The white privilege
In several situations, people have found or felt that they were inferior to other people contrary to the reality. As a result, they have felt discriminated by such people. In a society, some people benefit from unearned advantages that are equally unacknowledged amounting to the feeling they are superior to others. In simple terms, the idea of such people feeling they have such advantages over others is what constitutes privilege. In his study, Johnson (2001) describes a privilege as what allows people to assume a certain level of acceptance, inclusion and respect, therefore, operating in a relatively wide comfort zone (p.117). According to McIntosh (1988), white privilege has been described by people of color for years how whites have benefited from unearned privileges. It is for this reason that McIntosh carried out the research to find out how and in which forms specifically does white privilege occur in the society.
McIntosh’s study in “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” she focuses on women and their male counterparts as the main participants. As a white surrounded in the midst of African-American co-workers, friends and acquaintances, she chooses conditions that to her she thinks attach more to skin color privilege than class, religion, ethnic status or geographical location. She selects the participants from the people she works with, the women whom she studies with and friends.
In her study, McIntosh claims white privilege does not start and end with only racism. It is not about obvious exclusions and oppression. Her understanding about white privilege is more than that in her example of how society regards the female ‘being’ in society. She uses the phenomenon of the male privilege to compare it with white privilege, a social problem which is experienced in the United States. She describes how male privilege has become so rooted in the society even though it is not the individual ‘man’ to blame. In other words, she argues that the white privilege is denied and subconsciously protected just like the male privilege (p.1). According to her, whites are taught not to recognize white privilege just as males are not taught to recognize their privileges in society.
The results of her study reveal how as a white woman she drew an analogy from her frustrations with males who are taught not to recognize their gender privilege. She also discovered she had learned to ignore her white privilege. However, this experience applies to the society today as supported by Jensen (2005) “whiteness is privileged and has become the norm. There are a lot of assumptions that have been made about whiteness, and the society have taken them up as a culture” (p.103). However, now she is aware of white privilege “as an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions which includes, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks” (1988, p. 10)
McIntosh’s study is very insightful in describing how people in society can go through life without knowing about white privilege or realization that they too have this privilege. It means that the non-particularity of whiteness or normalcy of whiteness makes it “transparent”. This transparency nature of privilege is what entails invisibility of privilege. For instance, the white people have racial identities as well as an invisible privilege of being white. It is because they do possess unseen powers as the dominant race in the social world: a perception created by individuals and groups of people who then stick as a social reality. These socially constructed realities become institutionalized and made into tradition. This kind of invisibility is then perpetuated into the modern society since the representation of white people and white culture are everywhere.
It is obvious, and therefore, white privilege has taken its place in our society and taken as the norm knowingly or unknowingly. The only way to realize that it has happened is by speaking about it because the price we pay for white privilege is big, and silence does not help it. According to Davies & Wildman (1994), silence will worsen white privilege and thus it’s a war to be fought by everyone. Wise (2002) also agrees the price we pay to stay ahead of others is enormous economically; socially and politically therefore reason enough to eliminate the practice from society.
References
Jensen, R. (2005). The heart of whiteness: Confronting race, racism and white privilege. City Lights Books.
Johnson, A. G. (2005). Privilege as paradox. White privilege: Essential readings on the other side of racism, 2, 103-107.
McIntosh, P. (1988). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack.
Wildman, S. M., & David, A. D. (1994). Language and silence: Making systems of privilege visible. Santa Clara L. Rev., 35, 881.
Wise, T. (2002). Membership has its privileges: Thoughts on acknowledging and challenging whiteness. White privilege: Essential readings on the other side of racism.
