Dear Colleagues,

I have a question, seeking help for my project. Please permit me to ask for help.

Some background: I am doing final revisions and edits on my manuscript Anti-Racism as Communism, which will be published by Bloomsbury. My colleague Adam Sennet at Davis was kindly going through my manuscript and challenged my criticisms of the phrase “white privilege” as an accurate name for anti-black racism. In the historical section of my manuscript I had argued that in one instance after another anti-black racism was used to drive down working class white people whose labor competed with black labor (including enslaved labor); thus I was arguing that anti-black racism especially targeted black people and oppressed them cruelly; nevertheless many poor white people did not benefit but were harmed by acts of anti-black oppression, even ones in which they participated.

Adam questioned my argument. He acknowledged my evidence of harm to many poor white people from anti-black racism. Still, since privilege is not the same as benefit (he gave the example of adults but not minors being privileged to smoke but not being benefited by the privilege), he felt that I had not justified my criticisms of the phrase white privilege.

I plan to deal with the problem Adam raised by including a discussion of privilege and benefit. However, I am unaware of any literature that critically examines the concept of privilege and of how it is applied in discussions of racism or sexism. Are you aware of any work here?

Thank you for whatever help you can give.

Paul Gomberg, Research Associate, UC Davis

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