 Recently, I discussed the denial of racism from black people. I wanted to analyze what's happening because I'm obsessed with understanding denial, self-deception, and delusion. Similar to the denial of racism, I've also been blown away about the denial of white privilege from white people. In 2020, like millions of other people around the world, I saw the video of what happened to George Floyd and it messed me up. Whenever there are these like earth shaking events, I just sit there and ask, how does this happen? It wasn't just that another unarmed black person was killed by police, but the whole thing was filmed. These cops were fully aware that people were filming them and it didn't even phase them. Around this time, it was months after a Maude Arbery was murdered while jogging, but we were just hearing the news about it. This black man was murdered in broad daylight for the crime of exercising. As the conversations, debates, and protests began to erupt around these events, as well as the death of Breonna Taylor, I did what I always do when I have questions that won't leave my head. I started reading as many books as possible and doing additional research. And when I really want a different perspective and to understand, I read books by people from that specific group. For example, to better understand feminism, I read books by women who are feminists. To better understand what drives people on the opposing side, I read books by conservatives. So I started reading a ton of books from black authors and it just hit different. Why? Well, for those of you who don't know, I'm half black, but I look pretty damn white. It's extremely rare that anyone realizes I'm half black. And I usually have to show pictures of my dad and show other evidence just short of providing a DNA test. But for some reason, black people know that I'm half black, which I still don't know how they do it. But I always find that pretty interesting. So although I'm half black, as I read these books, I realized there are just so many things that I've never had to worry about. As someone of my complexion, I don't have to worry about police kneeling on my neck until I suffocate while they're being filmed. I don't have to worry about some hillbillies chasing me down and shooting me while I'm going through a neighborhood. Even in the case of Breonna Taylor, I am far less likely for a no knock warrant to happen. And if it did happen, the research says it's highly improbable that the police would see me as a threat and shoot me in my bed. This, amongst many other scenarios, is white privilege. I can't even imagine how cognitively taxing it must be to worry about so many different situations that black people who have a darker skin color than me have to worry about. As I write this, I just remembered what happened to Philando Castile as well. The man told the police that he had a license to carry and had a gun in his car. And as soon as this guy moved, they murdered him right in front of his family out of fear. With so many Second Amendment loving people running around and open carrying, how many of them have ever had to worry about this? But when I started to research white privilege and observe the conversations around it, I was blown away at how many white people refused to admit that white privilege was a thing. Although it was clear as day to me, I kept asking, why can these people not see what I'm saying? So today, I wanted to break it down and see if we can understand what's going on. We'll start with asking, what is white privilege? Then we'll discuss how it works. I want to understand why people deny it exists and we'll go over a paper that has what I think is the best theory about this denial. Most importantly, I really wanted to discuss why so many white liberals will acknowledge white privilege but won't actually do anything about it. Before we dive into the weeds about the denial of white privilege, I wanted to welcome all of you beautiful new subscribers. My last video on the denial of racism did really well and I actually thought it was going to be this dud that nobody saw nor cared about. And I personally, I try to write about and make videos about different topics that I don't think are getting nearly enough attention or they aren't covered in a way that I think they should be. So I'm super duper grateful for everyone who took the time to watch it. But one comment that I kept seeing on that video was that it wouldn't get recommended by the algorithm and not get nearly enough views. And as somebody who makes YouTube content, it's really interesting to me that even viewers recognize how these algorithms don't do much to promote like these types of videos. So aside from subscribing so you don't miss any of my future videos, I'd really appreciate if you like any of these videos, if you think they deserve more attention, just do me a big ol' favor and share them. It's absolutely free to you, takes two seconds, just share it on social media, email it to a friend, post it on Reddit, whatever you got to do. And yeah, stuff like that actually shows the algorithm that people care about these topics. So not only are you helping my videos reach more people, but you're also helping other creators who make these types of videos. Alright, so anyways, if you're not yet, make sure you're also following me on Instagram and Twitter. Not only do I love chatting with all of you and getting like book recommendations, but that way you don't miss any upcoming videos. But I also do a lot of writing and other types of content and stuff. But yeah, follow me over on Instagram and Twitter at the Rewired Soul. Alright, so let's jump into this thing and let's start out by asking, what is white privilege? Alright, so in short, white privilege is the advantages and individual