This brief book is a groundbreaking tool for students and non-students alike to examine systems of privilege and difference in our society. Written in an accessible, conversational style, Johnson links theory with engaging examples in ways that enable readers to see the underlying nature and consequences of privilege and their connection to it. This extraordinarily successful book has been used across the country, both inside and outside the classroom, to shed light on issues of power and privilege.
Allan Johnson has worked on issues of social inequality since receiving his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan in 1972. He has more than thirty years of teaching experience and is a frequent speaker on college and university campuses. Johnson has earned a reputation for writing that is exceptionally clear and explanations of complex ideas that are accessible to a broad audience.
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Chapter 1: Rodney King's Question
We're In Trouble
Chapter 2: Privilege, Oppression and Difference
Difference Is Not the Problem
Mapping Difference: Who Are We?
The Social Construction of Difference
What Is Privilege?
Two Types of Privelege
Privilege as Paradox
Oppression: The Flip Side of Privilege
Chapter 3: 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
Chapter 4: Making Privilege Happen
Avoidance, Exclusion, Rejection, and Worse
Trouble for Whom?
And That’s Not All
We Can’t Heal Until the Wounding Stops
Chapter 5: The Trouble with the Trouble
Chapter 6: What It All Has to Do with 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
Chapter 7: How Systems of Privilege Work
Dominance
Identified with Privilege
Privilege at the Center
The Isms
The Isms and Us
Chapter 8: 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 Ones
Sick and Tired
Getting Off the Hook by Getting On
Chapter 9: What Can We Do?
Myth#1: “It’s Always Been This Way, and It Always Will Be”
Myth #2: Gandhi’s Paradox and The Myth of No EffectStubborn Ounces: What Can We Do?
Acknowledgements
Notes
Resources
Index
