In the year of 2016, many people in the United States like to think that the only issues existing in the world today are poverty, war and terrorism. We separated from Great Britain. We won our independence. We established ourselves as one of the greatest countries in the world — or so we think. Unfortunately, we still have an ongoing problem: racism. People tend to believe that because schools and businesses were desegregated some 70 years ago, racism is done and over with. However, discrimination and racist tendencies are still inherent in our society today.

A few weeks ago, I read an article discussing the apparently racist ideology behind the term “white privilege,” and its prejudice against white people. The author wrote the beliefs many others were thinking—that the idea of white privilege existing is discriminatory against white people. The author, and people like them, believes that “white privilege” strips white people of the hard work and effort that they have made to achieve their goals and that such a term is generalizing an entire group of people. Critics of the term even state that “white privilege” is racist towards white people as a whole.

Despite their compelling argument, it’s kind of hard to convince to me that the term “white privilege” is racist towards white people when I know the definition of racism. Let’s take a look at Merriam-Webster’s dictionary:

Racism (noun)- a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.

If we’re using this definition of racism, it’s pretty clear that such discriminatory actions can’t be geared towards white people. White people can be racist towards minorities because their discrimination towards them connotes an “inherent superiority” of whiteness that has existed since the beginning of the United States, a superiority most of us have learned about in textbooks and even witness in the world today. However, minorities cannot be racist towards white people in they same way that white people have been racist towards them until white people have undergone several hundred years of discrimination and dehumanization to have derogatory experiences that are even comparable to what minorities have suffered through. And when will that ever happen?

The phrase “white privilege” does not mean that white people are less hard-working than those who aren’t; it is talking about the internalized benefits that white people receive while minorities are simultaneously oppressed. White privilege merely brings attention to the fact that white people still benefit from a system that was built on the back of slavery and segregation hundreds of years ago.

My father is Mexican-American and my mother is white, therefore making me biracial. Because of my partly white heritage, however, I get to reap the benefits of white privilege in my everyday life. I see people like me in every advertisement I come across. I never have to worry about looking suspicious when I walk down the street. I am never stopped for extra “security precautions.” I am never susceptible to harmful stereotypes that can demean and degrade me. In short, I benefit from the internalized racism that our society has cultivated over the years that place white people over those of other races.

White privilege isn’t claiming that white people have everything in life handed over to them, or that they don’t have to work hard for their goals. White privilege states that white people don’t have to think about their race because they are deemed as the norm in a society where every other ethnicity is classified into separate categories. Minorities have to work twice as hard to achieve the same goals that white people do, purely because they are just joining the race after white people already have a head start.

White privilege exists in everyday life, even in the smallest of ways. Every day, I unknowingly get to do and say things without even thinking about my privilege, while so many others are painfully aware of the whiteness that continues to dominate society. This isn’t a result of any direct line of action from some hardheaded, racist dictator—it is merely the result of hundreds of years of silence and conformity. The only way we can enact change is through education and awareness.

If you don’t know how privileged you are, this quiz can give you an idea of your place in the world.

Remember: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” –Mahatma Gandhi