White People Make Everything About Race

White People Make Everything About Race
  • 5.0 (4)
  • SOCIETY & CULTURE
  • SERIES

A podcast for well meaning white folks, trying to make sense of their own racial identity.  Episodes 1-7 of season 2, “Is White Privilege a Lie?" are available now!   ---- If you’re white like me, at some point you’ve probably been told it’s not polite to talk about race. But have you ever really thought about race? About your own race? About what it means for you?  Welcome to a show that asks the question: what does it mean to be well meaning and white in a society that has failed to fully address racial disparities? Learn more at whitepeoplemakeeverythingaboutrace.com.

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  1. Season 2, Episode 1: Is White Privilege A Lie?

    EPISODE 1

    Season 2, Episode 1: Is White Privilege A Lie?

    White privilege. Does it exist? Is it a lie?  With the unfairness and rage many white people are feeling;  the broad legal and cultural attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion that are happening throughout the country; and with white nationalism and increasing support for white supremacy being normalized, in this season of White People Make Everything About Race, I want to talk about white privilege.  Well, no, that’s not entirely true. I don't actually want to talk about white privilege. Some people think white privilege is real and affects everyone; some think it’s something that others have; and some think it’s a total lie, manufactured by the work liberal elite.  But very few people want to talk about it one way or the other.  In my experience, almost no term causes as much discomfort and defensiveness amongst people who are white-identified as the words “white privilege”.  So let’s get uncomfortable.  Notes and References:  Who's Running America? The Obama Reign. Eighth Edition. Thomas R. Dye. Routledge. 2014. Privilege: How Society's Elite Are Made. By Sudhir Venkatesh. Freakonomics. April 20, 2011.  https://freakonomics.com/2011/04/privilege-how-societys-elite-are-made/ Most Americans Point to Circumstances, Not Work Ethic, for Why People Are Rich or Poor. March 20, 2020. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2020/03/02/most-americans-point-to-circumstances-not-work-ethic-as-reasons-people-are-rich-or-poor/ See show notes and more at whitepeoplemakeeverythingaboutrace.com

    23 min
  2. Season 2, Episode 2: Why Whiteness?

    EPISODE 2

    Season 2, Episode 2: Why Whiteness?

    In the Virginia Colony, a social and economic system centered on the elites was intentionally racialized to keep it that centered on the elites. Racial anxiety was manufactured and then it was stoked to keep people divided. Fast forward to the present day, and we continue to see the way this system is refreshed and reconfigured, and how it continues to keep the focus on individuals and not the broader system.  One of the reasons it is so hard to talk about privilege is because it contradicts the bootstraps myth that is pervasive in our country. The bootstraps narrative tells us that each one of us individually struggles, succeeds, or excels strictly based on how hard we work.  If someone has obtained more, they must have worked harder. If you haven’t accomplished what you’d hoped, then you should have worked harder, too. But the idea of “Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” did not always mean what it has come to mean today. Notes and References: 1. "A host of systemic factors has created the ongoing segregation and racial and ethnic disparities throughout the country in educational attainment, wealth, and quality-of-life that we see today. These factors have included local, state and federal policy and investment decisions, discriminatory practices within the private sector and individual actions and biases."  There are many deeper analyses of the way this has continued to manifest over generations, including Richard Rothstein’s 2017 book The Color of Law, or the accompanying 18 minute video summary you can find at segregatedbydesign.com; Ava DuVernay's 13th (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krfcq5pF8u8); and Heather McGhee's The Sum of Us (https://heathermcghee.com/). Systems drive disparities along lines of gender and class and other forms of marginalization as well, but in a society that remains very racially segregated, there is a clear intersectional impact that is centered on racial disparities. Race is always a factor. 2. Linguist Ben Zimmer has traced the idiom back to an 1834 newspaper, in which one Mr. Murphee is satirically described as being “enabled to hand himself over the Cumberland river or a barn yard fence by the straps of his boots.” It appears throughout the 19th century, often in the company of other colorful metaphors for ludicrous impossibilities, such as “sitting in a wheelbarrow and trying to wheel yourself” and “getting rich by taking money from one pocket and putting it in another.””How the ‘bootstrap’ idiom became a cultural ideal; By Melissa Mohr Correspondent; Oct. 04, 2021; https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/In-a-Word/2021/1004/How-the-bootstrap-idiom-became-a-cultural-ideal 3. "The myth of meritocracy: who really gets what they deserve?" Kwame Anthony Appiah. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/oct/19/the-myth-of-meritocracy-who-really-gets-what-they-deserve See show notes and more at whitepeoplemakeeverythingaboutrace.com

