Talking Points #1

Peggy McIntosh
“White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”

1. “My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfairly advantaged person, or as a participant in a damaged culture.” Pg. 2
We don’t learn to see ourselves as a pawn in the culture of power, but as an individual who determines their own behavior. Therefore we see ourselves as detached from society and its actions. It makes it easier for an individual to ignore the problem because he or she doesn’t feel involved.

2. “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” Pg. 4
It is easier to ignore the issue of white privilege because admitting that it exists compromises the foundational values of the country. It would shake the country to the core which may not be a bad thing. We need to be able to see what’s wrong before we can fix it.

3. “Many, perhaps most, of our white students in the United States think that racism doesn’t affect them because they are not people of color; they do not see ‘whiteness’ as a racial identity.” Pg. 5
Whites only see racism as outward meanness to another race of people. We don’t think of our color as something that earns us advantages; we like to think that we get what we have because of who we are as individuals. Since we are not African-American or Hispanic or Asian we don’t think that there is a need to use our racial identity or even identify it in any way.

I found Peggy McIntosh pretty easy to read and her argument was presented in a clear and straightforward way. I saw elements of Johnson in her argument especially when she wrote about unearned advantages and unearned power (4). McIntosh uses similar language to Johnson. I liked that she wrote from a personal point of view. It makes me feel more connected to what she’s saying and it doesn’t seem like she’s just throwing research data at me. Something different from Johnson was when she wrote about the positive advantages we have. There was a little ray of light in her argument. An example she uses is feeling like we belong in a group (5). That feeling of belonging is not a bad thing, but when we use that feeling of belonging to alienate other people that positive advantage becomes negative. We need to make a decision on what advantages to use and when to use them. To be frank, the whole white privilege thing reminds me of children on the playground. Some kids will make a club and they won’t let other kids in. We are doing the same thing in our society. So should our society share a common element with a group of kindergarteners?