White Privilege Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack Summary

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White Privilege As a child I grew up in a small town, everyone knew each other and if something changed, everybody knew about it. I remember as a teenager when I started driving, I noticed a lot of the cars that were pulled over by the police, were out of towners, and the drivers were black. At the time I thought they must have been speeding, but as I look back after all these years, and learning about racism in school, I can say without a doubt, it was racial profiling by the police, and possibly my first actual view of white privilege. In “White Privilege Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” author Peggy McIntosh suggests that white privilege is unconsciously learned throughout childhood, and that racism is hatred against a specific group of people, and by their deprivations it puts them in an unfavorable position never to see that whites enjoy many different benefits over other races. McIntosh asserts that in school, she was given no education on her role in the oppressions of others and her own ignorance of white privilege. She further claims that whites are taught to believe …show more content…

Furthermore clarifying, McIntosh suggests that, “I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in on each day, but I was “meant” to remain oblivious.”(pg78) She further supports her belief by listing privileges she considers to be taken for granted by white people, such as that she can be around people of her own race most of the time, turn on the news outlets and read newspapers and be quite sure that reporters are mostly white, and her children’s school materials will be mostly about

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