Day 11: Privilege & Whiteness

DAY 11 Of YWCA Spokane’s 14-Day Racial Equity & Social Justice Challenge

We hope this challenge provides you with an opportunity to better understand concepts related to race, power, privilege, and leadership.

DAY 1 | DAY 2 | DAY 3 | DAY 4 | DAY 5 | DAY 6 | DAY 7 | DAY 8 | DAY 9 | DAY 10 | DAY 11 | DAY 12 | DAY 13 | DAY 14

Thank you for taking this challenge! If this is your first day of joining us for the 14-Day Racial Equity & Social Justice Challenge, welcome. If you are returning after previous engagement with the challenge, nice work! We are glad you are here. Each weekday from Tuesday, June 8th through Friday, June 25th, YWCA Spokane will send those who sign up for our challenge emails prompting you to make time to learn about racial equity and social justice.

We encourage everyone to talk about what you are learning with friends, share on social media with #ywcaequitychallenge, and take time to reflect on your personal insights after each challenge using this reflection log. Consider joining our Racial & Social Justice Facebook Group to continue the conversation online and connect with others.

DAY 11: Privilege & Whiteness

As we begin to wrap up this year’s challenge, we are going to focus on how can we as individuals combat the oppression in our society. A great way to start is by recognizing our own privilege.

Privileges are unearned benefits that someone has just by having a certain social identity. Having or not having privileges is not a guarantee of success or failure; it is simply a different starting point that makes success more or less likely. People with higher amounts of privilege are less likely to be aware of their privilege compared to people with lesser amounts of privilege.

White privilege is both a legacy and a cause of racism. Having white privilege and recognizing it is not racist, but white privilege exists because of historic, enduring racism and biases.

From the earliest moments in our history, racial group identities granted access to resources and power to those who were “White” while excluding those who were “Other” legally, politically, and socially. Today we are going to talk about privilege and the impact of whiteness in our anti-racist work. How does privilege and white supremacy show up in our communities, our organizations, and in ourselves?

If you have…

5 Minutes	and	15 Minutes	and	30 Minutes
	and		and
Take this self-assessment  about privilege from YWCA Greater Cleveland.	and	Read this essay  on understanding “What is white privilege, really?”	and	Review this list of indicators of a detour or wrong turn into white guilt, denial, or defensiveness.

BONUS: To explore understanding and utilizing privilege more, check out Day 6 from last year’s challenge.

daily Reflection

Once you have completed today’s challenge, take a moment to reflect on any insights you experienced. How did the challenge make you feel? What is something you learned? Did you notice anything about yourself after taking the challenge? Consider sharing this new awareness with a friend or group to help deepen your understanding of the information. Consider tracking your reflections on the below daily log or joining our online Facebook group to encourage daily sharing with each other about the challenge topics.

Challenge Reflection Log

Share each challenge online with #YWCAEquityChallenge

DAY 1 | DAY 2 | DAY 3 | DAY 4 | DAY 5 | DAY 6 | DAY 7 | DAY 8 | DAY 9 | DAY 10 | DAY 11 | DAY 12 | DAY 13 | DAY 14

Do you have resources you think we should share? Any insights you would like to share with us? We welcome you to leave your comments here. Thank you!