White Privilege Retreats Don’t Meet Intentions

By Julia Ciravolo

White privilege can exist without white people’s knowledge of it. The University of Massachusetts, Amherst defines white privilege as “a set of advantages and/or immunities that white people benefit from on a daily basis beyond those common to all others.” It is a societal pitfall, and steps should be taken to uncover ways in which people can help prevent the effects of white privilege.

Recently, students at the University of Vermont gathered for this purpose. The ALANA Student Center (ASC), which aims to support the development of ALANA (African, Latino, Asian, and Native American) and Bi/Multiracial students, organized a retreat from Nov. 13-15 that gave students who self-identify as white the option to attend Examining White Privilege: A Retreat for Undergraduate Students Who Self-Identify as White. This retreat was designed to bring awareness to the unearned privileges that accompany being white, the unearned disadvantages that accompany other races and the ways in which one can fight against racism. While the aims of this program were sound and valid, the intricacies of the retreat appeared to be contradictory.

First of all, the name of the retreat, Examining White Privilege: A Retreat for Undergraduate Students Who Self-Identify as White, in and of itself contradicts the aims of this retreat. The term “self-identify” implies that different races would be able to attend the retreat as long as they identify as white. Data published on Forbes reveals that 83.13 percent of the student body at the University of Vermont is Caucasian; therefore, the likelihood of someone of a different race identifying as white on that campus is extremely low. Moreover, a picture of the students who attended the retreat was posted on the University of Vermont’s website and not one non-white person attended. While the retreat was designed to bring awareness to the ways in which one could help eradicate racism, the retreat itself appeared to encourage racism. If a restaurant had a sign in its window that read, “white people only allowed to enter,” people would take this to be justifiably offensive and morally wrong. So why should a retreat be allowed exclusively for white people? Its exclusivity is contradictory to the retreat’s aims.

This retreat appears to ignore the possibility of a white person as being the target of discrimination. Indeed, this retreat may encourage white guilt. At the retreat, students confronted difficult questions and explored various topics that ultimately led to the revelation of oppression as a result of white privilege. It is likely that many members of the retreat felt ashamed, guilty and embarrassed about being white.
My goal is not to make bold claims about the retreat but rather to point out the details that make the retreat seem contradictory to its aims. Again, while the retreat was designed to bring awareness to the ways in which one could help eradicate racism, the retreat itself appears to encourage racism. It appears to parallel the causes and effects of racism, which is contradictory to the retreats aim.

There is no doubt that white privilege is a huge social justice issue and that steps should be taken to dismantle it. People of all races should be treated equally. However, the retreat’s exclusivity and harmful emotional effects mimic racism and discrimination. Therefore, the intricacies of the retreat are indeed contradictory to its aims. If the retreat was open to all races and did not instill a feeling of guilt for being white, then its actions and aims would have been in agreement with one another.

Julia Ciravolo, FCRH ’19, is undecided in her major from Bergen County, New Jersey.