White Privilege Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack Summary

518 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: White priviledge essay

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

Show More
Related

  • Explaining White Privilege To A Broke White Person Summary

    209 Words  | 1 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Analysis Of White Privilege Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack

    775 Words  | 2 Pages

    Growing up as an African-American you are always taught to be twice as good. Twice as good as the white people to receive the same treatment as them. I grew up hearing this same phrase constantly but never really understood exactly what it meant until I got old enough to actually see the kind of world we are living in. The author of the article, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” Peggy Mclntosh, took as step into shoes of black America and found that white privilege not only exist, but many whites are blind to it. She gives a clear argument about how white privilege is harmful to our society and how we can work together to fix this.

    Read More

  • Everything Isn T Racial Profiling By Linda Chavez Summary

    1322 Words  | 3 Pages

    Some of her points are, “13”. I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my face on trial” she also points out that people of minority will not experience never being “ asked to speak for all the people of my social group” (McIntosh 99). No matter how one may try to analyze a situation, white people are privileged bottom line. Some are more privileged than others by way of money or reputation and others are privileged just by skin alone. In conclusion, everyday people experience racism in some type of way regardless of their skin color.

    Read More

  • Summary Of White Like Me By Tim Wise

    1272 Words  | 3 Pages

    Tim Wise’s book White Like Me provides a picture of what it is like to be white in America. A main topic covered in White Like Me is white privilege. On pages 24 and 25 Wise illustrates what white privilege is and shares his opinion regarding how to address white privilege in society today. Wise’s plan for addressing white privilege is one not of guilt, but of responsibility, a difference Wise highlights. The concept of feeling guilty for white privilege lacks reason because white privilege is something built up through generations and its existence is not of any one person’s fault. Guilt would just be detrimental to the possibility of making progress in this field. Responsibility, on the other hand, is a perfectly logical action to take when

    Read More

  • Exploring the Concept of White Privilege

    1077 Words  | 3 Pages

    Everyone has privilege in one way or another. People feel that privilege is give to one race more, instead of every race. The race that it’s getting more privilege is the White race and with that comes White privilege. White means the people who have a light skin color also known as Caucasian or European and privilege means an advantage over others. An example of privilege is getting away with something that someone may not get away with. So White privilege is defined as “an invisible package of unearned assets that [someone that is White] can count on cashing in each day, but about which [they were] ‘meant’ to remain oblivious” (McIntosh 1990: 1). McIntosh is saying in that quote is that Whites do not recognize that they have this privilege

    Read More

  • Analysis Of White Privilege Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack

    852 Words  | 2 Pages

    “I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group,” Peggy McIntosh wrote in her article White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. Too often this country lets ignorance be a substitute for racism. Many believe that if it is not blatant racism, then what they are doing is okay. Both the video and the article show that by reversing the terms, there is proof that racism is still very existent in this world. By looking into A Class Divided and White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack along with their ability to broaden the cultural competence, once can see how race is still very prominent in our culture.

    Read More

  • Privilege: Character As The Basis Of Privilege, By Tal Fortgang

    1281 Words  | 3 Pages

    He simply looks at them as wrong. It 's okay to disagree with something, but there should be an argument to back it up. "Furthermore, I condemn them for casting the equal protection clause, indeed the very idea of a meritocracy, as a myth, and for declaring that we are all governed by invisible forces (some would call them “stigmas” or “societal norms”), that our nation runs on racist and sexist conspiracies." He disagrees with people who think that white privilege influences who controls the power, but doesn 't say why, almost like he 's expecting everyone to agree with his perspective as common sense. Conversely, McIntosh 's uses an argument to legitimize her perspective to her readers. She lists 46 advantages that she can perceive, that were given to her by white privilege. Reasons like number 41, "I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.", number 44, "I can easily find academic courses and institutions that give attention only to people of my race." are advantages that lead her to the conclusion that "The pressure to avoid it (white privilege) 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.". The conclusion that meritocracy, the idea that those who put in hard work rise to power, is a myth, because of the discrepancy between opportunities offered to people based off of their race, sex, etc. is a logical

    Read More

  • Summary Of In The Kitchen By Henry Louis Gates

    2011 Words  | 5 Pages

    She says, “When I am told about our national heritage or about ‘civilization,’ I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.” McIntosh demonstrates that people born within the dominant race in America are granted certain unearned privileges that people of color are not granted. In her list, she uses daily experiences to show how white people undergo advantages, because of the color of their skin. But she completely ignores the fact that there is more than one type of privilege. She says, “ If I need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area, which I can afford and in which I would want to live” (607). She believes that because of the color of her skin, she is able to pay for her housing anywhere that she chooses. This is one of the several points that she lists that exposed her economic status as a middle class person than her status as a white person. McIntosh seems to have confused the two privileges, because she has failed to recognize her economic status as a

    Read More

  • Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack Summary

    733 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • The American Dream In Ann Petry's The Street

    1185 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Peggy McIntosh's White Privilege And Male Privilege

    982 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • An Argument Against Racial Profiling by Police

    831 Words  | 2 Pages

    Despite the fact racism has been around for hundreds of years, upcoming generations are becoming more open minded and less likely to publicly berate minorities; racial profiling, however, is the one loophole of racism America overlooks. Police officials often use the practices of racial profiling to discretely single out minority races. A common approach to this is through traffic patrols. According to a statistic based in San Jose, CA, nearly 100,000 drivers were stopped; during the year ending in June 2000; and of these drivers less than 32% were white, the remaining 68% of drivers were a... ... middle of paper ... ...

    Read More

  • Racial Profiling

    1102 Words  | 3 Pages

    Many instances of racial profiling occur in reaction to specific crimes, making any racial or cultural groups are usually subjected to more intensive scrutiny by the authorities than others groups. The biggest two groups that are mainly affect by racial profiling are the African American and Hispanics. While other groups are also targets they are not as common as the ones in cases of African American. In certain phrases like “Driving while black” and “driving while Indian” comes from complaining that cops are pulling them over for no reason at all. “It affects groups such as Native Americans, Latin Americans, Arabs, Muslims, Asians, and others.” (Gale) Most of these groups have said there are not only targeted by driving, they are also targeted by performing simple tasks that we all do in everyday lives. Some examples of this where a police office has is an African American man standing on a corner waiting for a bus is stopped and questioned regarding why he is standing there and where he is going . Another example of this would be where a police a store clerk will stop a group of Hispanics accusing them of shoplifting. Hispanics and Muslims are suspected to immigration violations or ever worst terrorist. All these things lead into a powerful and sometime regretful aftermath of a

    Read More

  • The Myth Of White Privilege

    1845 Words  | 4 Pages

    Doing research about the existence of white privilege, I found two articles with the opposite point of view on related information. Although both authors are Caucasians, they have completely opposing opinions about the existence of the white privilege. While Peggy McIntosh is trying to spread awareness to Caucasians in regards to their own privilege, Duke wants them to understand that they are in the same position as all other races. He explains that the awareness of “white privilege” is only a fallacy that causes feel of guilt without foundation.

    Read More

  • Essay On Post Racial Society

    1009 Words  | 3 Pages

    “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

    Read More

More about White Privilege Unpacking The Invisible Knapsack Summary

Open Document