WHITE PRIVILEGE: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsak...By Peggy McIntosh

Upon reading White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack By Peggy McIntosh, I came across several quotes I found to be very profound and immensely captured my attention.


3 QUOTES I chose:

•  "I have often noticed men's unwillingness to grant that they are over privileged, even though they may grant that women are disadvantaged.

This is such a great point she makes. She says men will work to improve women's status, in society, in schools, at the work place, but they can't or won't support the idea of lessening men's. She uses the word "denials", that men's denial of their advantages, which they gain from women's disadvantages, protect male privilege from being fully acknowledged, lessened or ended.

• "I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was 'meant' to remain oblivious."

In my opinion, the above statement is so powerful! I think she these phrases, such as, 'unearned assets'; 'cashing in'; and "meant" to remain oblivious'; to provocatively get her point across. And for me it did.

• "Whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that we work to benefit others, this is seen as work which will allow "them" to be more like "us."

McIntosh writes that she decided to try to work on herself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of white privilege on her life. She compiles a list of 26 realizations of simple things she goes through on a daily basis-simple because she is white, but may be very difficult or impossible for a non-white person.


To learn more about Dr. Peggy McIntosh, read her Biography.