    28 min
  3. Season 2, Episode 3: Redlining, The 'burbs, and The Northern Confederacy

    EPISODE 3

    Season 2, Episode 3: Redlining, The 'burbs, and The Northern Confederacy

    Since the fall of the Confederacy, maybe the most shocking and enduring example of national policy rooted in racial discrimination is the practice of government sponsored redlining.  I learned about redlining when I was 22, and it has forever changed the way I’ve viewed my community and our country.  For me it was the beginning of a deeper understanding of how place and opportunity have been racialized.  For me, it also cracked open the myth of meritocracy, and led me to see how the whole thing crumbles when we look at the evidence systems designed to serve some of us but not others. Show Notes: Texts on Redlining and the GI Bill: Jackson, K. T. (1985). Crabgrass frontier: the suburbanization of the United States. Oxford University Press.  Rothstein, R. (2017). The color of law: A forgotten history of how our government segregated America. Liveright Publishing. 'Segregated By Design' examines the forgotten history of how our federal, state and local governments unconstitutionally segregated every major metropolitan area in America through law and policy. https://www.segregatedbydesign.com (apprx. 18 minute video)  Eduardo Bonilla-Silva names, as one of the characteristics of racism, that “racism has a “rationality” (actors support or resist a racial order in various ways”. I would suggest in this instance, that this rationality applies whether or not these individual actors are aware of the system or its repercussions.  More than Prejudice: Restatement, Reflections, and New Directions in Critical Race Theory. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity.  2015, Vol. 1(1) 75­ –89.  American Sociological Association 2014 DOI: 10.1177/2332649214557042 p.76. See show notes and more at whitepeoplemakeeverythingaboutrace.com

    26 min
  4. Season 2, Episode 4: The Five Phantoms of White Privilege; Part 1, Inheritance

    EPISODE 4

    Season 2, Episode 4: The Five Phantoms of White Privilege; Part 1, Inheritance

    For those of us who are identified as white, life appears to have less friction if we don’t acknowledge that privilege exists. But multiple forms of privilege and power are always present, in every situation and every interaction. Privilege is not binary. It is not yes or no. So let’s move beyond a simple definition of white privilege as the money that comes from mom and dad. Let’s start with inheritance, but look beyond your bank account. Let’s look at the Five Phantoms of White Privilege, what they give to us, and what they take away.  Show Notes: Many New York employers discriminate against minorities, ex-offenders. Summary of “Discrimination in Low Wage Labor Markets,” was conducted by sociology professors Devah Pager and Bruce Western. April, 2005. https://www.princeton.edu/news/2005/04/01/many-new-york-employers-discriminate-against-minorities-ex-offenders  Upside Down: The $400 Billion Federal Asset-Building Budget. February 4, 2010. Corporation for Enterprise Development, The Annie E. Casey Foundation. https://www.aecf.org/resources/upside-down Generations of Advantage. Multigenerational Correlations in Family Wealth. Fabian T. Pfeffer, University of Michigan, Alexandra Killewald, Harvard University. Social Forces 96(4) 1411–1442, June 2018 doi: 10.1093/sf/sox086. Advance Access publication on 13 December 2017. p.1434 The effects of Whiteness on the health of whites in the USA.  Malat, J., Mayorga-Gallo, S., Williams, D. R. (2017). Social Science & Medicine. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.06.034 https://www.madinamerica.com/2017/10/paradox-white-americans-mental-health/ How Wealth Reduces Compassion. Daisy Grewald, Scientific American. April 10, 2012. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduces-compassion/. Signs of socioeconomic status: a thin-slicing approach. Michael W Kraus  1, Dacher Keltner Affiliations; Psychol Sci.. 2009 Jan;20(1):99-106. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02251.x. Epub 2008 Dec 5.   https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19076316/  Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior. Paul K. Piff, Daniel M. Stancato, Stéphane Côté, +1 , and Dacher Keltner Authors Info & Affiliations. Edited by Richard E. Nisbett, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, and approved January 26, 2012 (received for review November 8, 2011). February 27, 2012. 109 (11) 4086-4091 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1118373109 See show notes and more at whitepeoplemakeeverythingaboutrace.com

    32 min
  5. Season 2, Episode 5: The Five Phantoms of White Privilege; Part 2, Centered in the Story (Cultural Representation)

