Our professor told us
to read an article called White
Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See
Correspondences through Work in Women's Studies. It is written by Peggy McIntosh.
The article mainly talks about women are
disadvantaged by structures of gender; men are over-privileged. At the same
time white people gain dominance from racism while minorities are
underprivileged. White privilege is not
earned, but people are made to feel that it is their right because they are
part of the main culture.
McIntosh stated this in her text “White
privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps,
passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks.”
The statement shows me that society
treats others in comparison to the way that white people are treated. We were
treated differently, because we are not white. There are so many things that
minorities will never have the opportunity to fully experience or understand
because we are not white. It doesn’t matter how much we do, how hard we work,
how much money we have, what person we marry. We will never have white
privileges.
I was born and grew up in China;
people around me having yellow skin, which is the same as mine. I do not feel I
am special until my family and I immigrated to the United States. I lived in a
city called Philadelphia, which is half white people, almost half black, and
some minorities. The high school I attended, 90% were black people, about 5%
were white people, and the rest of them are Asian and Hispanic. There was one
thing surprised me, which were white people would never be bullied by black
people. However, Asian boys were always bullied by black boys. White people
seem to have privilege, that they are superior to other minorities. White people are privileged. That is the main
thing. At the same time, some people are more privileged than others. Some by
way of money and skin. Others may be privileged just by skin alone. No matter
what, white people are still privileged, and the rest of the people are underprivileged.
