Privilege, Power, and Difference

Introduction

1. Rodney King’s Question

2. We’re in Trouble

We Can’t Talk About It If We Can’t Use the Words

3. The Trouble We’re In: Power, Privilege, and Difference

Difference Is Not the Problem/

Mapping Difference: Who Are We?/

The Social Construction of Difference/

What Is Privilege?/

Privilege as Paradox/

Oppression: The Flip Side of Privilege/

4. Capitalism, Class, and The Matrix of Domination

How Capitalism Works/

Capitalism and Class/

Capitalism, Difference, and Privilege: Race and Gender/

The Matrix of Domination and the Paradox of Being Privileged and Unprivileged at the Same Time

5. Making Privilege Happen

Avoidance, Exclusion, Rejection, and Worse/

Trouble for Whom?/

And That’s Not All/

We Can’t Heal Until the Wounding Stops/

6. The Trouble with the Trouble

7. Privilege, Power, Difference, and Us

Individualism: Or, the Myth that Everything Is Somebody’s Fault/

Individuals, Systems, and Paths of Least Resistance/

What It Means to Be Involved in Privilege and Oppression/

8. How Systems of Privilege Work

Dominance/

Identified with Privilege/

Privilege at the Center/

The Isms/

The Isms and Us/

9. Getting off the Hook: Denial and Resistance

Deny and Minimize/

Blame the Victim/

Call It Something Else/

It’s Better This Way/

It Doesn’t Count If You Don’t Mean It/

I’m One of the Good Guys/

Sick and Tired/

Getting Off the Hook by Getting On/

10. What Can We Do? Becoming Part of the Solution

Myth#1: “It’s Always Been This Way, and It Always Will Be”/

Myth #2: Gandhi’s Paradox and The Myth of No Effect/

Stubborn Ounces: What Can We Do?/

What’s In It for Me?

Acknowledgements

Notes

Resources

Index