"White Privilege" Peggy McIntosh

Quotes:

 Quote 1:
 "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." McIntosh uses this quote to explain her idea of "White Privilege". She claims that because she is white she is has more social privileges, which is why she believes can she can avoid racial judgment when she when she swears, dresses in second hand clothes, and not answers letters. Where as blacks people face racial judgment on these fronts everyday. In the sense that if a black person wears second hand clothes they are more likely to be perceived as a "poor black person", because of American society's prejudgment that says "all black people come from low income families, therefore they need to buy second hand clothes". McIntosh states that she has the privilege of avoiding such judgments.

Quote 2:   
McIntosh uses several examples in which whites are more privileged than blacks throughout our society. Another example she uses is that "[she] can easily buy posters, postcards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys, and children's magazines featuring people of my race. " This thought is meant to point out the idea that in American society big businesses target a white audience. It's meant to show that in a society in which whites are considered the "dominant" race, blacks don't share the same priviledge of being able to easily by race specific consumer goods.

 Quote 3:
"White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, code books, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks. " Here McIntosh points out that whites have many privileges that they can and do cash in on everyday without necessarily realizing it. Whites have an a whole arsenal of advantages in our society in which they can use to help them get more material goods out of life. But McIntosh beileves that most privileged whites don't even relize that they have advantages that get them through everyday life because the are are silently taught over time not to see the advantages they have. People with privileges become accustom to having privileges.This idea can be explained like this, if someone is getting something they want/need for free everyday, over time they learn to not question it where it comes from and thus they loose sight of the fact that not everyone is getting the same thing.

I thought this article was interesting because, like many of the articles we read for this class, it really makes you think from someone elses shoes. It points out the stuff that as a white person you may take advantage of without ever realizing.