White Privilege Essay

507 Words3 Pages
After reading the article White Privilege by Peggy McIntosh I found myself agreeing with Ms. McIntosh on some levels. It is an invisible package of unearned assets that can be counted on and cashed in each day. I also agree that it is a knapsack of special provisions, maps passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks. However, I disagree with her in the since that she seems to think White Privilege an invisible package of unearned assets. Over the years different news reports have been done on discrimination or white privilege whatever they want to call it these days. A black person answers an ad in the paper or the window of a restaurant about a job and is told that the job has been filled. An hour later, a white person answers the same ad and is hired on the spot. A black person answers an ad in the paper about an apartment for rent in a affluent neighborhood and is told that the apartment has been rented. Send in a white person an hour later and he or she gets to rent the apartment. A black person has been working a particular job for years. When it’s time to be promoted they are told that they don’t have enough experience or schooling, yet he or she is the one who trains the person they hire for the job. I guess the new term for discrimination is “white privilege.” It seems to me that white people use any tactic they can to feel good about how they treat people of color. I don’t think the oppressiveness of White Privilege is done unconsciously. According to the article, 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; they do not see “whiteness” as a racial identity. Unfortunately, the white students in my African-American Studies class at NKU lead me to believe that they are very aware of white privilege and think it is ok to have “White Privilege.” They

More about White Privilege Essay

Open Document