White Privilege Reaction Paper Published from the Wellesley College Center in 1988, Peggy McIntosh’s “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A personal Account of Coming to See Correspondence Through Work in Women’s Studies” explains and goes into detail about the advantages and unearned privileges that both white and male individuals experience. In this paper she identifies some of the daily effects of white privilege in her life. In these conditions she lists she says they attach more to skin-color privilege than to class, religion, ethnic status, or geographic location (7-11). In this paper McIntosh recalls that whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege (3). She realizes …show more content…
Throughout the paper she describes many personal experiences in her life, 50 to be exact, and also some of her opinions on white privilege. The goal of McToshs’ list is to appeal to our sense of reason and bring some emotion to the person reading. The list makes us readers ponder on the privileges we have and probably don’t notice without the examples she provided for us. Also the length of the list she provided makes you think about how white privilege is so credible since she can list so many examples from her everyday life. While this paper is about white privilege and written by a white women, the opinion and explanation of white privilege could have been a lot different with an African American writer who would have talked or perhaps complained about the advantages of white people. This paper is very convincing, but something that I feel she could have done to help convince is to add other peoples experiences as well as hers. After reading the 50 examples it made me think about how I could relate to each of them and actually made me look back on my own similar experiences to McIntoshs’. In this paper McIntosh clearly shows that there is a difference between white privilege and racism. White privilege provides white people with advantages that we do not earn and that people of color don’t enjoy, while racism is taught and asserts superior of one race over
“White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks” (McIntosh, 172). White privilege is all around us, but society has been carefully taught
Gina Crosley-Corcoran, author of Explaining White Privilege to a Broke White Person, informs her readers about her misinterpretation of white privilege. After being called out for her unknowing use of white privilege, Gina begins to plead her case. Beginning with her childhood, Gina explains how she grew up “on the go”. Travelling from place to place, Gina lived in a rundown trailer and her family obtained little to no money, had no access to hot water, survived on cheap, malnourished foods, and dealt with a bad home life. After evaluating her history when placed at the end of life’s spectrum, Gina finds it hard to pick out white privilege in her life and therefore argues she has none. Later, Gina is introduced to a woman named Peggy McIntosh
In May 2014, Time.com published an article that would soon become the source of no small amount of social contention (1). In the article, “Dear Privileged-at-Princeton: You. Are. Privileged. And Meritocracy Is a Myth,” author Briana Payton lashes out at classmate Tal Fortgang for an article he wrote a month prior (1). Payton, a freshman studying sociology at Princeton University and the political antithesis of Fortgang, takes issue with her classmates’ definition of the word “privilege” (1). She argues that, because Fortgang is white, society inherently affords him “privilege” (Payton 1). Payton’s main flaw is her tone — her condescending, demeaning, and arrogant rhetoric distracts from her content and diminishes her credibility. Conversely,
“I repeatedly forgot each of the realizations on this list until I wrote it down. For me, white privilege has turned out to be an elusive and fugitive subject. The pressure to avoid it is great, for in facing it I must give up the myth of meritocracy. If these things are true, this is not such a free country; one’s life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own.”
Peggy McIntosh wrote this article to identify how her white privilege effects her life. Each statement is written as a privilege that Ms. McIntosh does not need to consider or fear as a white woman. From financial credibility to national heritage, this article makes a valid point regarding the way white people can be arrogant and naïve when the same treatment is not being given to their neighbors, coworkers, and peers. There can be two responses when reading this. The first would be a person of color. They will appreciate the attempt at realization of what white people take for granted. The second would be the reality that smacks the white people in the face when they realize how true all 50 statements are. Once this begins to sink in, many will start to broaden their competence realizing the unfair treatment of the people in this world. Moving down the timeline, we can see how the acknowledgement can mend broken relationships. Owning the reality and doing something to change it can give the people of different races the treatment they deserve (McIntosh,
Dr. Peggy McIntosh looks at white privilege, by “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” She describes white privilege as almost a special check or coin that she gets to cash in on. Dr. McIntosh tells that white privilege has been a taboo and repressed subject – and that many white people are taught not to see or recognize it. However, she is granted privileges (McIntosh 30). Dr. McIntosh goes on to describe twenty-six ways in which her skin-color grants her certain privileges. In example twenty, she describes how she can buy “…posters, postcards, picture books…” and other items that “…feature people of my race” (32). Additionally, in her first example, she talks about being able to be in the “company of people of my race most of the time” (McIntosh 31). Instances in which a privilege person would not even recognize unless they were looking, show evidence for white privilege. People take these advantages for granted because they simply expect them. Due to the lack of melatonin in her skin, she was granted privileges and her skin served as an asset to her. Dr. McIntosh conveys how her privilege is not only a “favored state,” but also a power over other
In her 16 January 2016 The Washington Post editorial, “What is White Privilege?”, Christine Emba asserts white privilege is a societal advantage inherent in people who are white, irrespective of their “wealth, gender, or other factors.” According to Emba, white privilege makes life smoother and is an entity that is hidden or unknown until the privilege is taken away. Although racism is still a rampant issue in society today, white privilege is a concept created by the progressive left in order to brand whites as a scapegoat for issues and adversities that non-whites face. This concept of privilege ultimately causes further dissension between whites and non-whites.
