White Privilege, Yo

I think it was personally important for her to create an inventory of unearned privileges she received as a white person because she wants to identify these things and work on “working on” herself. Making this list helped her realize how privileged she is and how much other aren’t. McIntosh expresses her concern for white privilege by stating, “In proportion as my racial group was being made confident, comfortable, and oblivious, other groups were likely being made unconfident, uncomfortable, and alienated” (McIntosh 85). McIntosh also explains how men may say they are for improving women’s rights but they will not admit to being over privileged. She explains the phenomena of not acknowledging the advantages they receive from the disadvantages of women. McIntosh later relates this back to white privilege and expresses how the problem is denial or even obliviousness. She explains how obliviousness is deeply rooted into the culture of the citizens of the United States. We wish to be democratic and present equal opportunity but with white privilege, this cannot happen. I think McIntosh created her inventory of unearned privileges to in turn encourage others to do the same. In her conclusion she states that it may take decades to for systematic change to occur but it starts by raising ones daily consciousness as she did. 

White privileges

In Peggy's brilliant choice to point out something that not all people of her "race/color" so to speak to great or often about, she points out great points of oblivion that Whites have as well as the privileges that they not always consider or appreciate having. In her doing so she is not only asking herself what these privileges are but also the thousands of others to consider what options/things they don't realize they do take for granted. Not only does she allow others in her race to rectify and see there wrongs if any, but she also allows for herself to be put in other ethnic shoes. She allows herself to see and think what it would be like to be a Hispanic, Black , Indian, Asian etc. . She learns to see what it is like to be oppressed and look at her race comparatively and see what privileges she had over others. She breaks boundaries and speaks a truth in which other minorities for so long even to this day have been trying to riot and argue against. She promotes a hope for change in minorities as she may be one of the few thousands of White who will speak out and be courageous enough to feel strong and needed meaning in her unknowing "privileged and powerful White" words. Although many may not know when more in her race speak out against these ethnic injustices and inequalities they are helping and promoting change that has been and for years has been long needed. I feel as though it was personally important for her to create this inventory of unearned privileges because she poses the essential question; how exactly did we attain these rights, who granted them and why is it that only we can have these, what makes us so different and powerful from the rest of these humans that are no different than I am except only through skin? Why is it that when I am asked these questions that I feel that there is no need for me to answer them?

White Privilege Thoughts

The essay White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, by Peggy McIntosh gives us all an awakening to an issue I think we all don’t really think about. I know that when thinking of racism, we just think of segregation and how it was so bad back then. I never really thought about how this unearned privilege of being white is kind of racist. In the essay, McIntosh lists 26 unearned privileges she has as a white person. I think it was so important for her to make this list because it gives us multiple examples and gives the essay so much more emphasis. The list backs up her claim and shows the readers that what she’s talking about is true. I do not agree with her claim about systems of oppression being linked because I don’t believe racism has anything to do with affecting sexism. A person can be a racist and not care if someone is gay. I think it depends on the type of person and I don’t think that you can say all people are like that. I do think that people should be responsible for the disadvantages of others outside of their personal identity because as a society we should stick together and help out our fellow Americans. Change is more likely to happen if people of all cultures come together to help because it makes more of an impact. 

White Privilege

     White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, by Peggy McIntosh, is an article that describes how Whites benefit from unearned privileges and how it also goes unnoticed by Whites. In the beginning of her article, McIntosh discusses of male privilege and how it is unacknowledged and denied and protected just as White privilege is.
     She then goes on to say that even though she is a woman, she is white which gives her advantages over someone who is of colored skin. McIntosh lists unearned privileges she experiences as a white person for her personal use and to make these privileges more recognizable to her readers. I think she incorporated this list in her article as a reminder, to herself, that she really does experience these things everyday whether she is going to work, speaking to neighbors, going to the grocery store or mall, reading a magazine, watching a movie or TV episode, etc.
     And I think McIntosh included this list for her readers to reflect on their experiences as a white or not white person. It would make the readers think what they can and can't relate with. Even though I am half Korean and half White, I mostly identify as White - so whenever I fill out paper work and they ask me to choose only one race I pick White. I do this because I feel like I were to choose Asian then the people reviewing my paperwork might have some expectations or reservations about me. Anyway, back to McIntosh's list, I can relate with nineteen of her experiences and the other seven I cannot.
     This is straying from the prompt or assignment of this post, but my favorite part of this article is when McIntosh says, "Most talk by Whites about equal opportunity seems to me now to be about equal opportunity to try to get into a position of dominance while denying that systems of dominance exist." I think most people only care about equal opportunity because they want that advantage instead of letting everyone have an equal chance. Does that make sense?

White "privilege"

Peggy McInstosh wrote a short essay called “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”. McIntosh short essay starts by talking about male privilege. Even though, some males say that they’ll work to get more woman privileges, they never talk about lessening their privileges or ending it. She then states, “I realized that since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of White privilege which was similarly denied and protected. … I think Whites are carefully taught not to recognize White privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege”. She also explains that most of the time White people don’t notice their privileges, and “Whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work which which will allow “them” to be more like “us”’. Whenever McInstosh started listing White’s unearned privileges, I grabbed a highlighter and started listing the ones that I believes to be true…. I highlighted 23 of them that have occurred to me. I believe this was important because most White’s don’t see how little their privileges are, but they slowly start to build up when there's more being added. She explains that, “For this reason, the world “privilege” now seems to be misleading, we usually think of privilege as being a favored state, whether earned or conferred by birth or luck. Yet some of the conditions I have described here work to systematically over empower certain groups”. These “privileges” were made to build certain groups up while tearing the others down. I slightly disagree with that statement because no one chooses to be White or a minority, we're just born into this world. 

Why do you think it was personally important for her to create an inventory of unearned privileges she experiences as a white person?

1. Why do you think it was personally important for her to create an inventory of unearned privileges she experiences as a white person?

I think that it was important for her to create an inventory of unearned privileges she experiences as a white person because it creates sustainabiltiy for people who are of other ethnicities that when they see that its not only their race that even someone who is white lacks that benefit, they really begin to tune in and listen. They're more adapt to understand why she has room to talk on that topic for lack of better term.

In Robert Reich's text, "Why the Rich are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer," he points out some economic issues according to today. Also, he compares how people inequality back then and how it is different now by saying"All Americans used to be roughly in the same economic boat," which means the rich weren't s rich as they are now and the same goes with the poor were not as poor as now. It is made clear that the people of today become richer due to the division of labor, and the roles that people are being allocated to. Says that if you don't have at least a high school diploma, or nothing more than a high school diploma, it won't be easy to find a good job. The employer would take the college degree person over the high school diploma person if they both were fighting for a teaching position for instead. Because they have a better level of education in the field.