed at his request and the fact that he was videoing her response, she proceeded to call the police, intimating to them that a black man was threatening her.6 This was the latest in a long line of white women weaponizing their fear of black men, leading all the way back to fourteen-year-old Emmett Till in 1955, who was lynched after being accused of whistling at Carolyn Bryant.

As the killing of Floyd the day after the Cooper incident demonstrated, interactions between the police and black people in America are fraught with danger. Floyd did not resist arrest, instead doing everything he would have been taught to minimize his chances of being hurt, but he still ended up dead. And this is the reality for many black people, and why the issue goes much deeper than a few bad apples. If you are black, a white person has the power to threaten your very existence.

As outrage followed the global circulation of the footage, the subsequent demonstrations and civil disturbances have forced a very public conversation about race in which white people have had to play an active part. Normally these conversations are reserved for cultural celebrations, such as Black History Month, with white people taking a more passive role. However, there is now an acknowledgement, especially amongst younger generations, that racism is pervasive and the responsibility to address it lies with majority white populations. It is no longer just a marginal, unseen issue for people of colour. The footage of both events coming so close together left no room for ambiguity about the reality of racism – and it became clear that it is a problem for white people too.

Admittedly, when we talk about ways to increase diversity, we don’t immediately think of straight white males, as they are often viewed as the source of the problem more than part of the solution, with tags like ‘pale, male and stale’ being used to describe them. Yes, much of the inequality we see globally has been the design of a small, elite group of mainly straight white men, whether that be in Western society or former colonies. However, a shared identity doesn’t have to mean identical views or collective guilt but rather an opportunity to join a conversation. One of the main stumbling blocks on the journey towards greater inclusion has been the inability to effectively engage those who are currently the most catered for in society in a discussion around inclusion and widening participation.

There is no getting away from the truth that white males currently control the bulk of the world’s capital and resources, and, yes, some of the most affluent members of this group have used their power to marginalize or exploit those whom they have deemed as ‘other’, today and in the past. However, there is also no getting away from the fact that if we want this power and agency to be shared more widely and equitably without conflict or casualties then a productive dialogue needs to take place, preferably with the focus on honesty and acceptance rather than guilt and blame.

Having spent the best part of the last four years researching, writing and then speaking about the benefits of diversity for society, one question that has kept coming up from white people, often men, in audiences, offices and boardrooms I have visited is ‘I know I am seen as the main cause of the problem, but what can I do?’

I’d been toying with the idea for some time of writing about privileged people who want to create change and an incident at a diversity dinner I hosted made me realize there was a need for a book such as this – the recent fallout from the senseless killing of George Floyd only made that need all the more urgent. I’d been asked by a major consulting firm to lead an unconscious-bias training dinner for some of their senior employees and high-level clients. At my table, there was a young, white professional couple whom I really bonded with. I was waxing lyrical about why I believed in the importance of workplace targets and goals as the quickest means of levelling the playing field. Having been in television for more than two decades, I have become very adept at sensing energy and reading people. As I continued talking about race, class and gender, I could sense the husband’s discomfort at some of what I was saying. This wasn’t necessarily a problem; the whole point of the dinner was for us to move outside of our comfort zones.