White privilege is something that often goes unrecognized. Peggy McIntosh’s article “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” discusses the facts that the privileges are often unacknowledged. People in the dominant group often deny their privilege because they are ashamed of having advantages over others. McIntosh says “Thinking through unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon, I realized that, since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of white privilege that was similarly denied and protected”. This statement explains that white privilege is not always noticeable because people are taught to see racism and sexism as a thing that puts others at a disadvantage instead of learning that the dominant group has advantages. Being part of the dominant group means that you have unfair advantages over people in the non-dominant group. One example of these unfair advantages is “I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed”. I consider this unfair because nobody should have to be worried about others not trusting them based on the colour of their skin.
Being privileged can give you the opportunity to make changes and help the non-privileged people. Although, the privileged people will still have more opportunities than anyone else will, even if they try to help others have better opportunities. McIntosh talks about what it would mean to admit that white privilege exists. She states, “If these things [the list of white privileges] are true, this is not such a free country”. Saying this gives an example of why people would not want to admit white privilege exists, it means that the past belief of an equal world is not actually true. For example, a person of colour may have a harder time finding a job because of an employer’s belief or because of the stereotypes attached to non-dominant groups.
McIntosh discusses the possibility of redesigning social systems, but is that even possible? Social systems have been the same for a very long time. Racism is so deeply embedded in our society that it would be almost impossible to eradicate. The article says “To redesign social systems, we need to first acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions”. It then goes on to talk about the dimensions keeping the discussions about equality and equity incomplete because they are there to protect the unearned advantages of the dominant group. I do not think that redesigning the social systems is possible because of how long the world has had this system of dominance. There will always be a dominant group whether we try to fix it or not.
The article posed the question “Having described white privilege what will I do to end it?” I find this question problematic because, in order to end white privilege, every person in the world would have to think of an answer to this question and then act on their answer. That is a very unlikely thing to happen and I think the question should have been asked differently.
Miss Miskolczi 