...look truly hard and at different angles in modern, everyday occurrences to see the faint remaining traces of racial discrimination in society especially if the person is white. People of fairer skin often find it difficult to notice modern racism, either because they believe it is an obsolete issue or because they take for granted what advantages their skin color awards them as a given for all when it is not. These advantages drawn from a white skin tone is generally addressed as white privilege which most whites would deny having or are oblivious to. Since white privilege serves as an invisible shield of protection and favor, white society is likely to have more advantages over non-whites, especially...
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...White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack “I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can cut my hair,” is the twelfth item on a list written by Peggy McIntosh who is caucasian. She wrote this list to show some of the daily effects of white privilege in her life. This example that was used in her list can still be seen in today's society with how people act. Even though it is very wrong and racist, some people can do it unknowingly by appropriating culture. There are some racist people in this world that to this day still take from other cultures to try to make it their...
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...After reading “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh, I experienced pangs of shame about the underserved benefits that I have received my whole life just for being white. Although I consider myself to be a culturally aware student and am extremely aware of active racism, I have not only failed to recognize passive racism but have adamantly denied that it is the norm in American society. This article effectively conveyed to me how blind I have been to the biased societal system that affects every individual’s daily life. The white as normative concept especially hit home because I realize how often I act as if white people are the rule and all others are the exceptions which is a divisive and harmful way of thinking....
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...privileges and benefits of meeting its requirements. Communication must be done with a level sense of purpose and reason; conversely, the mindset of Blacks and Whites is not necessarily “Black and White”. a) In Peggy McIntosh’s work “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”, she emphasizes the effort Whites must take to simply comprehend and acknowledge that their lives, in general, are not the same as those of color. (McIntosh, YEAR???) The article continues to express White privilege as a force of supremacy and dominance that is underlined by a large array of benefits and favors packaged together in an “invisible knapsack”. Much like male privilege, rather than release some of the power of being White, the actions taken are often to raise the glass ceiling of non-Whites to a higher level. What this does, consequently, is maintain the White superiority and...
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...In “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” Peggy McIntosh describes the conditions that her white privilege provides for her on a daily basis. McIntosh explains white privilege as a transparent backpack of sorts, full of objects that would make life somewhat easier, such as maps, passports, and blank checks. She lists fifty items that she could often find true in her own life, but not true for African Americans she knew in the 1980s. These fifty things are powerful and most whites, such as myself, never even sat down and thought about how many advantages their skin color gets them, let alone wrote them down on paper. McIntosh notes that on multiple occasions she forgot the points on her list until she began to write them all down. The advantages of white people are oblivious to white people, and that is what shocked me the most. Knowing that this paper was written in relation to McIntosh and...
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...tragic situations that minorities experience is seen by white people, but what white people do not see is how they are less likely to experience the same inequalities. When the idea of white privilege is brought up to white people, they often come off as defensive and contend that “you people” are the ones bringing it upon yourselves. The system is set up to empower white people since they are the majority and the ones holding most of the power. Peggy McIntosh’s article, White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, exposes the problematic issue of white privilege, the daily struggles minority groups face, and how the United States must fix the system to truly bring equality for all....
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...This article examines different ways that people experience the world based on privileges gained at birth such as race, gender identity, class, citizenship, and ability. The author shows that these factors can lead to inequality or privileges. The author examines Peggy McIntosh’s 1988 piece, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” in which she claims that being born white in America provides individuals with privileges that other races are denied. The author claims that although there are privileges associated with being born white, his skin color did not prevent his suffering from poverty. This author claims that race is just one factor that could lend to privileges at birth. Intersectionality is the concept that “recognizes...
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...Nobody really likes to talk about racism, oppression, and privilege. The article, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh, introduced the concept of privilege. Most white people don’t consciously intend to behave in ways that can be experienced by their students or colleagues of color as racist; they simply go along with a system that is already biased in their favor, thus they do not notice the privileges built into their daily lives. For example, in “The Promise” video, when the woman gives an advice to her black waitress, only to realize the waitress cannot relate because the advice is subject to whites. She did not understand the pain that the black lady was going through at first with her son having to grow...
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...In the excerpt, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh, the author commences the paper with her current work on women’s studies. McIntosh enlightens us on her findings on how men are over privileged and are reluctant to admit so. They are aware of their current advantage over women, but rather than acknowledging they are privileged, men simply indicate their support towards fighting for a better-quality status for women. Yet, they will never support the reduction of their standing. This incident approached McIntosh’s awareness to a similar occurrence with the idea of white privilege. She began to realize that just as men acknowledge their advantage over women, whites acknowledge their benefits over people of...
