I have a little insight into this. I am half white Hispanic half English/Scottish.
I grew up in a small town in south Texas where I was literally the only white child at my school until high school. I was the only student with "colored" eyes as the people there called it. This meant eyes that weren't brown. The students used to push down on my skin to see the extreme color change from peach to white back to peach. Honestly, it was the kind of stuff you see undiscovered tribes in the Amazon doing when they first come into contact with white people.
Every student at my school assumed that I was rich because I was white. I was asked if I wiped my ass with $100 bills. One common question was what it was like outside of Texas. My mother's family is from Florida, so I got to travel more than 99% of the other kids there. Most of them hadn't been out of south Texas, below the check points, much less the state of Texas. There were many racial slurs like bolillo and so on, but they were pretty nice to me otherwise.
Eventually, I moved from south Texas to the Midwest. First I moved to Chicago and then to a Minneapolis suburb. It was a shock for me. I went from being the only white person to being surrounded by white people. I honestly felt, and still do feel, more at home and more comfortable around Mexican people. Honestly, most of the white guys I meet just seem like huge pussies who would have been picked on mercilessly where I came from. I blame it on the extreme machismo culture I came from and I've tried very hard over the last five years to not let it lead to me having less respect for these fellas.
The perks of being white. White people are usually the managers at places you work at. If you're somewhere like a suburb in the Midwest, this helps out a lot. I worked at a Goodwill in a southwestern suburb where I was one of maybe three white employees. Our manager definitely gave me special treatment and would actually chat with me while he never did anything beyond barking orders at the rest of the employees. People tend to trust you more as well. When I lived in Chicago, I had to work until ~midnight some nights and then come home on the CTA. When I got off, if there was a black guy walking on my side of the street in Roger's Park, I'd cross the street to avoid him. Call it racial profiling, but you'd likely do the same thing after a while in Chicago; especially if your only means of transportation is the CTA. People don't assume you're going to steal from them. A lot of minorities assume you're smarter than them because you're white. It's sad, but it was at least true for pretty much every Mexican I met in Texas.
The downsides are that people will be more openly racist toward you for no reason at all. I wasn't allowed to go into friends' houses or their grandparents' houses because I was white. Black people in Chicago assume you're an asshole a lot of times. God forbid you're below downtown and accidentally bump into someone or make a mistake on a bus full of black people. I got many looks of disgust, especially from old people, while riding buses in Chicago. If you have a beard and don't dress like a hipster, many people will assume you're a pedophile.
Growing up Mexican-American and later moving to the Midwest really gave me a unique experience. I felt Mexican-American, but I was given the treatment a normal white guy got. It's the same when I go visit relatives in the South.
Great question and I'm enjoying the other responses.