    EPISODE 5

    Season 2, Episode 5: The Five Phantoms of White Privilege; Part 2, Centered in the Story (Cultural Representation)

    This episode we’re going to take a deep dive on the second of our Five Phantoms of White Privilege, and that phantom is the way that whiteness has been continually centered in the story of America. It’s the way whiteness is core to the story we tell about our world: past, present, and future.  This is about cultural representation, how it is controlled and how it shapes expectations, and then how it excludes or punishes those who don’t meet them. Whether in popular fiction, news media, or our lived experiences, the ways that whiteness, and the white experience is centered is and has been self-reinforcing.  Sources and notes: From servants to outlaws: 100 years of Black representation in Hollywood films. Althea Manasan and Mary O'Connell. CBC Radio · Posted: Mar 18, 2021 2:29 PM EDT | Last Updated: March 1, 2023 https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/from-servants-to-outlaws-100-years-of-black-representation-in-hollywood-films-1.5953758 Black representation in film and TV: The challenges and impact of increasing diversity. March 11, 2021. McKinsey. Jonathan Dunn, Sheldon Lyn. Nony Onyeador, Emmanuel Zegeye. https://www.mckinsey.com/Featured-Insights/Diversity-and-Inclusion/Black-representation-in-film-and-TV-The-challenges-and-impact-of-increasing-diversity  Just How White Is the Book Industry?. Richard Jean So and Gus Wezerek. Nytimes  Dec. 11, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/11/opinion/culture/diversity-publishing-industry.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage retrieved 11 March 2025.  Bickmore, S. T., Xu, Y., & Sheridan, M. I. (2017). Where Are the People of Color?: Representation of Cultural Diversity in the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature and Advocating for Diverse Books in a Non-Post Racial Society. Taboo: The Journal of Culture and E ducation, 16 (1). https://doi.org/10.31390/taboo.16.1.06  Anjali Adukia, Alex Eble, Emileigh Harrison, Hakizumwami Birali Runesha, Teodora Szasz, What We Teach About Race and Gender: Representation in Images and Text of Children’s Books, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 138, Issue 4, November 2023, Pages 2225–2285, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjad028  New Study Looks at Race, Gender Representation in Award-Winning Children’s Books. Kara Yorio. Apr 16, 2021. School Library Journal. https://www.slj.com/story/new-study-looks-race-gender-representation-in-award-winning-childrens-books  The Music Industry Was Built On Racism. Changing It Will Take More Than Donations.  ELIAS LEIGHT. JUNE 5, 2020. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/music-industry-racism-1010001/  ‘Black in Space’ looks at final frontier of civil ri See show notes and more at whitepeoplemakeeverythingaboutrace.com

    30 min
  6. Season 2, Episode 6: The Five Phantoms of White Privilege; Part 3, Access to Systems and Structures

    EPISODE 6

    Season 2, Episode 6: The Five Phantoms of White Privilege; Part 3, Access to Systems and Structures

    Despite the bootstraps myth. We all rely on society’s systems and structures in some way to access opportunity. Our social systems — from health care to education to banking and transportation — are not natural or organic. The have been designed. And the design of those systems produces the outcomes that we get.  And, by any measure, the outcomes we see in today’s America are deeply out of step with our stated American values. They are deeply out of step with freedom and liberty for everyone, deeply out of step creating communities of belonging and opportunity. And those outcomes that these systems produced are racialized.  In this episode, we’re going to discuss the third or our five phantoms of white privilege: access. The ways that the systems and structure of our society the provide disproportionate opportunity to folks who are white identified: 1) by giving us greater access to doors of opportunity not open to folks of color; 2) by allowing us expectations of access to the public sphere, public spaces and public responsiveness, in ways that folks of color can not assume; 3) by providing us access to choices that are closed of to folks of color. Show Notes: Boosts and Blocks Timeline. United For a Fair Economy. https://www.faireconomy.org/boostsandblocks  Black Americans Have a Clear Vision for Reducing Racism but Little Hope It Will Happen: Many say key U.S. institutions should be rebuilt to ensure fair treatment. By Kiana Cox and Khadijah Edwards.  August 30, 2022. https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2022/08/30/black-americans-have-a-clear-vision-for-reducing-racism-but-little-hope-it-will-happen/ https://daily.jstor.org/calling-the-police-without-trusting-the-police/  The New Jim Crow. Michelle Alexander. https://newjimcrow.com/  13th. Ava DuVernay. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krfcq5pF8u8  More than Prejudice: Restatement, Reflections, and New Directions in Critical Race Theory. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity.  2015, Vol. 1(1) 75­ –89.  American Sociological Association 2014 DOI: 10.1177/2332649214557042 p.80. This Supreme Court Case Made School District Lines A Tool For Segregation. July 25, 20195:00 AM ET. Heard on Morning Edition. By Elissa Nadworny, Cory Turner, https://www.npr.org/2019/07/25/739493839/this-supreme-court-case-made-school-district-lines-a-tool-for-segregation The Racist History Of “School Choice”. Forbes. Raymond Pierce, May 06, 2021. https://www.forbes.com/sites/raymondpierce/2021/05/06/the-racist-history-of-school-choice/ Legacy and Athlete Preferences at Harvard. Peter Arcidiacono, Josh Kinsler, Tyler Ransom, Working Paper 26316. http://www.nber.org/papers/w26316 National Bureau of Economic Research.   The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. Heather McGhee. https://heathermcghee.com Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland. Jonathan Metzl. https://www.jonathanmetzl.com/ See show notes and more at whitepeoplemakeeverythingaboutrace.com

