A Critical Analysis Of Peggy Mcintosh

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Peggy McIntosh uses the journalistic format because within the article she uses her personal experiences and she states that the article will not be scholarly. The set-up of the essay helped me categorize and think about my disadvantages and advantages. Not only did I think about myself, I thought about other racial groups that have been affected by white privilege. The main issue that Peggy McIntosh targets is a white privilege. White privilege according to McIntosh is an “invisible package of unearned assets (Shaw, Lee, 86)” Although, white people have these privileges they are “oblivious” to them; they are unearned privileges that have affected the society possibly in a negative way. For example, the target group of people to be killed are …show more content…

“These denials protect male privilege from being fully recognized, acknowledged, lessened, or ended (Shaw, Lee, 86).” It is hypocritical that men are getting the heat for not recognizing their over-privilege when white people cannot recognize their own. White female feminist who advocate equality, and seem to fail to realize they have more privileges than most other minorities. Peggy McIntosh tries to recognize her white privilege in her daily life, so she composed a list of fifty-four observations. From her observations McIntosh drew the conclusion that her morals have been affected, because she believed in equality for all, yet she did not realize she had a dominance which opened many doors for her. We see daily that the white race has more power over other races. In her essay she mentions: “At school, we were not taught about slavery in any depth; we were not taught to see slaveholders as damaged people. Slaves were seen as the only group at risk being dehumanized (Shaw, Lee, 87-88).” If students were taught to see slaveholders as damaged people, then it could impact white privilege which “needs” to remain …show more content…

I completely agree with her people have different “advantages” based on their skin color. However, if white people had less advantage than I would assume that oppression would also decline, leading to possible equality. McIntosh provides a list that illustrates how white privilege has impacted her life. “I did not have to educate our children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily protection (Shaw, Lee, 88).” As an Arab American, my parents would constantly tell my siblings and I that we had to be careful saying “wrong” things about the government. In Dearborn, we do not really face many obstacles considering there are a lot of Arab Americans, however, as soon as we are out of Dearborn, we face constant glares, and derogatory comments, and sometimes even physical violence. In educational system it is usually given in account of white people. For instance, “as a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage (Shaw, Lee,

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