Yes, THIS: the burden [of understanding privilege] is on the recipients of privilege

From a comment from the excellent “The Professor is IN” blog, which has great tips for grad students on how to navigate professionally beyond grad school:

“Thank you for this response, Silvia. I wish to make clear that it is my strong opinion that what you say here is correct, that the job market (academic and otherwise) has infinite forms of preference and bias toward white candidates, regardless of what types of “pc” rhetoric is bandied about. This is exactly what is meant by structural racism, and one of the mechanisms of structural racism is that white individuals believe that their individual good intentions render accusations of racism “unfair,” while enjoying sanctioned ignorance (spivak, look it up) about the manifold ways that people of color are marginalized, demeaned, or excluded. The burden is not on people of color to explain the mechanisms of racism to white people; it is on white people to grasp the multitude of ways that we enjoy privilege, rewards, comfort, and the freedom to be judged “as individuals” as a result of our skin color.”

You should, as always, read the whole post, and the discussion in the comments is great as well.