III. Living Together? Real Stories

Dan Welliver

“Unpacking White Privilege”

Through an interactive “skit” presentation style, Dan Welliver presented several ways in which he had special advantages that others did not have just because he was “born a little boy with light, ‘white’ skin in central PA.” Using the work of Peggy McIntosh, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” as an inspiration, Dan presented his “knapsack” which contained items that represented his un-earned privileges.

Crayons White. Black “Flesh”
When he was growing up as a child, he could draw a picture of himself that accurately represented his own skin color with a crayon color called “flesh.” This was an advantage and an affirmation that some other children could not access. Today there are “Multi-Cultural Crayons.”

World Map
The world map that he grew up with in school was the Mercator Projection Map, with the United States in the center; ‘two Indias;’ the Asian continent split in half at the edges of the map; and the relative land areas of the continents grossly distorted, with Europe and North America appearing fairly large, relative to other continents. The Peters Projection world map, on the other hand, has Africa and the Equator at the center of the map. At first, the map appears very “strange” as it presents land areas in actual, relative proportion, thus making continents like Africa and South America “look” very large, and Europe and North America very small, compared to the Mercator Projection map. “Having a map that puts me in the center, and makes Europe look big is a nice advantage for a European-American geography student!”

First aid bandages that are made to be inconspicuous for people with light skin
History lessons that depicted Europeans as “explorers” and “conquerors” and “discoverers”
Schoolbooks with illustrations of people who “look like me and my family.”
All of these items were pulled from the weightless, invisible knapsack of conferred dominance.
Then Dan brought out his heavy “baggage,” which, he said, grows heavier the more he learns about his knapsack. This “baggage” is what he “carries” as a white male who is apprized of his un-earned privileges. The “baggage” contained things like “guilt,” “having to always appear in control,” being separated from people who could enrich his life in many ways, and defensiveness about his own complicity in perpetuating racism, sexism, and classism.

* Dan Welliver is Director of Education and Community Services for the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, a position he has held since January of 1998. He is also coordinator of the PA Inter-Agency Task Force on Civil Tension. Before joining the PHRC, Dan served for over nine years as Executive Director of Neighborhood Center of the United Methodist Church. He is a graduate of Juniata College and holds an M.A. in Community Psychology from Pennsylvania State University.