McIntosh

Nicole Pickering
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack  
Peggy McIntosh

1) "They may say they will work to improve women’s status, in the society, the
university, or the curriculum, but they can’t or won’t support the idea of lessening men".
     1. I believe this means that men realize what status they hold in society and they know how much power they have. Men want to hold onto that power and never lose it. I think that if they lose that power they will feel like they lost a whole part of them. They are used to being the higher power to women. They are used to having control. Some men will help women get to their level of power, but there will always be that 1% more power that the male will have. If men's power were ever to lessen, men would do revolt against it to prevent it from happening. Some men may not even realize how privileged they are. They may not realize they are holding back the underprivileged.


2) "I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to
recognize male privilege".
     1. White privilege and male privilege is an everyday thing. It is so common in the world, people are used to it and that is why is it so easy not to recognize it. People just tend to ignore it. This happens to people every single day and by now people do not even realize that there is a difference in racism and privilege. Since whites and males have had most of the control and power for so long, people do not feel the need to fight back. Everyone is so used to what goes on in the world, some do not even realize that what is going on is racism. The same thing goes for male privilege. Males have had control for so long now. Women are so used to it, they have not really decided to take a stand.

3) “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.”
1. This quote helped me realize the difference between white privilege and racism. It helped me understand that many people in the world know what racism is because it is pretty much an every day thing. What people do not understand is white privilege. White people are not taught about white privilege. People just tend to ignore white privilege and recognize racism.


From reading this piece I learned a lot about white privilege, male privilege, and racism. I learned that racism is one of the most recognized things in the world today. Privilege is tended to be ignored. This was an easy piece to read, which was good.