White Privilege Peggy Mcintosh Analysis

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Peggy Mcintosh discusses how frequent white privilege comes into play in one’s everyday life, as well as how it has seemed to go unnoticed. She defines white privilege as an invisible package loaded with unearned benefits that one can cash in whenever they please, and those who use it have often remained oblivious. From the perspective of a white female, I think she had dissected the characteristics of white privilege so spot on, that I did not even realize all the ways in which the conditions of white privilege had applied to my everyday life. As a strong believer in human rights and equality between race and sex, I believe that the term “white privilege” does not always have to be limited to the white population. The characteristics of white …show more content…

White privilege has the potential to be referred to as a social privilege, or simply just a human right, if individuals, as well as communities, would educate themselves instead of settling for oblivion. Individuals need to learn how to steer away from ignorance and stereotypes towards races that are not their own, and become familiar with different ethnicities that are also entitled to those privileges. Moreover, a statement that widely affected me while reading this article is how the word ‘privilege’ can be misleading. She described some of the conditions of white privilege as factors that work toward disempowering or overpowering certain groups. “Such privilege simply confers dominance because of one’s race or sex,” (Mcintosh, 38). This statement struck me because it proves that the term “white privilege” is used to make the white race the most dominant in comparison to other races. I find white privilege misleading because we usually think of privilege as a favoured state, but in reality, the term here is used to claim supremacy over all

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