Overcoming Unearned Privilege: Leadership, Diversity and Our Nation’s Future
Alice Jennings was the great-granddaughter of a Confederate soldier. She grew up in Tennessee without electricity or running water and attended segregated schools. She infuriated her family by marrying a Yankee from Massachusetts. One of her sons married a Black woman. Another son, Kevin, is gay and would have been considered mentally ill before 1973, when the American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as a mental illness. He was 10 years old then.
“In one generation, my family went from a legally segregated country to one with an African-American president,” Kevin Jennings said. “It’s important to recognize how recent things are.”
Jennings is the assistant deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools and founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). He told his family’s story to DiversityInc’s audience of chief diversity officers and executives at our two-day diversity event in Washington, D.C., where he talked about how ingrained sense of privilege and attitudes about what is “normal” can impede further movement.
To attend DiversityInc’s March 2–3 event, featuring New York Times Columnist Frank Rich, Ernst & Young Chairman and CEO Jim Turley and others, click here.
Jennings pointed out that of the United States’ 44 presidents, only nine presided after the end of legal segregation, only eight have presided after homosexuality was no longer classified as a mental illness and only one is not a white man.
The presidency is a reflection of the unearned privilege of the nation’s dominant group, in which that group views that its social, cultural and economic experiences are what’s “normal.” That privilege, Jennings explained, confers invisible advantages, even in 2010 where bigotry is no longer acceptable in polite society. For example, Jennings talked about Arkansas School board member Clinton McCance, who lost his board position after posting on Facebook that he’d prefer that all gay people commit suicide. While his fellow board members would not stand for his bigotry, those same people may not recognize the subtle, systemic barriers to diversity.
Jennings offered three tips for individuals to overcome their addiction to privilege:
- Check yourself. Avoid using the word “normal” when you’re talking about facts, not perceptions. “‘Normal’ is a value judgment. ‘Norm’ is a statistical fact.”
- Be an ally. For those accustomed to privilege, a member of their group speaking out against injustice or pointing out bigotry may have more impact than hearing from a person outside of that group.
- Believe the impact. When someone comes to you about a problem, don’t minimize it.
Jennings offered three changes for systems to cease to operate on privilege:
- Distinguish your organization from the norm. He provided an example of teachers putting up posters in their classrooms with words typically used to put people down and telling students that they would not allow those words in their classrooms.
- Target recruiting.
- Put your money where your mouth is. Mentor across networks. Invisible networks pervade institutions. Open the networks to everyone, starting with executives and members of privileged networks having mentors who are not part of their suites or networks.
2:34 pm
I don’t know about “unearned privilege” as any privileges I have are earned and mostly the hard way. I worked for my promotion I did extra work for my good evaluations. I gave of myself for my employer and my country.
As for being a white Irish catholic, THAT might have given me some unearned privileges but if so I failed to recognize them.
12:29 pm
After reading the comment from the Irish Catholic person about not recognizing unearned privileges, I had to make a couple of comments on this topic. His comments reminded of a similar conversation I had several years ago when I was servring as a Diversity Coordinator for my work location. We were having a similar discussion on privilege during a training event when a fairly young white man in the group became angry when it was mentioned that he, being in the dominant group, had a privilege that other groups did not, or do not enjoy. He like the the previous person felt that any percevied privilege that he had was hard earned by his efforts alone. This caused quite a stir among the group because what the young man failed to grasp was that just being in the majority(white male) group, that alone inferred certain privileges that, while maybe unintentional, never the less it is there, whether one recognizes it or not. What I got out of the discussion about privilege and based on my own experiences is that all we, bieng the minority groups, only want is the privilege of a fair opportunity to just compete for that promotion or good evaluation. I too, gave of myself for my employer and my country, but were denied several opportunities that better job, or get a fair performance rating because of my skin color. I am an American of African desent. My white friends, male and female, confirmed this to me. I did not or do not harbor any ill will toward those individuals who may have played a part in that, because to do so would only lower me to their level. Instead, I used that knowledge as motivation to succeed in my career, and thankfully I did. I apologize for the lengthly diatribe, but It saddens me that there is still a large majority of people out there that still refuse to acknowledge that fact. It doesn’t matter if they subscribe to it or not, it is a fact that certain groups do enjoy that benefit, earned or not, recognized or not. Thank You.
