In her article, White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, Peggy McIntosh discusses the way in which racism was taught in her school. She states
“As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage”.
After reading that, I realized that is the way racism was taught in my school as well. Teachers never discussed the consequences racism had for white citizens because, for the most part, those consequences were positive. McIntosh goes on to write about the dominance white privilege still has in today’s society, and after reading her list, I was surprised at how many aspects I could apply to my own life.
I was most surprised to find out that number twenty-five on the list was so easily applicabe. It reads, “if a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race.” Over the summer, I was pulled over for speeding. While I did receive a pretty hefty fine, the police officer neglected to ask me for my license and registration. I was the one who thought to hand him my license, but to this day, that police officer does not know if my car was insured or not. He was under the assumption that because I am a white teenaged girl, my car must have been insured and all of my paperwork must have been up to date. At the time, I did not think anything of it, but looking back I find it strange that as an officer of the law he would make those assumptions and not ask me for all of the information that he needed.
There is one more number on the list, number forty-six, that I want to address: I can choose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more or less match my skin. Even though it sounds trivial, it is true. When you go to a drug store to get “flesh” toned band aides, or “nude” make up, the color always matches light skin. There is no alternate “nude” choice for people of other races. It is a subtle way of perpetuating white dominance in today’s society, and many people don’t even realize it is happening.
White privilege is still a very real occurrence. Here is a link to the article http://nymbp.org/reference/WhitePrivilege.pdf I strongly encourage you to read it. Which parts of the list do you find the most surprising or applicable, and what are your thoughts of the white privilege that still dominates our society?
What an awesome article! I'm glad you posted this, so I could read the list and see how McIntosh's points apply to my life. All of her points are applicable to me, but judging from what I've heard from my friends of different races (African, Asian, Indian, etc), I doubt they could say the same. While segregation isn't legal and racism is a mindset that is discouraged and frowned upon (depending on who you ask), this article makes it clear - without data sets, statistics, bar graphs, percentages, etc etc - that our culture is still very centered around white people rather than diversity. Point number 6 definitely resonates with me - both private and public schools I attended growing up always focus on the "white man" and how far the world has come, always as a result of what the "white man" has accomplished. The successes and achievements of other races almost always sit on the back burner, as footnotes or endnotes to the master narrative of white success. It might be watered down, since no where in the list does it mention structural instances of exclusion or discrimination, but such simple things that white people can take for granted are really powerful examples of how differently society treats people of other races.
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