    33 min
  7. Season 2, Episode 7: The Five Phantoms of White Privilege; Part 4, Acceptance & the Benefit of the Doubt

    EPISODE 7

    Season 2, Episode 7: The Five Phantoms of White Privilege; Part 4, Acceptance & the Benefit of the Doubt

    We can go about our day-to-day lives as people who are treated as white, and easily fail to recognize the subtle ways that bias and prejudice show up when others face it, when we unintentionally perpetrate it, and and when our own path may be cleared through its absence.  White privilege delivers us the assumption that we will be accepted wherever we may go, that we have a right to be wherever we are and wherever we want to be. It is the assumption that we are well intentioned and capable, with allowances to not be perfect all the time. It is the assumption that what we say matters, and it is being given the time, space, and attention to say those things.  Show Notes: Listed of works quoted listed chronologically below. For a full list of works consulted, see https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VYpwO5EE3-yGfT1LI_8FTp_viVBTPe22/view?usp=sharing) Nour S. Kteily, Alexander P. Landry, Dehumanization: trends, insights, and challenges, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Volume 26, Issue 3, 2022, Pages 222-240, ISSN 1364-6613. Leyens, J.-P., Paladino, P. M., Rodriguez-Torres, R., Vaes, J., Demoulin, S., Rodriguez-Perez, A., & Gaunt, R. (2000). The Emotional Side of Prejudice: The Attribution of Secondary Emotions to Ingroups and Outgroups. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 4(2), 186-197.  Racial and ethnic disparities in the management of acute pain in US emergency departments: Meta-analysis and systematic review. Paulyne Lee, Maxine Le Saux, Rebecca Siegel, Monika Goyal, Chen Chen, Yan Ma, Andrew C. Meltzer. The American Journal of Emergency Medicine, Volume 37, Issue 9, 2019, Pages 1770-1777, ISSN 0735-6757. Racing to Justice: Transforming Our Conceptions of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society. John a. powell. Indiana University Press. 2012. P. 76.  Anderson, Elijah. “The White Space”. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 2015, Vol. 1(1) 10–21 © American Sociological Association 2014.  DOI: 10.1177/2332649214561306 Phipps, A. (2021). White tears, white rage: Victimhood and (as) violence in mainstream feminism. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 24(1), 81-93.  Racing to Justice: Transforming Our Conceptions of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society. john a. powell. Indiana University Press. 2012. Thomas MMC, Waldfogel J, Williams OF. Inequities in Child Protective Services Contact Between Black and White Children. Child Maltreat. 2023 Feb;28(1):42-54. “The Racial Equity Dividend: Buffalo’s Great Opportunity.” University at Buffalo Regional Institute, State University of New York at Buffalo, School of Architecture and Planning, and Make Communities. 2016.  Okun, Tema. White Supremacy Culture. dRworks . www.dismantlingracism.org Motro, D., Evans, J. B., Ellis, A. P. J., & Benson, L., III (2021, April 1). Race and Reactions to Women’s Expressions of Anger at Work: Examining the Effects of the “Angry Black Woman” Stereotype. Journal of Applied Psychology.  Day-to-Day Experiences of Emotional Tax Among Women and Men of Color in the Workplace. Dnika J. Travis, PhD & Jennifer Thorpe-Moscon, PhD .15 February 2018.  Seeing Race and Seeming Racist? Evaluating Strategic Colorblindness in Social Interaction. Evan P. Apfelbaum and Samuel R. Sommers, Tufts University; Michael I. Norton. Harvard Business School.  See show notes and more at whitepeoplemakeeverythingaboutrace.com

