From “Know Your Place: Helping White, Southern Evangelicals Cope with the End of The(ir) World” by Justin R. Phillips
Rightly or wrongly, we categorize people who enter our orbit. The majority of people who I have attended school or church with, and established friendships with, have been white. I only say this as a matter of fact. Being quite literally surrounded by white people has comprised the bulk of my life experiences. Robin DiAngelo says, “Whiteness rests upon a foundational premise: the definition of whites as the norm or standard for human, and people of color as a deviation from that norm.” Furthermore, she adds, “the white reference point is assumed to be universal and is imposed on everyone.” The great privilege of whiteness is that we are almost never confronted by our race, because the world rarely beckons us to do so. My presence is not a novelty, remarkable, or a point of concern. I move about when, where, and how I desire, which shapes how I view those who deviate from me, the supposed norm.