White Privilege ― The Myth of a Post-racial Society

One of the major features of politics in the past few years has been a renewed attention to race as a driving factor in both politics and everyday life. How, after decades of civil rights activism, do people from black and minority ethnic communities continue to be marginalized? In White Privilege, Kalwant Bhopal draws on social science research and political and economic analysis to show how people from black and minority backgrounds are continually positioned as outsiders in public discourse and interpersonal interaction. Neoliberal policies only increase that tendency, as their effects exacerbate long-standing patterns of minority disadvantage. Bhopal’s book is rooted in dispassionate analysis, but its message is unmistakable—the structural advantages of whiteness are widespread, and dismantling them will require both honesty about their power and determination to change them.

Kalwant Bhopal is professor of education and social justice at the University of Birmingham. She is visiting scholar at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and visiting professor at Kings College London.