InvisibleLink #4: "Where did I put that backpack?"

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, Peggy McIntosh

I often use Peggy McIntosh's article, "White Privilege," when I teach basic essay composition.* It is a "theoretical" article, but the students (probably because of the lists) are generally able to grasp the major concepts and we can fill in the other bits together in class. I like the article because it opens many students's eyes (no matter their background) to what kinds of privileges certain groups enjoy over others. McIntosh writes:

I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was "meant" to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools , and blank checks.

One of my favorite examples of a "special provision" is also one of the simplest:

46. I can chose blemish cover or bandages in "flesh" color and have them more or less match my skin.

As with makeup, people of lighter colored skin have enjoyed the privilege of flesh colored band-aids since Johnson & Johnson first started making 'em. And almost certainly, we took it completely for granted that we could do so.

There are things I dislike about McIntosh's article, though--I don't think it stresses quite enough that race and class generally overlap and that many of the factors she discusses are as much products of one's economic status as one's race, gender or sexual orientation. As well, she doesn't spend much time examining (in the other version of the article) what happens when some of these categories overlap: does a white, homosexual woman lose privileges? What about an African-American straight man? Her discussion of male privilege, in particular, seems to be based on the idea of a white, male heterosexual man, thus suggesting that her own categorizations are defined by the exact privileges she is attempting to describe and criticize. Obviously, her lists are not meant to be a roadmap for figuring out what privileges you do and do not have, but the intersections here are at least as interesting as the categories, and she does not mention them. Finally, not all white groups enjoy white privileges, as any Jewish person today could tell you, or any Irish immigrant from the late 19th century would certainly attest to. But despite these drawbacks, or perhaps because of them, I continue to use the article in my classes. It is well worth the read.


*Note: I teach a slightly different version from the one available through the link above. McIntosh later developed the article to include a discussions on male privilege and heterosexual privilege, using similar lists to discuss ways in which males and heterosexuals enjoy specific privileges that women and homosexuals do not. For example, one of the items on her list is that heterosexuals tend not to worry about adverse reactions when asked what they did over the weekend with their significant other.