Welcome back. This is the second part of the spotlight on privilege. Recall that our definition of privilege is an invisible advantage based on being a member of a particular group. In Part 1, I explained how being right-handed is a type of privileged. In this lesson, I will explore how privilege is relevant to cultivating inclusion and equity in the workplace. Dr. Peggy McIntosh, a US professor of women's study, pioneered work on privilege in the late 1980s. While reflecting on how men receive more advantages than women due to their gender, she realized that she might receive advantages as a white person, she began to look for examples of how her experiences might be different than her black colleagues. She described her process during a TedTalk, "So I decided I had to prey on it." She asked herself what advantages she had because of her race on a daily basis that she didn't earn. She literally slept on it and she said, "In the middle of the night along came an example, I switched on the light and I wrote it down." Over the course of three months, she identified 46 examples of unearned advantages of being white. She referred to these as, "Invisible, unearned assets" that she can cash in on every day because of her race. She explained, "White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks." Similar to the advantages of being right-handed, this assets based on race arise from social systems that have developed over time in favor of the dominant group. Likewise, advantages for the dominant group tend to be disadvantages for the non-dominant group. Just as left-handers can experience negative experiences because of their left-handedness, so can persons of color face them due to their race or ethnicity. Here's another similarity as right-handedness can be perceived and assumed to be normal and even superior, so can non-dominant social identities be viewed as abnormal and inferior. These distinctions are sometimes based on explicit biases for or against individuals. Sometimes this doesn't happen by chance, historically and currently, persons in positions of power perpetuate notions of superiority and inferiority through laws and policies that intentionally favor one group or another, some of those are detailed and an assigned reading for the spotlight. In a paper titled White Privilege, unpacking the invisible knapsack, Dr. McIntosh wrote, "In unpacking this Invisible knapsack of white privilege, I have listed conditions of daily experience that I once took for granted." She hoped that her list would help white people to understand the complicated topic of privilege without accused of being racist. Here are some examples on Dr. McIntosh's list. As I read these, pay attention to your responses. "People who are white are more likely to view these statements is true for themselves. Persons who are not white are more likely to view them as not true for themselves. Whether I use checks, credit cards, or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me. I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group. If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS oddest my tax return, I can be sure I haven't been singled out because of my race. I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection. If I have low credibility as a leader, I can be sure that my race is not the problem." These types of everyday experiences can lead to material and psychological benefits for white people, usually to the detriment of people of color. Dr. McIntosh noted that truly understanding privilege requires acknowledging systems and patterns in social life, as well as carrying about individual experiences. She urged us to see that white privilege is set within a framework outside of one's personal experience that is much bigger and has repetitive statistical patterns in it. This point understands the systemic nature of privilege, individual differences in experiences based on privilege have a cumulative systemic, impact on society at large and in organizations. Recall the resume studies that I describe in the lessons on implicit bias. Applicants with white-sounding names were more likely to be invited for an interview than those of black-sounding names. In systems where innumerable other types of implicit and explicit biases related to privilege and fluence important decisions like who is chosen for an interview, the implications of white privilege for equity and inclusion are significant and wide ranging. For example, in the United States, higher percentages of white persons occupy executive leadership roles than persons of color. Dr. McIntosh recognized that white privilege is not the only aspect of identity we should recognize. She asserted a knee to similarly examined the daily experiences of advantages and disadvantages based on gender, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, physical ability, nationality, religion and so forth. Many privileged checklists now exists about social identities that have dominant and non-dominant categories. I've included several of them in an assignment for this lesson that invites you to reflect on privilege in your life. Here are a few examples, for ability privilege, "I do not have to request accommodations due to my ability status." For gender privilege, "I can be confident that my co-workers won't think that I got my job because of my gender." Sexuality privilege, "I do not have to fear negative consequences if my coworkers find out about my sexual identity." Identifying various types of privilege shows that privileges a complex concept. Most humans embody a combination of privileged and disadvantaged identities, because I'm a black female senior citizen, I might experience or think that I'm experiencing disadvantages based on my race, gender, and age. At the same time, I might rebenefit associated with being heterosexual, able-bodied, and middle-classed. As I hope you can see, privilege is a complex concept that has important implications for inclusion in the workplace. In the third part of the spotlight, I will discuss how understanding privilege matters to inclusive leadership and promoting the power of workplace diversity. Take care.