8.4: Racism and Privilege

In May of 2020, protests provoked by the brutal murder of George Floyd, an African-American man, by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, reached historic levels in the United States. These protests are occurring in communities large and small, and even in several other countries. Major cities from Sacramento to Philadelphia are under nightly curfews. Of course, these protests aren't just about the murder of George Floyd. Rather, his murder is preceded by a long history of highly publicized instances in which African Americans were killed by law enforcement. Consider this partial list:

• March 3, 1991: A video camera captures four Los Angeles Police Department officers beating Rodney King in one of the first viral police brutality videos.
• April 21, 1992: A jury acquits the four officers who beat Rodney King. Riots ensue.
• February 26, 2012: Trayvon Martin, 17, is shot by George Zimmerman. Zimmerman is acquitted of murder.
• July 17, 2014: NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo kills Eric Garner. Pantaleo is never convicted.
• August 9, 2014: Ferguson officer Darren Wilson kills 18-year-old Mike Brown Jr. No charges are filed.
• November 22, 2014: Cleveland officer Timothy Loehman kills 12-year-old Tamir Rice. Loehman is not charged.
• April 4, 2015: A bystander films officer Michael Slager shooting Walter Scott in the back. Slager is sentenced to 20 years in prison.
• July 13, 2015: Sandra Bland dies in police custody after a violent arrest. No one is convicted.
• July 2, 2016: Officer Heronimo Yanez shoots Philando Castile during a traffic stop. Yanez is acquitted.
• September 6, 2018: Officer Amber Guyger enters Botham Jean’s home and kills him. She is convicted of murder.
• May 25, 2020: Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin kills George Floyd by kneeling on his neck. Chauvin is convicted of murder; three other officers are later convicted of aiding and abetting.
• April 11, 2021: Brooklyn Center, MN, officer Kim Potter fatally shoots Daunte Wright during a traffic stop. Potter is convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to two years.
• April 21, 2021: Andrew Brown Jr. was shot and killed by deputies in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, while trying to drive away during the execution of a search warrant. The district attorney refused to file charges, citing that the shooting was “justified.”
• June 27, 2022: Jayland Walker was shot more than 40 times by Akron, Ohio, police after a car and foot chase. Walker was unarmed at the time of the shooting. No officers were charged.
• January 7, 2023: Tyre Nichols is brutally beaten by five Memphis police officers during a traffic stop. He died three days later. All five officers are fired and charged with second-degree murder.
• March 2024: Dexter Reed was shot and killed by Chicago police during a traffic stop. Bodycam footage showed officers firing nearly 100 rounds. The incident is still under federal investigation.

These examples span a 35-year period, but racism can be traced back to the 15th century when European imperialists set out to colonize the rest of the world. Alongside these imperialist ventures, racialization also ensued, where colonized peoples were positioned as inferior. This process was extended across the planet and became embedded in countries colonized by Europeans, resulting in a redistribution of world resources through the politicization of biological attributes. In other words, the dynamic of racism, whereby individuals and groups of people are discriminated against and subjugated on the basis of perceived physical characteristics such as skin color, has been and continues to be a pervasive and destructive force in many human societies. In this section, we will examine the ideology and consequences of racism, and the interconnected concepts of power and privilege.

The United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination defines racial discrimination as: Any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.

Racism

Racism is a set of economic, political, and ideological practices whereby a dominant group exercises control over subordinate groups. Racism is a concept founded upon the scientifically false premises that there are physical and psychological inequalities between human races (See Chapter 4). Racism can be expressed through more overt expressions of individual discrimination or exclusion based on race, and may also be expressed through institutional discrimination, where the disenfranchisement of groups based on race is embedded into the culture. Institutional discrimination based on race, or institutional racism, refers to the way in which racial distinctions are used, whether intentional or not, to organize the policy and practice of state, judicial, economic, and educational institutions. As a result, these distinctions systematically reproduce inequalities along racial lines. Just as institutional discrimination in general is often harder to prove and identify, institutional racism specifically is pervasive in our society and significantly impacts the lives of those in the nondominant group.

The COVID-19 pandemic showed how racism affects health outcomes in the United States. Black Americans died from COVID-19 at much higher rates than white Americans. In fact, by 2023, Black Americans had one of the highest death rates from the virus (APM Research Lab, 2023). These differences weren’t just about poverty or where people live - they were also about racism in health care and society. Many Black communities face limited access to healthy food, clean air, and medical care. These conditions contribute to chronic illnesses like diabetes and asthma, which increase vulnerability to COVID-19. But researchers emphasize that racism itself- through stress, unequal treatment, and fewer resources - also harms black health (Geronimus et al, 2023).

Even before COVID-19, Black Americans had worse health than white Americans. They die younger and face more serious illnesses. They die younger and face more serious illnesses. Every year, about 100,000 more Black people die than expected if they had the same health outcomes as white people. Experts believe that the stress of living in a racist society plays a big role in these health gaps (Geronimus et al., 2023). This ongoing stress creates what some researchers call a “hidden toll” - the physical and emotional cost of facing racism throughout life (Blitstein, 2009).

