White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
Question 1
These passages from the article means that in reality, men are oppressing women and whites are oppressing other races specially blacks. However, this type of oppression is not recognized, since society has accepted that these are dominant groups in a society and their actions are considered as the standards. For men and for whites, there are just doing what society is expected them to do, but if different races or women do exactly what they have been doing, a different view point will exist. Although, there are no written laws that distinguish what women or men do in a society or what are the white and black rights in a society, they are treated indifferently. What’s bad is that even the implementer of law like the policemen recognizes these privileges.
For example, if a man and a woman have a child, the man does not need to face social pressure to raise the child and maintain the household while the woman does. However, there is no law stating such actions, or men are as capable as the women to do these. This action is just based on a culturally – installed patriarchy and long standing societal norm.
Question 2
Male Privileges
Male can exposed freely what the feel or can flirt freely which can increase their macho effect while females cannot otherwise they are dubbed as easy to get and will be shamed and ridiculed.
If male commits adultery, society accepts them while female committing adultery are treated differently by society
Female are targets of sexual harassment both a\inside and outside while male are unlikely to be targets of similar attacks.
Males are not required to change their surnames upon marrying but if women chose not to carry their husbands name, questions as to the woman’s reasons will arise
White Privileges
If whites come inside a store with a designers clothes and a big bag, the guard will likely ignore them while if blacks come inside a store with the same designer clothes and big bags, the guard will probably be observing the persons every move, as if expecting that the person is about to do something bad.
Whites can form organizations without many problems while other races can form organizations only after careful perusal of their background and purpose and other aspects in which the organization is expected to lead to.
If there are terrorist’s attacks, seldom can you see people blaming the whites. Almost instantly, Muslims are blamed even if there are no proofs yet.
Question 3
McIntosh means that these three things, racism, sexism and heterosexism are different things so the accompanying advantages of each must be differentiated with each other. An unearned advantage because of race should not also be seen as ones advantage in term of sexism and heterosexism. There are already a number of unearned privileges just because a person is white. Now these privileges should not be added to the privileges of a person because of his sexual orientation because this can cause further oppression or dominance over the disadvantage group.
Question 4
Yes, it can be possible for the white or male dominant group, to give up their power to the lesser group. However, these problems would not be solved by using laws because there are no laws that state that these specific groups are dominant over the other or that males are dominant over females. Actually, the laws are geared towards equalization of women and men across races. What will become a barrier in implementing this system of power is the social norm that has been constructed even before our forefathers were born. It has taken thousands of generations to pass on this specific social norm and despite all the laws that tend to equalize or eradicate the dominance of other social groups; it has been existing in the system. I think it will take thousands of generations too, to completely eradicate these especial privileges. What makes them more difficult to eradicate is because of the fact that there seems to be social acceptance of the system.
References:
McIntosh, Peggy (1988).“White Privilege; Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” Retrieved from http://www.nymbp.org/reference/WhitePrivilege.pdf
