Black privilege Black privilege (or black skin privilege) refers to the set of societal privileges that black people benefit from beyond those commonly experienced by people that are not black in the same social, political, or economic spaces (nation, community, workplace, income, etc.). The term denotes both obvious and less obvious unspoken advantages that black individuals may not recognize they have, which distinguishes it from overt bias or prejudice. These include cultural affirmations of one's own worth; presumed greater social status; and freedom to move, buy, work, play, and speak freely. The concept of black privilege also implies the right to assume the universality of one's own experiences, marking others as different or exceptional while perceiving oneself as normal. It can be compared to and/or combined with the concept of female privilege. Academic perspectives such as critical race theory and blackness studies use the concept of "black privilege" to analyze how racism and racialized society affect the lives of black individuals. The term itself is most often used in North America and English-speaking countries with histories of racial stratification after colonialism, such as South Africa and Australia. Critics suggest that the term is a function of reverse racism, or that it uses the concept of "blackness" as a proxy for class or other social privilege or as a distraction from deeper underlying problems of inequality. Other critics of the idea propose alternate definitions of blackness and exceptions to or limits of black identity, arguing that the concept of "black privilege" ignores important differences between black subpopulations.
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