Take McIntosh’s “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” into account. McIntosh describes white privilege as invisible things that we are taught not to see. For example, Mrs. Chandler, who employs Lutie as her maid. Mrs. Chandler has an advantage over Lutie, which puts Lutie at a disadvantage. People of the dominant society like the Chandlers have a “pattern running through the matrix of white privilege” (McIntosh), a pattern of assumptions that were passed on to them as a white person.
The two articles that had a profound impact to my understanding of race, class and gender in the United States was White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh and Imagine a Country by Holly Sklar. McIntosh explains the keys aspects of unearned advantage (a privilege that one group hold over another) as well as conferred dominance (the act of voluntarily giving another group power) and the relationship that these factors hold when determine power of a social group. Additionally, the purpose of McIntosh’s article was to demonstrate the privilege that certain individuals carry and how that translates to the social structures of our society. Furthermore, conferred dominance also contributes to the power of the dominant group
On Being Young-A Woman-and Colored an essay by Marita Bonner addresses what it means to be black women in a world of white privilege. Bonner reflects about a time when she was younger, how simple her life was, but as she grows older she is forced to work hard to live a life better than those around her. Ultimately, she is a woman living with the roles that women of all colors have been constrained to. Critics, within the last 20 years, believe that Marita Bonners’ essay primarily focuses on the double consciousness ; while others believe that she is focusing on gender , class , “economic hardships, and discrimination” . I argue that Bonner is writing her essay about the historical context of oppression forcing women into intersectional oppression by explaining the naturality of racial discrimination between black and white, how time and money equate to the American Dream, and lastly how gender discrimination silences women, specifically black women.
By illuminating the many forms that white privilege takes, Peggy McIntosh urges readers to exercise a sociological imagination. She asks us to consider how our individual life experiences are connected to and situated within large-scale patterns and trends in society. She includes a “white privileges” checklist which includes answering yes or no to statements. For example, can Chad Aiken confidently say “I can be pulled over by a police cruiser and not have to worry about it being about my race”, or “I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the “person in charge”, I will be facing a person of my race”. White people are generally free from this systemic bias, suspicion and low expectations that racialized people must endure everyday because it is built into our culture.
...less knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks” (page 79). McIntosh’s ranges of examples are no doubt impressive, ranging privileges from education, political affairs, hygiene, the job industry, and mainly public life. Her list of examples makes it easy for her readers to relate no matter how diverse the audience. While, many would disagree with this essay McIntosh anticipates this by making the contrast among earned and acquired power vs. conferred privilege. Contrary, to anyone’s beliefs everyone has an unbiased and equal shot at earned power. However, conferred privilege is available to certain groups: particularly the white race. America is founded on a system of earned power, where we fight for what we believe in, particularly freedom and equality. However, this is simply a mirage we want to believe in.
As a male student taking a women’s gender and sexuality studies class with an open mind, I was caught off guard with the article “White Guy Habitus in the Classroom” by Michael Messner. He argues in it that female professors and professors of color are in a double bind with respect to their status as professionals, and also gives reasoning as to why an unpacking of straight white male privilege is important towards the move for social justice. Prior to the reading, I had no idea what to expect because the language in the title was unfamiliar to me, i.e. I did not know what habitus meant. Suddenly, I realized my perception of what a teacher is “supposed to look like” was being addressed and challenged. It was a shock to my psyche because there
The main point that McIntosh is pushing forward is that both whites and males have certain advantages. McIntosh says that “white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets” (605). White privilege are these advantages that white people receive just for being white. They didn’t earn any of the privilege other than being born with the right skin tone. She also recognizes them as being “invisible”. They don’t realize that they have this advantage over everyone else.
Unlike hooks and Frankenberg who give detailed views on the idea of whiteness that consistently criticize it as a way of thinking that influences our lives, instead McIntosh gives the readers a perspective of whiteness from a privileged white woman. McIntosh 's admittance and understanding to her class and racial advantage allows her to be able to view the problems surrounding whiteness and by doing so, allows her to make the changes needed to make a difference. Even with the different class viewpoint, McIntosh acknowledges the idea that "whites are taught to think their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average.." (McIntosh 98) and that this way of thinking creates a situation where whites view non white individuals to be abnormal and under average. This prescribed way of thinking produces the idea that if a white individual volunteers or works to help others, this helpfulness is a way of assisting non-whites to be more like whites. This form of education that the people, who have access to education, receive can then be understood as being obviously problematic. The perspective of class is an important viewpoint from McIntosh because as a privileged white woman, she is provided with more access to education and varying resources than many people. Again, the subject of education is brought forward. This access to the different educational institutions that she has had and her acknowledgement to her uneducated ideas on race show how the educational system had failed her. "As a white feminist, I knew that I had not previously known I was 'being racist ' and that I had never set out to 'be racist '" ( Frankenberg 3). Although Frankenberg had begun with the goal of working for the rights of feminism, her lack of knowledge on race, hindered her from understanding more aspects of