7:49 am
I truly appreciate Mr. Jennings verbalizing the concept of structural oppression that many of the non-dominating group experience and have verbalized in the past. It is so ingrained in our society that many still don’t understand the difference between human rights and unearned privleges, which are taken for granted daily. I think I once heard a baseball analogy that spoke volumes. Unearned privilege sometimes play out like someone hitting a base hit and some go directly to third base as their starting point; then wondering why the first base hitter isn’t home yet. After all they( the third base person has played hard too.
8:59 am
You are an example of the question raised by your statement–you may have some “unearned privileges but if so I failed to recognize them.” That’s the crux of the issue-few if any will openly advise that certain advantages received were due to your race and/or gender. I ask you, try living or working in an environment where you are the racial minority, or, you are the only person of your gender. Better yet, put on dark glasses and walk with a cane as if you are blind and try navigating the mall and observe people’s reaction when you go into stores, restaurants, etc. Then gauge if you have “unearned privileges.”
12:00 pm
As a diversity and inclusion consultant, most participants in my Senior Management workshops continue to be overwhelmingly white males. What I’ve learned to do is to have them openly identify ways in which white males amongst themselves include and exclude each other around career development and professional engagement – i.e., age, ethnicity, nationality, religion, socio-economic class background, education, sexual orientation, legacy company, etc Once they’ve had the opportunity to openly acknowledge these dimensions of their own diversity, they are often more willing to accept and address the ongoing prevalence. of racism and sexism in their respective organizations. To become allies, I believe that white men need to be nurtured as well to get them to the point of being willing to openly acknowledge their privileges and the costs of not being proactive in addressing the inequities and micro-aggressions that women and POC often still deal with in many organizations.
10:07 am
My observation in the world of multicultural education or of other humanitarian efforts is that at least half of the population are actually white females. There does seem to be a lack of men in geneneral in the field, The anglo men do seem to be much more interested in issues concerning ethnicity than issues concerning gender. I went to a workshop at a conference once specifically about men and masculinity and 7 women and 3 men turned up, all the men were of color. All the women were white. Just an observation.
10:33 am
One aspect of unearned privilege that this article failed to mention, but is more pervasive than race based unearned privilege, is the privilege conveyed on attractive people. Those people who were the homecoming king or head cheerleader in high school often seem to coast through life with parents, teachers, coaches, and later on, employers holding doors open for them that others struggle to reach. Experiments with young children suggest that these prejudices may be hard-wired into our systems. In one case 2 “teachers” were selected to read a story to the same group of preschool aged children. 1 was selected to be what is objectively considered attractive, while the other was selected as being objectively unattractive. Even when the attractive teacher read haltingly and made many mistakes and the unattractive teacher read the story with skill, the children unanimously said the attractive teacher did a better job reading the story. The results were the same whether the “teacher” was male or female, Black or white. Even infants have been shown to respond more favorably to images of attractive faces. The key to overcoming these hard-wired prejudices is to be aware that they exist and recognize that they are at play in our subconcious. Only then can you try to look past them and ask yourself if you are truly judging someone based on preformance alone, or whether you may be allowing them unearned privilege.
2:29 pm
There are some eye opening comments made to my initial comments. My first impression was wrong and these comments made me draw back and think. We rarely if ever consider these things unless forced to. The same argument for attractive vs less than attractive goes for overweight compared to thin! Wow, just think of all these inborn and unearned privileges!
5:18 pm
This is an important and timely article, and a vital topic. Something I do in my trainings that I find helpful for both individuals and the group dynamic is an exercise in which folks identify their various group identities/cultures, and then have to identify each as either “dominant” or “non-dominant.” “Dominant” is defined not as being personally dominating or domineering, but as possessing political, economic, and/or social POWER vis-a-vis other groups. This is an effective way to help folks recognize not only their individual diversity and the complexity of identity, but that almost everyone belongs to at least one dominant group and at least one non-dominant. This activity typically leads to insight about historical and social context, awareness of unfair privilege (or lack thereof), and true dialogue without folks feeling guilty or defensive.
1:00 pm
The unearned privilege associated with white identity is in its historic systematic use to permanently render non-Europeans (especially non-English-speaking peoples) in a permanent second-class status. One may not assume that all suspects of such privilege actually perpetuate the system. It is only by interpreting white identity is the privilege perpetuated. Unfortunately, the author seems to be ignorant of this fact.