Office of the Associate Vice President for Health Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of Utah Health, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
Division of Academic Affairs, Department of Pediatrics, Brody School of Medicine, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA.
J Racial Ethn Health Disparities. 2021 Jun;8(3):539-542. doi: 10.1007/s40615-020-00947-9. Epub 2021 Jan 19.
White privilege can be often overlooked and poorly understood in academic medicine, by those who wield it, and by those who suffer from its deleterious effects. Dr. Peggy McIntosh, a leader in research on equity and diversity in education, described white privilege as a set of unearned benefits that white people have based on being born white in a culture that favors the white race. White people have privilege because it was given to them by other white people, and it was taken by claiming superiority over people of color, starting before the European colonizations of Africa, Asia, and the Americas, and continuing through the present day. Many white people come from impoverished communities, suffer from socioeconomic disadvantage, and struggle with unemployment. They may also suffer from inadequate housing and limited education. Because they are white, they still benefit from privilege and positive stereotypes associated with light skin color. As our nation reckons with the murders of unarmed Black people by police, recognizing that many white people have been allies and agents of change forBlack and other minority people, discussing how the power of white privilege can be shared is needed. The authors discuss the power of white privilege and how that power can be shared to promote change in academic medicine.
在学术医学领域，白人特权常常被忽视和误解，无论是那些拥有特权的人，还是那些遭受其有害影响的人。佩吉·麦克因托什博士是教育领域公平与多样性研究的领军人物，她将白人特权描述为一套白人在种族主义文化中与生俱来的、无需努力便可获得的好处。白人享有特权，是因为其他白人赋予了他们特权，是因为他们声称自己比有色人种优越而获得的特权，这种情况可以追溯到欧洲对非洲、亚洲和美洲的殖民化之前，并一直延续到今天。许多白人来自贫困社区，遭受着社会经济劣势和失业的困扰。他们可能还面临住房不足和教育水平有限的问题。然而，由于他们是白人，他们仍然受益于与浅色皮肤相关的特权和积极刻板印象。当我们的国家面对警察杀害手无寸铁的黑人事件时，我们认识到许多白人一直是黑人以及其他少数族裔的盟友和变革推动者，因此，讨论如何分享白人特权的力量是必要的。作者探讨了白人特权的力量，以及如何分享这种力量来推动学术医学领域的变革。
