White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by: Peggy McIntosh

           The author, Peggy McIntosh, argues that Caucasian individuals are taught not to recognize white privilege in comparison to males being educated to disregard male privilege. McIntosh states that white privilege is characterized by an "invisible, weightless knapsack of unearned assets varying from special provisions, to visas, to clothes, to blank checks, and more that can count on being cashed in." McIntosh supports this view of unrecognizable white privilege by taking the time herself to list daily effects of white privilege somewhat more attached to skin-color rather than class, religion, ethnic status, or geographic location- even though all of these factors can be intertwined in her opinion. Some of the points that stood out to me included:

• 
  being able to be in the company of people of my race most of the time
• I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children's magazines featuring people of my race
• I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider    
• 
  I can be pretty sure that an argument with a college of another race is more likely to jeopardize her/his chances for advancement than to jeopardize mine.

McIntosh then continues her argument by stating that if her skin-color is an asset for any educated move she wanted to make, then America is not such a free country after all. She shapes the word privilege as seeming to be a favored state earned by birth or luck, but simply it confers dominance over one's race or sex to empower certain groups (i.e. white people and men). McIntosh concludes by leaving us questioning whether or not individuals will become truly distressed or outraged about unearned race advantage and conferred dominance and what we will do to lessen them or if we will just ignore the question similar to men and the unearned male advantage.     


-Questions/Comments/Points to Share:
    I found it interesting how McIntosh compared white privilege to male privilege. White people in the United States are definitely prioritized compared to other ethnicities, but McIntosh also raises the issue of the masculine sex also being prioritized over females. In our society today, issues around equal pay between men and women have become a problem, the controversial issue around companies offering payed maternity leave (also the question of extended leave for dad's as well), women are put down in the eyes of some people if they return to work instead of being stay-at-home mothers (this can also be flipped when dads choose to be the stay-at-home parent), many leaders or CEOs are men instead of women, men pay less for living necessities over women, and more. Which issue is worse, white privilege or male privilege..... or both?