Understanding White Privilege.....DISCUSS
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C-40
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How the term “white privilege” affects participation, polarization, and content in online communication
The language used in online discussions affects who participates in them and how they respond, which can influence perceptions of public opinion. This study examines how the term white privilege affects these dimensions of online communication. In two lab experiments, US residents were given a chance to respond to a post asking their opinions about renaming college buildings. Using the term white privilege in the question decreased the percentage of whites who supported renaming. In addition, those whites who remained supportive when white privilege was mentioned were less likely to create an online post, while opposing whites and non-whites showed no significant difference. The term also led to more low-quality posts among both whites and non-whites. The relationship between question language and the way participants framed their responses was mediated by their support or opposition for renaming buildings. This suggests that the effects of the term white privilege on the content of people’s responses is primarily affective. Overall, mention of white privilege seems to create internet discussions that are less constructive, more polarized, and less supportive of racially progressive policies. The findings have the potential to support meaningful online conversation and reduce online polarization.
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How people respond to white privilege
Privilege is “unearned advantage derived from one’s group membership”. In the present study, white privilege refers to racial privilege in the American context. The concept of white privilege is central in areas such as contemporary diversity training and whiteness studies scholarship. However, in public discussion, the term is more controversial. Popular media has variously talked about white privilege as a topic to be taught to children, a racist term [12], and a distraction from the root causes of racial inequality]. To be clear, this study does not directly examine the concept of white privilege itself, or whether whites think they have advantages due to their race. Instead, our goal here is to look at behavior: How individuals respond to the term in the context of an online forum. We expect that whites will respond differently to the term white privilege than other groups for two reasons.
In addition, whites have different views, on average, than members of other races about the advantages that whites have. In a recent Pew study, 47% of whites said that whites benefit either a great deal, or a fair amount, from advantages that Blacks don’t have. In contrast, 89% of Blacks and 74% of Hispanics said that whites benefited from these advantages. While this difference in perception may come from motivated reasoning [16] or from genuinely different life experiences, by itself it is likely to affect how whites respond to the term white privilege.
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Blacks more likely than other groups to say their race has hurt their ability to succeed; whites most likely to say their race has helped. White privileges
About half of black Americans say being black has hurt their ability to get ahead, including 18% who say it has hurt a lot; 17% say being black has helped them at least a little, while 29% say it has neither hurt nor helped their ability to get ahead. In contrast, roughly four-in-ten or more whites, Hispanics and Asians say their race or ethnicity hasn’t had much impact on their ability to get ahead – and to the extent that it has, more say it has helped than say it has hurt. Education is also a factor in how blacks assess the impact their race has had on their ability to succeed. About six-in-ten blacks with at least some college experience (57%) say being black has hurt, compared with 47% of blacks with a high school diploma or less education. The survey also asked whether factors such as gender, family finances and hard work helped or hurt people’s ability to get ahead. Overall, Americans are far more likely to point to their own hard work than to any other attribute as having helped their ability to get ahead.
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