What do people mean by white privilege and why do they have different views about it?

You might have heard the term 'white privilege' used when people are having conversations about race and racism.

It's a term that got a lot of focus after the death of George Floyd in America, and the protests that happened around the world after that, but it is also a term that some people find unhelpful.

As an idea, it refers to the positions in many societies held by white people, and how that can impact their awareness of the racism experienced by people of other ethnic backgrounds.

There is also debate as to how accurate it is and how useful it is in tackling racism and inequality.

The death of George Floyd led to many anti-racism protests around the world, including in the UK

Racism can take many forms.

Sometimes racism can be seen through verbal or even physical abuse towards someone because they come from a certain ethnic or cultural background.

Other elements of racism are harder to see but do still happen. That could include schools or workplaces operating in a way that discriminates against people, including children, because of their race.

That can mean people from certain backgrounds are at a disadvantage or treated differently to white people.

For example, statistics show black people in the UK are more likely to be stopped and searched by police than white people. They were also more likely to be arrested and to have force used against them by police.

For some people the concept of white privilege is a useful way of examining the impact of racism in societies. It aims to explain how sometimes it can be hard to notice racism, if you don't experience it.

John Amaechi spoke to BBC Bitesize about his views

Professor John Amaechi is a psychologist, an author and a former NBA basketball player. He told BBC Bitesize that one way to look at privilege is in terms of a "lack of inconvenience" and he says there are a lot of different types of privilege.

He speaks of how the privilege of being wealthy can make it hard to understand the issues faced by poorer people, or how the privilege of being able-bodied can mean you aren't fully aware of the challenges faced by people with disabilities to simply live their lives.

For him recognising white privilege is about understanding the challenges faced by those who aren't white, in a mostly white society.

"If you are white, white privilege doesn't mean that you haven't worked hard or that you don't deserve the success you've had, that your life isn't hard or that you've never suffered. It simply means that your skin colour has not been the cause of your suffering or hardship," he says.

"Having white privilege doesn't make your life easy, but understanding it can help you realise why some people's lives are harder than they should be."

However, there are different opinions on how helpful the concept of white privilege is in terms of thinking about and tackling inequality, as some feel it unfairly suggests that all white people are always privileged.

The UK Parliament's Education Select Committee looked at education opportunities for young people

In June 2021, a group of Members of Parliament (MPs) on the Education Select Committee published a report which looked at education opportunities for young people and said that white working class pupils have been failed by decades of neglect.

The committee described white privilege as the idea of "societal privilege that benefits white people over other ethnic groups" and argued that use of the term, suggesting white pupils are at an advantage, is the "opposite" of the reality for poor white pupils.

Others, including author Tomiwa Owolade, have argued that an issue with the concept of white privilege as an approach to tackle racism, is that it is too simple and doesn't take into account the experience of other minority groups, who may be seen as white, and yet also experience prejudice.

For example, in 2023, a book published by academics from the universities of St Andrews, Manchester and King's College London, found that, as well as black and mixed race people reporting racism, some of the other groups most likely to say they have experienced racist abuse in their lives, included Gypsy, Traveller and Roma communities, Jewish people and Irish people.

Writing about this, Tomiwa Owolade said: "There are racial inequalities in our society.... This much is true. But this should be approached with subtlety rather than simplicity.

"This is because ethnic minority people in this country have diverse experiences and any commitment to fighting racial disadvantage needs to incorporate this complex truth if it wants to be truly effective."

Dr Tony Sewell led the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities

Other opinions go further still, arguing that the idea of white privilege can cause division.

In 2021 a report was published by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities. It was was commissioned by the Government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson to examine racial equality in the UK, and its findings caused lots of arguments.

The report talked about white privilege and rejected it as an idea, saying it suggests "that it is white people's attitudes and behaviours that primarily cause the disadvantage experienced by ethnic minorities. It also reinforces the perception that being an ethnic minority in the UK is to be treated unfairly by default.

"The evidence we have studied does not support this. The Commission rejects this approach, believes it fails to identify the real causes for disparities, and that it is counterproductive and divisive."

The report was controversial, with former equality and human rights commissioner Lord Simon Woolley describing it as "steeped in denial".

What are the views of the public?

There has been some polling (where a representative group of adults are asked questions about their opinions) in the UK on the subject of white privilege.

In 2022, a poll was carried out by Ipsos on behalf of Kings College London and The Policy Institute. In it, 51% of respondents said they found the term "white privilege" to be unhelpful. 6% of respondents said they thought white privilege didn't exist, wasn't relevant in the UK or was insulting to white people. 31% said the term brought to mind advantage, benefit or bias.

Polls suggest there is more agreement on the issue of racism overall than there is on the specific term "white privilege".

In a YouGov poll in September 2023, 81% of respondents said they thought racism was "a great deal" or "somewhat" present in the UK today. 17% of respondents felt racism was present "not very much" or "not at all".