The Daily Effects of "White Privilege"

        “I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group,” says Peggy McIntosh (Wellesley College) in this widely discussed 1989 article in Peace and Freedom Magazine. “As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that 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.”

McIntosh began to look at her unspoken advantages as “an invisible weightless knapsack,” and compiled a list of what it confers. “As far as I can tell,” she says, “my African-American coworkers, friends, and acquaintances with whom I come into daily or frequent contact in this particular time, place and time of work cannot count on most of these conditions.” Here is a selection from McIntosh’s list of 50 items, quoted directly:

-   If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.

-   I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.

-   I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.

-   I can be pretty sure that my children’s teachers and employers will tolerate them if they fit school and workplace norms; my chief worries about them do not concern others’ attitudes toward their race.

-   I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.

-   I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.

-   I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.

-   Whether I use checks, credit cards, or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.

-   I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.

-   I can swear, or dress in second-hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race.

-   I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.

-   I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.

-   I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.

-   If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race.

-   I can take a job… without having my co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of my race.

-   I can be pretty sure of finding people who are willing to talk with me and advise me about my next steps, professionally.

-   I can be late for a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race.

“Many, perhaps most, of our white students in the United States think that racism doesn’t affect them because they are not people of color,” says McIntosh; “they do not see ‘whiteness’ as a racial identity. In addition, since race and sex are not the only advantaging systems at work, we need similarly to examine the daily experience of having age advantage, or ethnic advantage, or physical ability, or advantage related to nationality, religion, or sexual orientation.”

“Describing white privilege makes one newly accountable,” McIntosh concludes. Having described it, one must ask, “what will I do to lessen or end it?”

“White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” by Peggy McIntosh in Peace and Freedom Magazine, 1989, https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/mcintosh.pdf

(Please Note: The summary above is reprinted with permission from issue #793 of 
The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.)