Peggy Mcinntosh White Privilege Summary

Peggy McIntosh defines white privilege as something that white people are “taught not to recognize”, a metaphorical “knapsack” of “unearned assets…special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks” (McIntosh). Essentially, it refers to unearned special treatment white people get because of their skin color. She makes an excellent point when she refers to the way white people see their color as “neutral, normative, average, ideal” (McIntosh), which –while it is appalling—I would consider it to be accurate. McIntosh continued on to give a whopping 50 examples of how she has benefitted from white privilege, from ensuring her new neighbours will be kind to her if she decides to move to being sure that she will

not encounter trouble obtaining medical or legal help because of her race.

It is important to talk about white privilege because it is very tightly connected to racism. An oppressive race having power and privilege over an oppressed race is inherently racist. Racism cannot be alleviated or even lessened without considering the effect of white privilege over oppressed races.

Other forms of privilege that exist in Canadian society include examples like male privilege, heterosexual privilege, privilege that comes with being able-bodied (compared with disabled), cis-gender privilege, citizenship privilege, “passing” privilege (the ability of a transgender person to “pass” as the gender that they identify as or sometimes a person of color “passing” as white to be free from some discrimination), Christian privilege in a predominantly Christian country, etc (Media Smarts). These different aspects of a person’s life and identity and what privileges they may or may not carry are related to the concept of Intersectionality from Unit 2. In our discussions on Intersectionality we learned how one cannot assume what challenges a person faces based solely on one aspect of their identity. In my discussion that week I discussed how I am a woman and therefore part of an oppressed gender group, but to add to that this week I am a white person, which puts me in a group that comes with privileges that women of color do not have. These two parts of my identity now put me in a different place than other women, showing intersectionality at work. Furthermore, gender and race are only two parts of my identity; other aspects of my identity give me entirely different advantages/disadvantages and separate me from other women in terms of life experience.

Race and gender are interconnected as each one has a significant impact on a person’s life, especially how they may be perceived or stereotyped by others.

Peggy McIntosh’s piece describes how both may come with certain privileges or disadvantage, such as white privilege and male privilege, referring to how both groups are inherently privileged as they come with advantage. The group with the advantage is the oppressor, whether or not they consciously take action to oppress the other group on an individual level or not. I am fully aware that many men may not have consciously taken action to oppress women but that does not mean that women are oppressed; similarly, as white person I have never consciously taken action to oppress a person of color but that does not mean people of color are not oppressed. In Stuart Hall’s piece Stereotyping as a Signifying Practice (Hobbs & Rice, page 228) he discusses how aspects of a person’s identity assigns them a “membership” to that group, so people have a membership to their racial and gender group, but of course all people in a certain gender group are not all in the same race group but they are affected by any “rules” of both. Also applicable is Uma Narayan’s “Package Picture of Cultures” in her piece Undoing the “Package Picture of Culture” (Hobbs & Rice, page 232). In this piece she discusses how people try to define a person as a “neatly wrapped package” (Hobbs & Rice, page 232) on the basis of their culture alone, however this does not take gender (or gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.) into consideration and therefore cannot count for much. I particularly liked how she described the contents of the package as “more jumbled than is often assumed” (Hobbs & Rice, page 232), and I must say that I

agree.

Sources:
McIntosh, P. (n.d.). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. Retrieved from: http://amptoons.com/blog/files/mcintosh.html
Mediasmarts.ca,. 'Forms Of Privilege | Mediasmarts'. N.p., 2015. Web. 10 June 2015. Retrieved from: http://mediasmarts.ca/diversity-media/privilege-media/forms-privilege