From Invisible Privilege: A Memoir About Race, Glass, & Gender, by Paula Rothenberg.  (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2000.)

But how is it possible to separate the impact of race, class, and gender on individual lives, and why do some people think it desirable to do so?  Perhaps there is a strong desire to deny the impact of racism because recognizing it might demand that we talk about white responsibility, white complicity, white privilege.  Many are more comfortable looking at economic inequality because in their mind it fails to imply such clear responsibility.  If racism is the issue, then white people will have to ask how they have, perhaps inadvertently, benefited from it.  If economic inequities are at fault, then many whites can point to their own humble origins as children or grandchildren of poor immigrants as proof that anyone who works hard can succeed.  In this way, they fail to understand the difference between the ethnic or religious prejudice that their families fought to overcome and the racism that pervades our society.

Many white people continue to believe that racism and sexism, like ethnic prejudice, are simply hateful attitudes toward people.  They look inside themselves and cannot find either the feelings or the beliefs they associate with prejudice and so conclude that they are not prejudiced.  Because they are committed to treating people fairly, they believe they do so.  They teach their children not to judge others by the color of their skin, and they contribute to various charities that address issues of equity and civil rights.  Because they have never been taught the difference between simple “prejudice” and the more complex and recalcitrant forms of oppression signified by the words “racism” and “sexism,” they cannot understand why some people want to talk about “racism” all the time instead of individual initiative.  They do not understand that racism and sexism are perpetuated every day by nice people who are carrying on business as usual.  They do not recognize that what passes as “business as usual” already institutionalizes white skin, male, and class privilege.  They honestly believe that what separates them [...] are intelligence and hard work.

A long quote, but as i read these 2 paragraphs in the book my brain kept punching the air and saying, “Yes.  Yes, that’s it.  That’s it exactly.”  It covers the myth of “you just have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps” and also hits hard on what Jess/raanve and i have called the “but let me tell you about my poor Irish immigrant grandparents” problem.

Racism, sexism, and classism are problems in the institutions of society and not just prejudices held by individual people.