    33 min
  8. Season 2, Episode 8: The Five Phantoms of White Privilege; Part 5, Sense of Self

    EPISODE 8

    Season 2, Episode 8: The Five Phantoms of White Privilege; Part 5, Sense of Self

    The Fifth Phantom of While Privilege is embedded deep within us, it is baked into our Sense of Self.  Those of us who are characterized and treated as white have the privilege of not thinking about race, how it impacts those around us, and the impact is has within us.  We are afforded the luxury of seeing ourselves as individuals, not as a part of a racialized group, and this creates the mental space for us to develop and claim an individual identity, to believe deeply that we are one certain way, to see the injustices and indignities carried out by a white-dominated society but separate ourselves from them.  Not only do we not have to think about race generally, we don’t have to think about our own whiteness and how our own actions are inherently racialized.  Show Notes (listed chronologically): The Souls of Black Folk. W.E. DuBois 1903. All right, “color-blind” colleagues, we need to have a talk. Vu Le. Nonprofit AF. April 24, 2017. nonprofitaf.com/2017/04/all-right-color-blind-colleagues-we-need-to-have-a-talk/ Between the World and Me. Ta-Nehisi Coates. 2015. Spiegel & Grau. The Costs of Code-Switching. Courtney L. McCluney, Kathrina Robotham, Serenity Lee, Richard Smith & Myles Durkee. Harvard Business Review. November 15, 2019. hbr.org/2019/11/the-costs-of-codeswitching For Black parents, 'the talk' binds generations and reflects changes in America. Gustavo Solis. 2021,March 10. https://phys.org/news/2021-03-black-parents-america.html Let’s Reconceptualize “Imposter Syndrome” for People of Color What It Means, How It Affects Our Students, and What Higher Ed Institutions Can Do About It. Cokley, Kevin. August 15, 2024. Harvard Business Publishing Education. hbsp.harvard.edu/inspiring-minds/lets-reconceptualize-imposter-syndrome-for-people-of-color White Supremacy Culture – Still Here. Tema Okun | May 2021. whitesupremacyculture.info From White Racist to White Anti-­Racist: The Lifelong Journey. Tema Okun, dRworks. 2006. Notes of a Native Son. James Baldwin. Beacon Press. 1955. Requiem for a Nun. William Faulker. Random House. 1951. Is Declining Mental Health in the U.S. a White Phenomenon? Racial Disparities in Mental Health from 1997 to 2018. IPUMS Center for Data Integration. ipums.org/sites/www.ipums.org/files/peele.pdf Suicide by mass murder: Masculinity, aggrieved entitlement, and rampage school shootings. Rachel Kalish, Michael Kimmel. SUNY at Stony Brook, NY. Health Sociology Review (2010) 19(4): 451–464. The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. Heather McGhee. Penguin Random House. 2021. Racing to Justice: Transforming Our Conceptions of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society; john a. powell. Indiana University Press. 2012.  The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction 1948-1985. James Baldwin. St. Martin’s Press. 1985. See show notes and more at whitepeoplemakeeverythingaboutrace.com

    30 min
  9. Season 2 Preview: Is White Privilege a Lie?

    05/21/2025

    Season 2 Preview: Is White Privilege a Lie?

    Hi everyone and welcome to a preview of our new season of White People Make Everything About Race. This season is going to take a different format from last time. Last season I had some incredible guests who came on the pod to share their own stories of navigating whiteness and what it means for how we see the world and ourselves within it. Since then that world has continued to shift -- and so has my thinking.  So, this time around I’m coming to you solo, and, throughout this entire season, I’m going to be focused on just one question: Is white privilege a lie? Caution: Spoilers ahead. See show notes and more at whitepeoplemakeeverythingaboutrace.com

    10 min
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A podcast for well meaning white folks, trying to make sense of their own racial identity.  Episodes 1-7 of season 2, “Is White Privilege a Lie?" are available now!   ---- If you’re white like me, at some point you’ve probably been told it’s not polite to talk about race. But have you ever really thought about race? About your own race? About what it means for you?  Welcome to a show that asks the question: what does it mean to be well meaning and white in a society that has failed to fully address racial disparities? Learn more at whitepeoplemakeeverythingaboutrace.com.

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