Peggy McIntosh’s extraordinary essay on what it means to possess White Privilege

I can go shopping without being harassed

I hope you enjoy this extraordinary essay by gifted writer, thinker and egalitarian, Peggy McIntosh as much as I do. For your downloading pleasure, here’s a condensed list of 50 ways white privilege is experienced in America (thanks for the link Helen Tinsley!).

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
by Peggy McIntosh

I can go shopping without being harassedThrough work to bring materials from women’s studies into the rest of the curriculum, I have often noticed men’s unwillingness to grant that they are overprivileged, even though they may grant that women are disadvantaged. They may say they will work to women’s status, in the society, the university, or the curriculum, but they can’t or won’t support the idea of lessening men’s. Denials that amount to taboos surround the subject of advantages that men gain from women’s disadvantages. These denials protect male privilege from being fully acknowledged, lessened, or ended. read more