Peggy McIntosh's White Privilege And Male Privilege Essay

McIntosh, who is a white woman that lives in America, says that white people are carefully taught to not recognize white privilege. They are conditioned not to be aware of the unearned disadvantages that are in an “invisible knapsack” that people of color carry with them. She listed some instances that clearly shows white dominance as an advantage in her daily life, which included that she can count on

According to “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh; she feels that there are various advantages every white person gets, without even realizing it.

These advantages are accepted without the knowledge of these white people, this is just how they were brought up as they got older. They are bought up this way and that is how they believe that everyone else is living their life

In Peggy McIntosh’s article, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” McIntosh embarked to uncover the countless advantages whites tend to have over those of color. By doing so, she validated her credibility to the reader by listing her findings along with research and evidence to supplement her claim. After reflecting on the privileges she found, McIntosh stated, “…whiteness protected me from many kinds of hostility, distress, and violence, which I was being subtly trained to visit in turn upon people of color” (McIntosh, 3). This makes it obvious to the reader that McIntosh’s findings are unjust and should be changed. Unfortunately, most white individuals are currently doing nothing to modify these unfair privileges. McIntosh concludes the article by posing

In Marilyn Frye’s article On Being White, she brought up a few points that caught my attention. There are three points she made that support me arguing that whites carry privileges that are not available to people of color. First, whites have the power to define who is white and who is not. Second, white people have the option to hear or listen to black people or ignore them. Lastly, many white people do not understand or realized that they are privileged. I am going to explain why these points and Mark Twain’s book Pudd’nhead Wilson relates to I and Frye’s argument.

When I think about white privilege, I see it as something I must understand to truly feel a relation to my own privileges with race. “As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something which 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.” (McIntosh 1988) When comparing other privileges McIntosh sees that her life is more influenced by her skin color than class, religion, ethnic status, or geographical location. Tim Wise explains “even though there is more than one type of privilege, they can never fully eradicate white privilege.” “Understanding the persistence of privilege requires recognizing the sleight of mind that occurs on the subject of individuals as members of groups” (Wildman 2005). Early work done by African American sociologist W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963) showed that studies with white workers over time came to see themselves as white unlike the developing working class with recently freed black slaves. DuBois was one of the first people to initiate the concept of white privilege.

White privilege embraces the behaviours, values, beliefs and practices of the dominant white culture (Puzan, 2003). There are often unnoticed advantages

According to Wise, the benefits of white privilege include material benefits like better job opportunities, better housing access, and better education opportunities. There is also the psychological benefit of just the realization that as a white person, one is not going to be racially profiled when going about their everyday business.

In “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” Peggy McIntosh argues that racism can be found imbedded into the culture of society; conferring and denying certain privileges on some rather than all. This is a dangerous cultivation; endowing a strong expectation that white privileges are naturally deserving. Furthermore, making the cornerstone of McIntosh’s main argument; that white privilege is just a less aggressive synonym for dominance. When you receive privileges for looking a certain type of way, the recipient becomes immune; often not being able to acknowledge their advantages. As a result, this creates a cultural divide, between racial groups.

At its core, white privilege is described to be an “invisible package of unearned assets” (McIntosh, 2002, p. 33) for white people. There are many layers explaining the manifestation of white privilege and even more explanations pertaining to its dominant presence in today’s world.

According to the authors, what practice(s) create white privilege is viewed in their own unique perspective but, it all fits up under one category of a specific race having the advantage to have their freedom to do what they like. Based on McIntosh view that “whites in Western societies adore recompenses that non-whites do not practice, as "an undistinguishable package of unjustified assets” (Rothenberg, 2016). White freedom represents together evident and not as much of evident submissive rewards that white people may possibly not identify they require, which differentiates it from explicit favoritism or preconception. In fact, they have been accepted as the better social status in addition to freedom to move, buy, work, play, and speak freely. It

There are two prominent writer/scholars who have taken the issue of white privilege to heart and have shared their expert analysis on the subject; these authors/writer-scholars are Peggy McIntosh, a white feminist, and Beverly Tatum, an African American Psychologist. McIntosh, in her article "Coming to See Correspondences," makes excellent observations about the privilege that she has experienced just by being a white female in America. The two most significant points made by McIntosh

Peddy McIntosh highlighted various unearned white privileges in her autobiographical article “White Privilege, Color and Crime: A Personal Account.” She illustrated the white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that one white person could count on cashing in each day. White people have these privileges given to them by the society in which they live in. The same society taught them to be ignorant and unawareness of these privileges. This system of unearned privileges established by white individuals made people of color feel oppressed. In this system being white is a norm and dominant power. Caucasians, who benefit most from the white privilege system in the United States, are more likely to

“Privilege.” What really is a privilege? Do you even consider yourself privileged? Well, the word “privilege” means “a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people” and whether or not you consider yourself privileged really depends on how you define the word and whether you take it for granted or not.

In Peggy McIntosh’s “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” she expresses her own privileges as a white woman. She says things such as, “I do not have to educate my children to be aware of