It’s important to note that racism affects other communities of color as well. Indigenous populations experience some of the highest rates of poverty, chronic illness, and suicide in the U.S., often due to historical trauma and systemic neglect (Indian Health Service, 2024). Latinx communities face barriers to healthcare access, language discrimination, and disproportionate exposure to environmental hazards (Baumgartner, Aboulafia, Getachew, Radley, Collins, & Zephyrin, 2021). Asian Americans, while often stereotyped as a “model minority,” have faced increased hate crimes and scapegoating during the COVID-19 pandemic, revealing how racialized narratives shift across contexts (Jeung et al., 2023).

From an intercultural communication perspective, these patterns show how race intersects with culture, language, and power. Racism not only affects access to resources - it also shapes how people are perceived, how they communicate, and how they are treated in everyday interactions. Understanding institutional racism requires us to listen across cultures, challenge dominant narratives, and recognize how systemic inequality is reproduced through communication itself.

Privilege and Power

It is difficult to travel very far along the path of cultural understanding, and in particular an understanding of cultural difference, without running up against the issues of racism and privilege. A significant challenge in understanding the nature and impact of racism and privilege is being open to examining our own experience of these issues. Hopefully, you have been thinking about your own cultural identity as you have been reading this chapter. If so, then you have been thinking about labels that define you culturally. Maybe you have defined yourself as female, Latina, and heterosexual. Or maybe you have labeled yourself as gay, white, working-class, and male. When we give ourselves labels such as these, often we ask ourselves, “Where do I fit in?” This is a good question to ask and demonstrates a recognition of the fact that you belong to more than one culture and that your cultures intersect in various ways. The most significant manifestation of these intersections is power—the ability to influence others and control our lives. From the information given earlier in the chapter and from your own experiences, you should realize that some groups have more power than others. These people are what we refer to as the dominant group: white, male, Christian, middle-class, able-bodied, educated, and heterosexual (Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2017; Johnson, 2022). People whose cultural identities do not conform to this model are the nondominant groups and have less sociopolitical and economic power (Crenshaw, 1991; Collins 2019). As you think about privilege and the resulting advantages that some groups have over others, you should also keep in mind two facts. One, privilege is a relative concept that varies according to context. In some situations, we may be more privileged than others, and in order to access some of that privilege we may decide to highlight or conceal parts of our identity. For example, unless a person tells you, you have no way of knowing their sexual orientation. Thus, a gay man might decide to “pass” as straight at a family reunion to avoid conflict from a heterosexist family. Two, we may have aspects of our identities that are simultaneously advantaged and disadvantaged. The gay, white, working-class, male above is advantaged by the fact that he has light skin and is male, and is disadvantaged by the fact that he is gay and working class.

White Privilege

Skin color is one of the more disturbing, largely unexamined, and persistent social constructs that perpetuates discrimination and divides power Roberts, 2023; Smedley & Smedley, 2012). For Indigenous scholar Aileen Moreton-Robinson, the category of race subsumes all other sources of social division, including gender (Moreton-Robinson, 2020). Whether they realize it or not, White people enjoy societal advantages in their daily lives, simply because they are white. Social scientists term these advantages white privilege, a concept that highlights how white privilege operates as a position of power and normalized dominance in many societies (McIntosh, 2022; DiAngelo, 2021).

This chapter’s discussion of the problems facing people of color points to some of these advantages. For example, whites can usually drive a car at night or walk down a street without having to fear that a police officer will stop them simply because they are white. Recalling the Trayvon Martin tragedy, they can also walk down a street without having to fear they will be confronted and possibly killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer. In addition, whites can count on being able to move into any neighborhood they desire as long as they can afford the rent or mortgage. They generally do not have to fear being passed up for promotion simply because of their race. White students can live in college dorms without having to worry that racial slurs will be directed their way. White people in general do not have to worry about being the victims of hate crimes based on their race. They can be seated in a restaurant without having to worry that they will be served more slowly or not at all because of their skin color. If they are in a hotel, they do not have to think that someone will mistake them for a bellhop, parking valet, or maid. If they are trying to hail a taxi, they do not have to worry about the taxi driver ignoring them because the driver fears he or she will be robbed.

Peggy McIntosh defines white privilege as an invisible knapsack of advantages that some people carry around. They are invisible because they are often not recognized, seen as normative (i.e., “that’s just the way things are”), seen as universal (i.e., “everyone has them”), or used unconsciously. Below is a list of some of the privileges McIntosh identifies. Can you think of others?

