White Privilege Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack Summary

In the beginning of “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” Peggy McIntosh brought up the topic of “men’s unwillingness to grant that they are overprivileged” and realized that “since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of white privilege which was similarly denied and protected.” McIntosh saw white privilege as “an invisible weightless backpack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks.” She then began to count the ways she had “unearned skin privilege” where she had been “conditioned into oblivion about its existence.” The list of twenty-six everyday advantages includes examples such as, “I can turn on the television or open to the front

of the page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented” and “I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.” McIntosh believes that to reconstruct social systems, obliviousness on white privilege must be removed because this obliviousness is a big part in the United States. It is “an open question whether we will… use any of our arbitrarily-awarded power to try to reconstruct power systems on a broader base” (McIntosh, 1988).
I found “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” to be really well written because I was in agreeance with Peggy McIntosh as I read this excerpt. Many things she listed, I feel, are taken by granted by white people such as, “I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, or feared.” If someone has not been in a situation where they don’t feel tied in, they do feel isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, distanced, or feared, it is hard to relate. I found it to be interesting that she compared white privilege to male privilege because they are both topics of controversy.
Like the course bibliography states, privilege is the altering side to oppression where oppression “can be defined as the process of maintaining privilege or advantages by a dominant group. Social and institutional policies and practices… create privilege” (Ameen-Rice, 2017). With this knowledge of knowing what privilege and oppression is, the one social group I identify with is being young to middle-aged. Ten privileges to why I feel like I identify with this group is because being young to middle-aged I am technologically literate, I am not ascribed negative stereotypes, I do not need constant medical attention, I have “time,” I am open-minded, I have more contact with individuals, I am not a victim of elder abuse, I am “up to date,” I still have my paternal figures around, and I do not have children to be financially reliable for.
Briefly speaking to why I think these are privileges to being young to middle-aged is that those outside this group (I will be using the elderly to compare with in this essay) are more likely to be technologically illiterate such as the elderly because they grew up in a time of age where technology was not as advanced as they are today.

Many would not understand how to use the technology today and being in this group is a privilege to understand. I would also not be ascribed negative stereotypes like “ancient,” or “old fart” when I am in this group of young to middle-aged individuals; I would feel privileged to not feel stereotyped against. Another privilege is not needing medical attention because the older one gets, the more likelihood of needing medical attention. Being young to middle aged, you are assumed to be healthier and have better physicality. Time is a privilege, too where there is more time to do things that are wanted in life. Being open-minded and “up to date” is a privilege as well because these are what society finds culturally acceptable as things are constantly changing. This group of people are also more socially networked, and have contact with many individuals. They still have their parents around, and they do not have to be financially reliable to offspring’s which I find is a privilege because of less

responsibility.
To understand privilege, it is important to understand oppression.

Therefore, the individuals outside the group of being young to middle-aged are oppressed due to the converse of the reasons listed above. Some of the reasons listed are tied to one another such as being technologically literate with not needing constant medical attention and being open-minded in conditions like the work force. Those outside the group, such as the elderly, are faced with oppression here. Although, “the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the number of workers fifty-five years and older is expected to increase by 47% during the period from 2006 to 2016” (Han & Richardson, 2015), they would eventually feel marginalized. People who are older than fifty-five are denied opportunities to participate in the work force because of their age.

Some
companies may want to hire individuals younger than fifty-five because the younger the individual is, the less experience they may have as well as having less standards. There are even common negative stereotypes about older workers “that they do not perform as well, are less trainable, more resistant to change, less economically beneficial, more costly, and a poorer return on investment as compared with younger workers” (Han, J., & Richardson, V. E., 2015). Certainly, this is not true, but the way the society is brought up this is what we stereotype older people in the work force are because of their age.
Some interesting facts I found in regard to older people in the work force includes: “while 10% of adults younger than 40 report a work limiting disability, this grows to one-quarter of 60-year-olds and one-third of 65 year-olds. Research by Platt indicates that by the age of 50, a person’s first serious medical problem will occur, with a 25% chance that it will be a life-long condition” (Han, J., & Richardson, V. E., 2015), “according to research by the National Employment Law Project (NELP), a non-partisan, nonprofit organization that conducts research on unemployment, older workers experienced the greatest percentage increase in the size of their unemployment population from 2007 to 2011; it more than doubled from 1.3 million in 2007 to 3.2 million in 2011” (Barnes, P. G., 2015) and, “a 2013 Urban Institute report found that 63 percent of long-term unemployed or underemployed workers in 2011 skipped dental visits, 56 percent put off healthcare and 40 percent did not fill medical prescriptions” (2015).
It is unfortunate that there is such thing as privilege and oppression, but it exists in today’s society. The course bibliography states it well that the purpose of this assignment is to raise awareness.
“We are each products of a web of societal forces that help to opposition us in society. While we did not create the network of forces that oppress others, by raising our awareness, we can make conscious decisions regarding how we will use our position. There is no neutral ground. We can choose to act in ways to maintain the status quo that protect our privileges and disadvantage others, or we can choose to use our position to work toward changes that will insure that the privileges we have are not denied to others. In order to make a conscious choice, we must first understand the concept of privilege” (Ameen-Rice, 2017).