experiences due to the fact that they are white. It's not super complicated, but for some reason, it's extremely hard for people to grasp. As I mentioned in the intro, I realized that there are just so many things that I'll never have to worry about. If you really want a good reference for white privilege, I just started an amazing book that I've been binging. And it's called Black Fatigue, How Racism Arrows the Mind, Body, and Spirit. And it's by Mary Frances Winters. And actually, when I wrote this, I was still reading it, but I actually finished the book this morning. It's phenomenal. Alright, so the author explains all of the different things that Black people have to worry about and deal with on a daily basis, from racism in the workplace to getting an education and getting proper healthcare, the book is filled with research, studies, and statistics. Alright, and as I mentioned early on, right, if I don't understand something, if I'm not in that position, what I personally try to do is read books, alright, or consume content by people who are from that demographic. Okay, so if you if you're right here in the video, and you are like, yo, white privilege isn't a thing, whatever, do me a favor, grab the book. Alright. And one of the reasons I say this, and any of you who do believe white privilege exists, like recommend it to other people because when you read an entire book, right, an entire book on a topic, it's hard to deny that these people are experiencing something, especially a book like this that has so many facts and data and just research, right, because as you keep challenging it and questioning it and making up these excuses, you start to feel like you're gaslighting the author. So I really recommend you read books by people you don't agree with, to get different perspectives, and just like if you're interested in understanding a topic better. But I think one of the best examples of white privilege that a person can't deny is just the policing of black hair. Alright, so did you know that black people literally have to pass a law to prohibit discrimination of their natural hair? Alright, so the Crown Act was introduced by Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey in 2021. And black people are waiting to see if it's cool that they just grow out their natural hair. Do you know how insane that is? If you're white, how many times have you had to worry about just the simple act of growing out your hair? Employers see black hair as quote unquote wild or unprofessional. Imagine for just a second that your straight hair was seen as wild and unprofessional. This is where the white privilege deniers come running in screaming. Well, I can't just do my hair however I want. I couldn't just come in with a mohawk or dye my hair purple in a professional setting. But the thing is, what those people are talking about is actually doing something to your hair. This is completely different than its natural state of being. And it's one of the mental gymnastic routines white people do to deny that this is an issue. Black people aren't fighting to dye their hair a crazy color. They're just trying to not have their Afro police. Alright, imagine just for a moment if white women actually had their bosses tell them that they could not grow their hair out. Maybe some professional settings won't let men grow their hair super long unless it's in a ponytail. But this is still different than a well kept Afro or dreadlocks. Anyway, go get Mary Frances Winters book. It's amazing. But aside from just the fatigue black people have to deal with, there are some white people who legitimately think that they are the ones being oppressed. They refuse to acknowledge that white is the default in the United States and it comes with its advantages. One of the first reasons I think that there's so much denial around white privilege is the same reason that nepotism babies refuse to admit that they were handed anything. You've seen these people who were born into rich families, raised in good neighborhoods, had their tuition paid for by their parents and get that great job. And then they say, I did this all on my own. And trust me, the media doesn't help either. Every time they call someone a quote unquote self made millionaire or billionaire, nobody wants to admit that they got anything handed to them or that they had any type of advantage. This is a form of self deception because we want to believe that we've earned every single thing that we have. The reality is that you can work hard and have an advantage. What privilege does is give you a head start and additional resources to make your outcomes a little bit easier to come by. White people don't have to worry about any of the biases that happen when you're a black person and are trying to just simply make a good life for yourself. And this is when even more denial comes in and white people start telling you about all of the disadvantaged white people who also struggle. This is an extremely weak but extremely common argument. And I wanted to dedicate an entire section to this topic. One of the common things you'll hear when white privilege is discussed is that there are so many disadvantaged white people and how dare you say that they are privileged. I cannot tell you how many times I've heard people say, this is why people turn Republican. Do you know how offensive it is to tell a white person who grew up in poverty and in an abusive household that they're privileged? While I'm not Robin D'Angelo's biggest fan, I think it's important to note that this is exactly what she's talking about when she says white fragility. If you are literally too sensitive to have this conversation, you're being extremely fragile and you need to chill out. So if you are incapable of having this adult conversation, you