1. I can, if I wish, arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
2. If I need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area that I can afford and in which I would want to live.
3. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
4. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
5. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
6. When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
7. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
8. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.
9. 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 that fit with my cultural traditions, and into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can deal with my hair.
10. Whether I use checks, credit cards, or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.
11. I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.
12. I can swear, or dress in second-hand clothes, or not answer letters without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race.
13. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.
14. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
15. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
16. I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color, who constitute the world’s majority, without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.
17. I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.
18. I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to “the person in charge,” I will be facing a person of my race.
19. If a traffic cop pulls me over, or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race.
20. I can easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children’s magazines featuring people of my race.
21. I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in rather than isolated, out of place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, or feared.
22. I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having coworkers on the job suspect that I got it because of race.
23. 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.
24. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.
25. If my day, week, or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it has racial overtones.
26. I can choose a blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color that more or less match my skin.

Social scientist Robert W. Terry (1981, p. 120) once summarized white privilege as follows: “To be white in America is not to have to think about it. Except for hard-core racial supremacists, the meaning of being white is having the choice of attending to or ignoring one’s own whiteness” (emphasis in original). For people of color in the United States, it is not an exaggeration to say that race and ethnicity is a daily fact of their existence. Yet whites do not generally have to think about being white. As all of us go about our daily lives, this basic difference is one of the most important manifestations of racial and ethnic inequality in the United States.

For those of us who come from a privileged racial background, unpacking what it means to be white can prove a challenging and confronting task. Research found that the question, ‘What does it mean to be white?’ was very challenging for white Euro-Americans – the question simply did not make sense. Interviewing in downtown San Francisco, researchers found that the most common response to this question was to ask if it was a trick. Incredulity was usually followed by a declaration that this was not something they ever thought about.

Perhaps because whites do not have to think about being white, many studies find they tend to underestimate the degree of racial inequality in the United States by assuming that African Americans and Latinos are much better off than they really are. As one report summarized these studies’ overall conclusion, “Whites tend to have a relatively rosy impression of what it means to be a black person in America. Whites are more than twice as likely as blacks to believe that the position of African Americans has improved a great deal” (Vedantam, 2008, p. A3). Because whites think African Americans and Latinos fare much better than they really do, that perception probably reduces whites’ support for programs designed to reduce racial and ethnic inequality, such as Affirmative Action.

Engaging with issues of racism and privilege can be very challenging – both intellectually and personally. The above discussion about privilege and Whiteness is not meant to suggest that those people with white privilege should feel ashamed or guilty. This is often a trap that people fall into and it can shut down important thinking and conversations about intercultural communication. It's important to realize that everyone has a racial identity. Effective change lies in making whiteness visible, by exploring it as a racial or cultural construct, and defining whiteness in a non-defensive and non-racist manner. When we remove the White race from the often-unidentified “normative” group, it provides a context for studying, talking about, and hopefully improving race relations. Such an understanding will involve thinking about these issues not just as abstract concepts but also as they manifest in our own lives. For some this may mean reflecting on the experience of racism themselves, while for others it will involve recognizing and understanding the often-invisible experience of privilege. In order to do this: White society must be willing to look at themselves honestly, to confront the truth about themselves and the world, and to liberate themselves from the invisible cultural conditioning of a racialized society.

From an intercultural communication perspective, the goal is to create a society that is antiracist, which involves the active practice of identifying, challenging, and changing organizational structures, policies, practices, and attitudes that perpetuate systemic racism. While this may seem like a daunting task, every person can do their part. Consider these three action steps:

1. Notice differences in treatment
2. Talk about white privilege and other forms of social privilege.
3. Be willing to teach other people about privilege and power.

Conclusion

Racism and privilege profoundly shape the landscape of intercultural communication, often creating invisible barriers that distort understanding, limit empathy, and reinforce systemic inequities. When individuals carry unexamined privilege or internalized biases into intercultural encounters, they risk silencing marginalized voices, misinterpreting cultural cues, and perpetuating stereotypes that hinder genuine connection. These dynamics not only affect interpersonal relationships but also influence institutional practices, educational settings, and global collaborations.

To foster meaningful intercultural communication, it is essential to recognize how racism and privilege operate - both overtly and subtly - and to actively cultivate reflexivity, humility, and a commitment to equity. This means listening deeply, challenging assumptions, and creating spaces where diverse identities are not just acknowledged but valued. Only by confronting these structural and interpersonal dynamics can we move toward communication that is truly inclusive, transformative, and capable of bridging cultural divides.

Contributors and Attributions

Introduction to Sociology, 2e, OpenStax. License CC-BY

Intercultural Learning: Critical Preparation for International Student Travel, by, James Cook University, Provided by UTS ePress. License: CC-BY-NC-SA

Social Problems: Continuity and Change, by University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing. License: CC-BY-NC-SA

Intercultural Communication for the Community College, by Karen Krumrey-Fulks. Provided by LibreTexts. License: CC-BY-NC-SA

Adapted from: Exploring Intercultural Communication, by Tom Grothe. Provided by LibreTexts. License: CC-BY