The Truth About “Black Privilege”

The phrase “Black privilege” is often used in conversations today, but there is no evidence of a historical or systemic racial privilege for Black Americans in the United States comparable to what scholars describe as white privilege.

Here are the verifiable facts:

• Black Americans were legally enslaved for over 240 years in the U.S.
• After slavery, Black Americans faced nearly 100 years of Jim Crow laws, which enforced segregation and denied voting, education, housing, and employment opportunities by law.
• Federal policies such as redlining (1930s–1960s) explicitly blocked Black families from home ownership and wealth building.
• Discrimination in education, employment, housing, and lending was legal and widespread well into the late 20th century.

Because of this history, programs like:
• affirmative action
• diversity initiatives
• minority scholarships
were created as corrective policies, not privileges. Their stated purpose (per U.S. courts and policy records) was to reduce documented disparities, not to give unearned advantages.

A privilege, by definition, is an unearned benefit given by default.
There is no period in U.S. history where Black people received racial advantages by default in law, economics, or social treatment.

It is also important to distinguish class advantage from racial privilege:
• A Black person can be wealthy, educated, or influential
• That advantage comes from income, education, or status, not from race
• Studies consistently show that Black Americans, across income levels, still experience higher rates of racial profiling and discrimination than white Americans with similar credentials

The term “Black privilege” is often used to:
• dismiss ongoing racial disparities
• shift focus away from documented history
• frame equality efforts as unfair advantages

Wanting fairness after inequality is not privilege.
It is an attempt to correct imbalance.

Understanding this does not require guilt only honesty.

LARRY D. ROBERTS