On white people’s self-esteem

“This is a racist society, and part of what this means is that, generally, the self-esteem of white people is deeply influenced by their difference from and supposed superiority to black people. White people may not think of themselves as racists, because they did not own slaves or hate blacks, but that does not mean that much of what props up white people’s sense of self-esteem is not based on the racism which unfairly distributes benefits and burdens to whites and blacks.”

Elizabeth Spelman, Theories of Race and Gender: The Erasure of Black Women, 1982, p. 41.