White Privilege Analysis

“If these things are true, this is not such a free country; one’s life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own” (McIntosh, 15).

This quote is from the article White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. It refers to a list McIntosh compiled, of twenty-six examples of white privilege. McIntosh used the metaphor of an invisible knapsack to represent white privilege, unearned assets that one is able to easily able to cash in. These advantages are so prevalent, yet they are considered the society norm and we are taught not to recognize the. Everyone has an unconscious bias about race, and other physical attributes and as a result, the work world is also affected by the biases (Paige Daniels). We live in a society that values race and the way people look over hard work and dedication. In my passage journal, I considered which statements on the list I identified with and explored and why that is so.

I originally chose this article because I found I was able to relate to a majority of the statements McIntosh listed, but not all of them. People are oppressed due to race and other physical attributes, but I think that one’s culture also has a large affect on how they are judged and treated. I talk about my race and culture being independent of each other. My race is Chinese, but I associate myself

I use the example of the story The Paper Bag Princess by Munsch as a children’s story that promotes untraditional gender roles. I had a hard time thinking of stories my parents read to me that broke out of the gendered social script, yet I can’t think of any children’s stories of people who identify as transgender. Gender is molded by society and because society focuses on differences between men and women, we forget to look at the similarities between the