Recent scholarship holds that races are socio-political inventions and not biological natural kinds. According to this view, the creation of racial categories is the result of unjust social, legal, and political arrangements, as well as, a means of perpetuating these skewed structural arrangements. This paper moves these observations in a normative direction by exploring a particular conceptual dilemma I face two years ago when I began to systematically unpack what it means to have white privilege, and whether there might be a morally responsible ways of using it.

White privilege takes on a new dimension for whites who resist common defensive or guilt-ridden responses to privilege (e.g. "I've worked hard for everything I have," or "It's not my fault I was born into a system that values whiteness," or "my ancestors never owned slaves") and struggle to understand the connections between our ill-gotten advantages and genuine injustices. If privilege comes at the price of injustice, should whites work toward divesting themselves of privilege? Or, are there varieties of privilege one might use responsibly?

In thinking through how one might use race privilege in responsible liberatory ways, privilege-cognizant whites face a dilemma. My project here is to explore a "dilemma of white privilege awareness," that leaves some privilege-cognizant whites trapped in the awkward position of knowing that privilege is, at once impossible to dispose of, and impossible to use without perpetuating the systems of domination I wish to demolish.

The first part of the dilemma works like this: when privilege is extended to persons who appear white or act in ways we associate with whiteness, we understand white privilege as something--to the extent that my appearance and racialized behaviors, dispositions, and habits are unconsciously embedded in my way of moving through the world-- that we cannot slough off. Whiteness is a marker of privilege, so my interactions with individuals and institutions will be structured partly by the assumptions they make about my racial identity

If my racial appearance and mannerisms act as a magnet for special treatment, then I cannot simply arrange my life so as not to have benefits and immunities extended to me. There appears to be no way to divest myself completely of privilege. I argue that this approach is misguided.

The second part of the dilemma asks: if the focus on privilege divestment is misguided, then perhaps privilege-cognizant whites ought instead to find responsible ways of using privilege that do not perpetuate structural inequalities (e.g. working with persons of color to surmount everyday obstacles). Yet, if the power accorded to persons with race privilege is made possible by structural inequalities, then the very act of using privilege automatically reinforces those structural inequalities.

If the claims made on both sides of the dilemma are true, then privilege- cognizant whites are trapped: they can neither divest themselves of unearned privileges nor can they use them without reinforcing the systems they wish to demolish.

With the dilemma in place, I suggest a conceptual and a pragmatic way on of this bind. The conceptual solution argues that the dilemma of privilege awareness is a false dilemma that arises from entering this conversation with essentialist presuppositions about race. As a way of escaping the dilemma, I suggest a performative view of race based on Marilyn Frye's white/whitely distinction. Frye's solution helps to undo the helplessness associated with the perceived inescapability of whiteness that gives rise to the dilemma, but it does little to move us toward questions of responsibility.

A more pragmatic solution, one that moves us in the direction of responsibility, requires accepting as true the premise that privilege use does reinscribe the value of privilege. If there is one lesson the dilemma teaches us, it is that privilege is so strong as to be inescapable. We should understand the strength of privilege as a resource to be used, rather than a burden to unload. For this reason, refusal to use privilege amounts to a waste of resources. The best response to white privilege awareness, then, should not be "how can I find a way out of this dilemma?" Rather it should be "how do I begin taking responsibility for privilege by using it as a resource for undoing institutional racism?"