Just over 26 years ago, scholar Peggy McIntosh gave us 26 reasons to believe that white privilege exists as “unearned advantage.”

In an essay titled “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” Ms. McIntosh “unpacked” unacknowledged privileges and unearned assets bestowed upon her by virtue of her white skin.

For example, Ms. McIntosh noted that “I can choose blemish cover or bandages in ‘flesh’ color and have them more or less match my skin” and, more pointedly, “I can swear, or dress in secondhand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.”

As a white person reading this essay 20 years ago, I found it to be formative for my own thinking and even lifestyle. And I’m encouraged that many more white folks now are starting to see whiteness as a thing, and acknowledging the operation of privilege in everyday life (which, Ms. McIntosh pointed out, also is bestowed by gender, class, education, religion and other characteristics). Still, if current events and political dialogue are any indication, Ms. McIntosh’s list proved limited in its reach.

It’s time for an update. I’ve heard from enough white people (including college students in my writing classes) who’ve read Ms. McIntosh’s essay or something similar and asked (or protested, really), “OK, fine, let’s say this is true, and I have privileges I didn’t earn … I can hardly stop being white, right? Am I supposed to just feel bad about my race?”

No. “White guilt” is meaningless … unless it leads to action.