White does not always equal White privilege.

White does not always equal White privilege and White privilege does not always equal White.

McIntosh unpacked through her personal experiences what the idea of “White Privilege” means, and how it resonates with other people of White skin colour. However, I would like to suggest an extension to this understanding, that this form of privilege isn’t just synonymous with people of white skin tone. This doesn’t mean White privilege doesn’t exist or its effects aren’t felt, but rather project the idea: Do we Westerners despite our colour sometimes become White?

Let me break this down in layers

1. The privileges seen in McIntosh’s article are slowly turning into ‘Western’ privileges rather than ‘White’ privileges

Growing up in a western society from a middle class family I had the same privileges of being able to pick and choose who you associate with, where to live, who to listen to and not to, my financial capability has never been questioned regardless of being a coloured person. While I recognize this could be because the racial group I come from is not the minority group generally associated with lower socioeconomic stereotypes, but the privilege I feel is a direct derivative of being a westerner and of middle class. Though in the public sphere the representation of White ethnic identities is not the same for me, in the private sphere my class and upbringing in a western country makes life just as easy for me as any other White ethnic person. I believe the western and middle class privileges I feel are not only felt in New Zealand but also overseas for Indian girls like me, perhaps in some cases I’m even more privileged than a person of White skin tone. To prove this I give the marketing example of Indian matrimonial website “Shaadi. Com”, this website markets for people within India to marry people outside of India or “NRI” status because it is assumed they execute the western and higher class without being a White ethnic person. The idea of picking and choosing who I want to marry becomes so much easier as an Indian girl living in a western country than it would ever be for an Indian girl living in India. To some respects this type of privilege is not founded in my race but rather being a Westerner in itself.

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2. White is a generalized term
   
   A common mistake we make when talking about White privilege, is the white man or woman from Latvia is not the same as the person from Italy, who is not the same person as Britain. “Whiteness” used to be exclusive to those descendants of Britain, and over time this definition opened up to include others who traded their autonomy for the safety of this category. While, without a doubt the hierarchy of “Whiteness” is still maintained, it doesn’t take away from the fact those White men and women in the lower realms of the hierarchy certainly don’t have all the privileges outlined by McIntosh. We need to recognize a person of White ethnic identity is just as able to face the reality of lower socioeconomic conditions as a person of Black skin tone, or Brown Skin tone. That someone from Latvia or Estonia who is technically “White” might not be able to have the opportunities that me as a Brown girl would. We need to understand this in order to address White privilege in itself. So when we go about to shift the power dynamics we take away the concentrated power from the top of the hierarchy not from those who in fact have little autonomy regardless of being technically White.
   
   
3. White skin obsession is not necessarily sourced from White people. A common mistake we make regarding “White washing” is that it has to do with the white man or woman. While some examples of this are correct, others are not. the pursuit of white was prevalent in some society before colonial nations interacted with their white ethnic colonizers. Their pursuit of whiteness in fact originated from religious and cultural ideology. To give an example of this India is the world’s leader in whitening creams, and skin lightening treatment, marriage proposals, employment and other factors are impacted based on the skin tone a person has. However, this is not a post-colonial issue but rather a pre-colonial issue from the Hindu and Islamic religious texts. Being White in these cases is not about the white person but rather portraying the purity and innocence fetishezed by such religious and cultural understanding. Yet, we continue to label this as a postcolonial effect when it’s roots stem back.

This essay is not to suggest White Privilege does not exist, because it does. It is to suggest when we think of privilege it is not necessarily limited to the white man or woman, when we think of whiteness it is not necessarily a consequence of the white man or woman’s actions. It’s also to suggest that we live in a time of such divide between the Eastern and Western world, that despite not being White sometimes we might feel the privileges of being White.