During our research into ‘whiteness’ we came upon the concept of white privilege, denial and white fragility. This was for us the starting point for our design journey. We realized that with matters of race it's best to stay close to yourself. For us that would mean dealing with whiteness and other white people - we can't empower others nor is it our place to do so. It's more important to 'depower' the white status quo and break the habit of not speaking up (white compassion).

That's why we decided to look for a way to playfully create awareness and make the topic of whiteness discussable. Our bingo game is inspired by the privilege walk, another exercise designed to make the invisible (privilege) visible.

WHITE FRAGILITY (as defined by Robin DiAngelo)

“White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium.”

WHITE PRIVILEGE (as defined by Tim Wise)

White privilege refers to any advantage, opportunity, benefit, head start, or general protection from negative societal mistreatment, which persons deemed white will typically enjoy, but which others will generally not enjoy. These benefits can be material (such as greater opportunity in the labor market, or greater net worth, due to a history in which whites had the ability to accumulate wealth to a greater extent than persons of color), social (such as presumptions of competence, creditworthiness, law-abidingness, intelligence, etc.) or psychological (such as not having to worry about triggering negative stereotypes, rarely having to feel out of place, not having to worry about racial profiling, etc.).