Читать книгу Understanding Racism - Hephzibah Strmic-Pawl - Страница 50

White privilege theory notes how Whites are presumed to be innocent, or if they are found to be deviant, the penalty is either insignificant or nonexistent. Wise recounts numerous times when he did not get into trouble, even though he was clearly violating the law: drinking and doing drugs as a teenager and, even more severe, his fake identification business that helped him and his underage friends drink at bars.¹³ In another instance, a police officer chose to help Wise break into his car when he had locked himself out of it. Rather than the officer assuming Wise was illegally trying to break into a car, his Whiteness accorded him virtue; “for whites, innocence was presumed until proven otherwise, while for blacks, the presumption of guilt was the default position.”¹⁴ Lack of authority enforcement is also a common theme among a list of privileges that McIntosh delineates: She can shop without being followed around; she can be sure her children’s teachers will tolerate them; she can be sure that if she is pulled over by a cop, it is not because of her race; and she can be late to a meeting without the tardiness reflecting on her race. McIntosh notes that several privileges allow her “to escape penalties or dangers that others suffer.”¹⁵