may want to leave now. Nobody is saying that some white people don't have it bad. Hell, nobody is saying that white people don't face their own biases. I think the best example is lookism. If you're conventionally attractive in this world, you have it better than most people. I have been overweight for most of my life and I always have to wonder how much my weight plays a role when something doesn't work out in my favor. But although the beautiful people have it better than most of us, if you had a beautiful white person and a beautiful black person, the white person is going to have the advantage. The reality is that in literally any situation, if you put a white person and a black person side by side and both were identical on every single metric, the white person has the advantage. So yes, there are millions of white people who grew up in traumatic environments with alcoholic or addicted parents who abuse them. There are millions of white people who are also homeless or are in poverty. But if I took a white person in this situation and a black person in this same situation, who is going to have an easier time crawling their way out and getting up on their feet? Which of the two is more likely to be seen as lazy? Which one is more likely to get an entry level job? If both of these people got an entry level job and worked equally as hard, which one is more likely to get a raise? Which one is more likely to get government assistance? Which one is more likely to get mental health care if they're struggling with a psychological disorder? If you're still not sold yet, let me introduce you to the moral, legal and political philosopher, John Rawls. John Rawls created a thought experiment that showcases white privilege perfectly. It also shows all of the other issues of inequality in America when you run this experiment. Rawls was interested in justice and fairness. So he created a thought experiment called the veil of ignorance. Here's the veil of ignorance, but with my own little twist on it. All right, so sit back and let's say tomorrow you die and you wake up in this big void of nothingness. There's a person or some celestial being there who says, Welcome to death. There's no heaven or hell. You just get reincarnated. You're going to be born in a brand new body, but you get to choose the exact circumstances that you're born into. From there, this being basically gives you a menu where you can choose whatever you want. Here are some of the categories on the questionnaire that you get to choose from. What race do you want to be born as? What country do you want to be born in? Do you want to be born in a rich or a poor family? Do you want to be disabled or able-bodied? Do you want educated or non-educated parents? And so on. Let's focus on the race question real quick. Knowing everything that you know about the world, what race would you want to be born as? Well, if you would want to be born white, it's because part of you recognizes the advantages there are to being white. If you'd want to be born anything other than white, ask why. And if you're lying to yourself, you really need to work some things out. Another topic that I'm extremely passionate about is wealth and opportunity inequality. So I'll be revisiting Rawls' veil of ignorance again. But the point Rawls is trying to make is that if you cannot be born into any circumstance and have the same opportunities, something with our society is definitely wrong. And we need to address it. If the majority of people know for a fact that it's better to be born white, then we clearly have a white privilege problem. Again, most people recognize that it's advantageous to be born white in America as well as many of the other successful nations around the world. So why do they deny it? And more importantly, why don't we do anything about it? So I was actually first introduced to the concept of white privilege way back when I was about 14 years old from one of the first stand-ups that I ever watched. And still to this day, it's one of my all-time favorites. It's Chris Rock's 1999 stand-up, Bigger and Blacker. I actually just had my girlfriend watch it with me the other day. I haven't watched it in a few years. Still hilarious. But anyways, this clip kind of summed it up for me. And while hilarious, what Chris Rock just said is extremely true. Regardless of how many people lie during the veil of ignorance thought experiment, we know that many white people would prefer being white. Why? Because it comes with its advantages. One must wonder how far off Chris Rock is when he makes the joke about a one-legged bellboy. Sure, having one leg is rough, but is it rougher than being black? Since my main area of interest is psychology and human behavior, I started searching to see if anyone had done any research on white privilege. Specifically, I wanted to know if there was any research around why people are in so much denial about it. Well, not only did I find some research, the authors of the research have a separate study that I just recently found that provides some evidence-based solutions. So this research has been conducted by Dr. L. Taylor Phillips and Brian Lawry, PhD. Lawry is a professor of organizational behavior and senior associate dean for academic affairs at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He's also a social psychologist by training. Phillips is a professor of management and organizations at NYU Stern School of Business, who focuses on diversity, equity, and inclusion. I first came across their work when I read their paper titled, Heard Invisibility the Psychology of Racial Privilege. In the abstract, they say, despite overwhelming evidence of its existence, white privilege has received relatively little attention in psychological science. However, given