White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

In her published article, "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack", Peggy McIntosh presents the idea of unspoken advantages that benefit many, if not all, majority groups here in the US. The main example she describes here is that of the white ethnic group--according to McIntosh, white-skinned people don't often realize how much they oppress those of other ethnic groups, because the American society surrounding them encourages whites to think their mentality and way of life is commonplace for everyone. Because white people represent such a vast majority of the United States population, they often take for granted certain privileges that most other racial groups are not fortunate enough to have. The author goes on to relate this scenario to men's tendancy for recognizing the disadvantages women must face and how, even after becoming aware of their sexual dominance, men do nothing to better the situation because it would mean sacrificing some of their unearned power. In any case, we as people need to acknowledge when we have been given an unfair advantage. Only when certain dominating groups voluntarily sacrifice will the issue of equality in our society improve.

Peggy McIntosh makes many interesting points; however, I only agree with them to a certain extent. I agree that people should recognize the privileges they have been given in their lives and learn to use them to better society as a whole; however, I do not think that any fortunate person should have to make sacrifices just because others may not find themselves so lucky. All throughout the article Peggy implies that the solution to eradicating this form of racism is for privileged people to recognize that they have an unfair advantage and for them to “step down” a bit, so undermined groups will have a better shot at success. Personally, I feel like this is the completely wrong way to go about it. Shouldn’t we as privileged citizens be helping those with fewer advantages rise up? After all, people with power were the ones to build this country in the beginning—who’s to say the same sort of thing can’t happen with people? True, power only exists when certain groups are dominated, but if we unite as a country we will have even more power as a nation that we can put to use towards bettering the world in which we live. In other words, powerful groups that exist here in the US should do everything they can to help others rise up as well—this wouldn’t mean losing their privileges so long as citizens of our country make a team effort to help out the rest of the world.

One of the main reasons HIV/AIDS is so prevalent in other countries is because of misinformation/confusion on the topic. For example, some groups believe the disease was fabricated by whites to get rid of “unappealing” groups; other individuals think they cannot get it because they are not homosexual. All these false assumptions need to be eliminated before AIDS can be countered—and the United States, along with any other privileged country, should do its part in educating others. Educating is the first step to prevention and, hopefully eventually, eradication of this disease. To do this we must identify each and every system of oppression (not just limit it to race), eliminate them, and then use the newly-obtained energy for good. All in all, teamwork is the key.