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One of the most frustrating parts of attempting to discuss White Male Privilege (WMP) with oh say white males is the 
denial of the fact that it exists and it is an intrinsic characteristic woven into the fabric of our society. It is nice when another study is done (adding to the large body of work) to show its existence and how thoroughly embedded it is in our culture. A big hat-tip to Sociological Images for the leg work (which I am reposting it its entirety) in condensing the study originally found on Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.
In a post at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Steve Rendall and Zachary Tomanelli investigated the racial breakdown of the book reviewers and authors in two important book review venues, the New York Times Book Review and C-SPAN’s After Words. They found that the vast majority of both reviewers and authors were white males.
“Overall, 95% of the authors and 96% of the reviewers were non-Latino white (compared to 65% of the population).
Women accounted for between 13 and 31% of the authors and reviewers:
This is some hard data showing that white men’s ideas are made more accessible than the ideas of others, likely translating into greater influence on social discourse and public policy. These individuals certainly don’t all say the same thing, nor do they necessarily articulate ideas that benefit white men, but a greater diversity of perspectives would certainly enrich our discourse.”
It is really hard to argue against the substantive data collected about the influence of WMP on our culture and how it conditions us to think and act. As the quoted material says, just imagine if more people were able to influence our culture how much more rich and diverse our culture would be.
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
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