the chronic and pervasive benefits tied to racial privilege, it stands to reason that living with such privilege affects white's everyday psychology. Here, we explore the psychology of privilege, connecting white's everyday experience and behaviors to underlying motivations, i.e. innocence and maintenance, shaped by the privileged position in the social hierarchy. So these two researchers wanted to understand what the motivations are behind the denial of white privilege from white people. And if you're familiar with how economists think, economists do this regularly because they're always trying to show how humans are driven by incentives. As rational as we think we are, there's always an incentive at play. And sometimes these incentives are unconscious. It's important to highlight that these can be unconscious because most people aren't purposely racist, nor do they want people of other races to be mistreated. The other issue that we face is something called identity protective cognition. We all have an image of self. We have an idea of who we are and what type of person we are. When something challenges that self-perception, we go into this protective mode that causes a ton of dissonance as we try to rationalize the situation in order to avoid disrupting who we believe we are. Lowry and Phillips theorized there are two main motives at play when white people deny their privilege. We suggest that this strained relationship with reality, while not in the same league as that of our church-going ancestors, requires management of the obvious existence of racial privilege. However, privilege is often experienced as invisible to those who have it. How can this be? Here we suggest that individual actors motivated to maintain their positive self-regard, innocence motive, or privileges associated with their group's dominant status, maintenance motive, will engage in behaviors to cloak their privilege. As a result, invisibility emerges at the societal level and can thus protect both the privileges and the innocence of individual privileged actors, even when they do not individually engage in these protective actions. This right here explains why it's so dang difficult for white people to see their own privilege, and it's probably the best explanation that I've seen for what's going on. The innocence motive is basically the identity protective cognition that we just discussed, but I think the one that's much more difficult for people to face is the maintenance motive, and honestly, I do not know what the solution is. The researchers go on to say whites want to maintain privilege and racial privileges depend on the stability of an unequal racialized social system that tends to provoke resistance. So what they're saying is that it's good to be white. And unfortunately, this is a zero sum game. For every advantage that a white person has, in order to have a truly equal society, these white people would have to lose that advantage. This script was like 10 pages long, and I could honestly write another 20 pages on this topic alone because it's the same exact challenge that we face with wealth and opportunity hoarding. It's why there's so much slacktivism in the world today. It's easy to sit back and talk to talk and say that you want people to have it better, but the second that means that we're going to have to give something up, the mental gymnastics begin. A few weeks ago, some of you watched it, some of you didn't if you haven't go watch it, but I made a video about Hassan Piker being a fake socialist, and this is the exact same issue. Although his fans came out in droves to attack me, what I'm saying is he can sit back and scream about progressive ideas and equality so long as it doesn't mean that he has to give up that sweet, sweet lifestyle that he has. But I digress. In the case of white privilege, think about the opportunities afforded to white people when it comes to going to good schools and getting good jobs. Schools only have so many openings, and it's the same for jobs. For white people to give up their privilege, they're basically shooting themselves in the foot. Due to identity protective cognition, you will rarely see a single person admit this. Everyone sees themselves as a giving, altruistic person. So you will hear every excuse in the book to not actually make our society equal. Although I'm a leftist, this is much worse when it comes to white liberals, and I would argue that it's worse because white liberals virtue signal by saying that what they want is equality. But when it comes down to it, they aren't willing to make the sacrifice. That's why we get so many nimbies. People saying, yeah, I would love for underprivileged black kids if they can go to a better elementary school, but just not the one in our neighborhood. Or they'll say something like, yeah, I believe in equity, but I don't think someone should get into a good college or get a good job because of their race, if that'll affect me. Chris Rock's bit actually ends with him saying, for white people, the sky's the limit. But when you're black, the limit is the sky. So what's the solution? Well, while researching this, I realized that Laurie and Phillips actually have more papers that they've co-authored. In a separate paper titled The Hard Knock Life, whites claim hardships in response to racial inequity. They found a way to actually get white people to tune down their denial just a little bit. The abstract starts off by saying the following. What happens when white people are faced with evidence that their group benefits from privilege? We suggest such evidence will be threatening and that people will claim hardships to manage this threat. Sound familiar? It should because it's what we were just discussing a little bit ago, when white people respond