The privilege model of oppression, often encountered in today’s liberal and radical circles, has evolved since the 1960s. Many of today’s well-intentioned advocates are unaware of the theory’s class roots – roots that continue to profoundly impact privilege politics today. At the height of the American civil rights movement, when theories of oppression might be expected to have some resonance, privilege politics were virtually unknown. The privilege model was unable to find a foothold among the hundreds of thousands of anti-racists involved in the country’s massive and often integrated struggles for freedom. Only later, during the tragic crisis and disintegration of the New Left at the end of the 1960s, were privilege politics able to gain a hearing – among white, middle-class students, most of whom had had no involvement in the civil rights movement. White-skin privilege theory would come to play a major role in the destruction of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) by extreme sectarians.
What Is White Privilege Part 3