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...shows up in Shaw and Lee chapter two which is the main focus. Privilege as defined by Shaw and Lee is defined as “Advantages that people have by virtue of their status or position in society.” For example males have advantages that are inherent just because they are males that females do not have. In the case of my topic I focused mainly on the privilege that white people have over black people. In early August in Ferguson, Missouri, 18 year old Michael Brown, an unarmed African American male was shot multiple times and killed after a confrontation with a cop. The officer, Darren Wilson, drove by the boys walking in the road and told them to move onto the sidewalk. Wilson then reversed his car back to the two boys where there was an apparent confrontation as Wilson recognized Brown as a suspect for a convenience store robbery days prior and the boys split off running in separate directions. It later became known that the robbery was not the reasons for the encounter that led to Brown’s death. (Washington Post) When Brown was killed there was a public outcry for him because he had been unarmed and was shot by a white police officer, Darren Wilson after what witnesses say looked like Brown surrendering with his hands up walking to Wilson. Shortly after Brown was shot protests and riots began and lasted for several days. This is not the first time that an unarmed African American male had been shot and killed. A few years ago George Zimmerman shot and killed an African American...
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...White privilege is a topic that I never really heard about or grasped the concept of until I became older, maybe around late middle school or early high school years. Coming from a very small, railroad town in western Virginia, white privilege was not apparent or noticeable to me. It was not a topic that was commonly discussed unless you were taking a history class or another class that addressed racism in our country. Even in those classes, racism in our country was talked about, but rarely was the topic of white privilege and what it stands for brought up in discussion. My initial thoughts about white privilege are that I think it is unfair and morally wrong to have such a difference in treatment and opportunities between races. However, I’m not surprised that it exists in our world today and it doesn’t shock me to hear and see that white privilege is still embedded in the crevices of everything we do. We live in a world where racism is still...
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...dominant, Peggy McIntosh’s “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” explores the special circumstances and benefits she experiences as a white person, which she outlines to be often analogous to the unearned advantage of men in the patriarchal system. These societal advantages were not earned but were given on the basis of skin colour, which are often denied and protected by those experiencing white privilege, despite creating a very real influence on society. These notions of a disadvantage for one race and an advantage for another are developed and backed by different sociological studies throughout the paper. The race to which someone...
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...White privilege is an advantage in society that is unmerited. Though it is practiced in every day life (whether it’s subtle or not), the majority views it as “absurd” and “non-existent”. Whiteness and white privilege are taboos that create feelings of guilt, hostility and anger whenever discussed by people of colour (hooks, 339), but it must be addressed and understood in order to be eradicated. Racism shapes the lives of white people, not only the lives of people of colour (Frankenberg, 1). When white privilege is ignored, white people are able to maintain power and dominance in our “post-racial” society. (Mcintosh, 33). In this essay, I will argue that widespread media representation and housing opportunities are the most important features of white privilege, using ideas from Peggy McIntosh’s White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, bell hooks’ Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination and Ruth Frankenberg’s Introduction: Points of Origin, Points of Departure. Widespread representation is the most important feature of white privilege because we live in an age where the media not only reflects our real worldviews and attitudes, but also controls them. The second most important feature of white privilege is adequate housing opportunities. It is necessary for white people to acknowledge their part in benefiting from a society that has thrived on racial hierarchy and white supremacy for centuries and these two aspects are key in reaching that. Firstly, white...
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...In McIntosh’s profound essay’ “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”, she states “I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege” (78). McIntosh characterizes the many allowances whites are allowed to enjoy without any questionable justification of consequence. Individually, being a person of color, it is easy for me to identify with these statements; growing up as and African American I was constantly justifying the way I live my own life in the strict confinements of having an exponentially higher melanin content. However, for Caucasians they are never questioned or confronted regarding “certain stereotypes”. How many times have you ever heard a white person have to defend “why do all white people shoot up schools or do crack?” but you can’t go five minutes on CNN without hearing people of color having to defend against why “all African Americans live in huts, why all black people do drugs and live in the hood, why all black people don’t go to school and sag their pants”. This also goes for achievements and positive recognition; their accomplishments never are undermined to correlation of race. White people are allowed to excel and even fail miserably; there is no limitation in the ability to express oneself, they are free to have erratic or even rude inappropriate behavior and moreover their expressibility is never accursed to race....
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...Peggy McIntosh sees white privilege as “an invisible package of unearned assets which she can count on cashing in each day.” Prior to her acknowledgement of the advantages of being a white woman, she was under the impression that remaining neutral when it comes to race is ideal. Although McIntosh’s comparison of white privilege as an invisible knapsack is a wonderful description of special provisions that she enjoys, the naivety and failure to recognize this privileged is harmful to those without it. She recognizes that her life as a white woman has had the benefit of having doors opened for her even if she has no other defining characteristic value. White privilege systemically places those who are not white at a disadvantage as they strive...
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