by saying, oh, so you're saying that even poor white people who grew up in abusive households are privileged? This is that defensiveness that they're talking about. So the authors go on to say in the abstract, these claims of hardship allow individuals to deny that they personally benefit from privilege while still accepting that group level inequity exists. Again, this is extremely common. Look at the people who grew up wealthy and never had to have real struggles. All of them believe that they worked hard and that they have had an extremely difficult life. In a previous video, I discussed Netflix dating shows and lookism about how none of these dating shows will have any overweight or fat people. And something that I regularly notice as I watch these shows is how these beautiful people who also grew up in rich families, they have to they just something in their brain makes them have to find something in their life that was difficult. And they'll have a big dramatic scene where they're having a one on one conversation with somebody and talking about how they've been hurt or how something was rough in the past, even though for anybody who's grown up underprivileged or without privilege sees that they had it much better than the viewer did their entire lives. It's like as humans, it's for some reason impossible to state that we had it pretty easy. Well, Laurie and Phillips were able to figure out a hack to get white people to recognize their privilege. What they did was run two different experiments. In the first, they show white people evidence of privilege and inequality. The first group got defensive and within state the personal hardships they experience. But in the second experiment, the experimenters had the participants do self affirmations. Once these white people were feeling all good about themselves, not only did they recognize more personal privilege, but they also showed increased support for inequity reducing policies. Pretty cool, right? So you just need to make white people feel good and then we'll get more equality. I'm just kidding, but this is really interesting research because it shows that when people are feeling good and they're in a good headspace, they recognize this a little bit more. Alright, but the thing is I am extremely skeptical of these results in practice. I'm not skeptical of the results. I'm skeptical of the results being used in the real world because there is a major difference between supporting something and actually going through with it. While these people may have vocally supported these inequity reducing policies, I would personally be curious to see them put their money where their mouth is and actually take action. What would happen if you had these people do the self affirmations and then immediately vote on something that would take away some of their advantages? Would they still support these policies that promote equality or would they snap out of it? I'm usually a pretty bright eyed optimist, but based on my experience, it's extremely hard to get people to make a sacrifice for the greater good. We can't even get universal health care when we're basically the only advanced nation that still doesn't have it. Why? Because people would have to pay more taxes to give equal access to medical care to everybody. People don't like their money messed with and I get it. We all have families and we all want the best for ourselves as well. Trust me, as someone who thinks about this stuff all the time and rants about people I could saw on piker as well as every other rich person in the world, this is regularly on my mind. I think that if we hope to get anywhere near an equal society, we all have to start asking ourselves what we are willing to sacrifice. Are you willing to potentially not get a great job with great pay so an equally qualified black person can get it? Are you prepared to have your son or daughter miss out on an opportunity to create a more equitable opportunity for a black kid? Like these are really tough questions to ask ourselves and it's even tougher to make the noble choice. But until we start recognizing our privilege and getting past our denial of that privilege, it's impossible to make progress. So hopefully now that you're armed with the information, you can start considering what you're willing to sacrifice so we can counteract the inequality that black people are still facing. And like I said, this is something regularly on my mind and I'm constantly challenging myself to say, what am I willing to sacrifice to make our society more equal? All right, everybody, that's all I got for this video. I've been dying to make it. I was actually hoping to get it out sooner, but this has been a crazy, crazy week. Make sure you subscribe because I'm hoping to get to a point where I can release at least two videos a week. I have just a laundry list of topics. I really want to dive into more racial issues, but also issues around like capitalism, wealth inequality, opportunity inequality, so many other things. I just I have a whole document just filled with outlines and ideas. All right, so make sure you're subscribed. Okay. And if you're not yet, make sure you're also following me on Instagram and Twitter at the rewired soul. I love chatting with all of you. If you got good books, send them my way. I love to read. Okay. And then as I mentioned, like a lot of you notice, these videos don't necessarily get promoted by the algorithm. So do your boy a favor. It costs you absolutely nothing. Just go share this shirt on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, send it in an email, whatever you got to do, just share this thing far and wide. All right. But anyways, that's all I got for this video. I hope you have an amazing rest of your day and I will see you next time.