This thesis’ goal is to examine the way the term and concept of white privilege has been created in contemporary American society. The argument of the thesis will be that before and directly after discrimination was made illegal in the United States by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, scholars and activists implemented the term white privilege to describe structural and governmentally perpetuated privilege in the United States that had been consciously given to whites. This privilege allowed whites to obtain legal advantages over minorities across the nation. Years after the legislation was passed, however, discrimination was still an issue in the country. White privilege’s definition shifted in order to explain the reason for that reality; White privilege was not perpetuated by conscious and explicit efforts, but by white citizen’s subconscious. This thesis will show how that shift occurred, using scholarly and non-academic writer’s usage of the term white privilege.

Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

Drawing upon critical whiteness theory I examine whiteness and privilege within a New Zealand context, specifically with 15 men and women who self identify as Pakeha. Through in-depth interviews I explore the proposition that the adoption of this identity may preclude an understanding of the ways that whiteness and privilege operate. Employing thematic and discourse analysis, four major themes were identified within the data. The functionality and organisation of language is considered in order to examine participants’ detachment from dominant white culture. The thesis illustrates that the assumption of a Pakeha self identity may allow the bearer to discursively obscure both the cultural capital that whiteness provides and the privileges afforded by this capital. Ultimately, this research draws attention to the intersection of privilege and whiteness within New Zealand, in order to offer one explanation for the persistence of white hegemony.

Systemic racism endures in the United States (Feagin, 2010). The race-related barriers experienced by trainees of color in counseling, clinical, and school psychology programs (Clark et al., 2012; Maton et al., 2011) reflect this reality. Focusing exclusively on the barriers confronting people of color, though, can distract from the benefits and power that Whites accrue to maintain a system of privilege and oppression. Recently, counseling psychologists have recognized the critical importance of understanding social privilege (Israel, 2012) and its unique features based on context (Ancis & Szymanski, 2001). However, the study of White privilege within counseling psychology training is an underrepresented area of the literature. To address this gap and more deeply explore racial inequities in training, interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith, 1996) was used to guide a qualitative exploration of White privilege in counseling psychology training programs. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with advanced-level doctoral trainees in APA-accredited programs. In addition to recruiting White trainees, Black participants were also recruited to honor a marginalized perspective on White privilege. Encounters with White privilege in training were particularly salient and painful for Black participants. White participants identified a number of unearned racial advantages, and other unacknowledged privileges in their accounts were revealed through analysis. Emerging superordinate themes and subthemes from each subsample are presented separately and then examined concurrently. Recommendations for counseling psychology training programs are made, and a developing list of White privileges in training environments is presented.

Racism damages all of us. It degrades the lives of some, it diminishes the integrity of others, and it saps our resources and threatens our peace as a nation. Racism in the United States takes place on multiple levels: within and between individuals, in our cultural milieu, and in our social institutions. In this dissertation, I describe ways in which I have both encountered and perpetrated racism personally and professionally as an educator. I then explore ways in which racism can be unlearned by individuals and dismantled institutionally, particularly in the arena of education, so that our nation can be liberated from this most crippling disease. As a European American woman raised in affluence, my story is about unearned privilege on several levels, and my research asks the question of what I can responsibly do about that. However, my upbringing and the ongoing influences of mainstream America ask very different questions about dominant status; namely, what can one do with it? And how can one get more? This tension between power and responsibility forms the context for an examination of privilege in this scholarly personal narrative about unlearning racism.

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I consider how the nature and meaning of space shape middle-class women's topophobia in the new town of Secunda (with a particular focus on symbolic violence). In Lefebvre's 'terrorist societies' fear becomes latent as citizens seek to maintain status quos which maintain systems of privilege. I demonstrate that one such system is white privilege. Secunda assists in maintaining these systems as its design draws heavily on Eurocentric values and new town 'best practices'. As a company town developed in reaction to international sanctions during apartheid, its design also resulted in the preservation of certain privileged groups. I argue that white privilege is a white problem and thus base my study on the (white) middle-class as a dominant group. I show that the identities of women (although traditionally viewed as passive and fearful) are diverse, falling both victim to and inflicting symbolic violence and topophobia. I focus on topophobia, or spatial fear, as fear affects us all and influences our shaping of urban space. The mutually reinforcing nature (abstract representations of the ideologies of planners) and meaning (infused through emotions, identities and power relations) of space are explored. I dispute the bias against emotion-based research that exists within planning, arguing that this has debilitating consequences for transformation. I suggest the use of intersecting emotion-spectra rather than the dichotomous approach conventionally taken by emotion research. A feminist ethnography is used with an iterative inductive research process engaging a variety of techniques, including digital/social media. My own multiple insider identities (of middle-class, white, English-Afrikaans woman, and planner) are used to critique systems of dominance. Findings highlight various forms of symbolic violence (in addition to white privilege) including codes of 'respectability' and 'purity', consumerism, fat talk, and persistent gender roles. Further, possible influences of dominant systems on space (particularly in reinforcing persistent social segregation in Secunda) are demonstrated. Symbolic violence can be used to deflect accountability, but this research shows that topophobia is a planning problem, worthy of consideration.

Since the 1970s, racial progress in the United States has stalled and in some ways, even regressed. There continues to be vast disparities between racial groups, pointing to serious inequities and systemic racism within our institutions. White privilege, a product of institutional racism and white supremacy, is a collection of unearned social benefits and courtesies that are bestowed upon a select group of people by virtue of their being white (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). This literature review examines the dynamics of white privilege and power using the tenets of critical race theory to explain how they are both protected and perpetuated by liberal colorblind ideologies, particularly in education. Naming and examining whiteness, as opposed to ignoring and/or denying its significance, is the first step toward transforming the existing racial hierarchies in society. / text

Many Church of England parishes with Black-majority congregations have a White parish priest. Clergy undergo mandatory racism awareness training yet do not necessarily understand cultural difference or the ways in which their priestly authority and their Whiteness may collude to have significant implications for ministerial privilege and power. What little study of these issues has taken place, is predominantly from a protestant, American viewpoint. The author’s reflection as a White priest ministering in a Black majority congregation in Manchester focussed on his experiences of pastoral ministry, congregational participation and the expected role of the priest. Three questions arose from this reflection: in what ways are White priests aware of their Whiteness? How do White priests adapt their model of ministry according to their awareness? And in what ways do Black congregation members respond to any adaptation?Using an action-research methodology a conversation was set up between the priest’s experience and a focus group from his congregation. Work on White ministers’ typologies by leading British Black Theologian, Anthony Reddie, was used to present the author’s experiences through three models: pastoral, organisational and radical approaches to ministry. These results formed the basis of a trial training workshop with newly ordained priests to test the assumptions which lay behind my original research questions. Within the three typologies of minister (pastoral, organisational, radical), the author identified ways in which the priest’s power and knowledge influenced practice, and also ways in which congregations assumed clergy to receive training intervention, and from where this knowledge attainment might come. Alongside observations about ministers’ inherent power and the resourcing of ministers from external and internal sources, the research also highlighted frustrations arising from normalising White experience above that of the Black majority. The results confirmed the assumptions behind the questions: White clergy, aware of their own colour, culture and privilege adapt their ministry in different ways and with varying success. The research presents significant contributions to the understanding of how Black congregations perceive White ministers and how such clergy locate themselves within a different culture. Three distinct outcomes were identified: the need for intentional signposting for White clergy to be resourced by their congregations and from external sources, the liberation of Black congregational voices to enable full participation, and the necessity of acknowledging past hurts and the need for reconciliation. These three are brought together in an example surrounding the interventions required for clergy and congregations involved in the appointments process of White clergy to Black majority congregations within the Church of England.

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