“White Privilege”

Topic: McIntosh, Peggy “White Privilege”

The author made use of the phenomenon of male privilege to bring out the fact that white privilege is similarly denied and unconsciously protected. By describing how male privilege has rooted in our society, and how men denied this phenomenon by avoiding acknowledgement of the issue, the author explained the development of white privilege. According to the author, whites are taught not to recognize their privileges. They are disciplined in a way that they are unable to recognize racism as something that puts them at an advantage while as a result, put others at a disadvantage. They do not realize the existence of unearned skin privilege and therefore do not feel the need to stop it.
By identifying the daily experiences granted by their skin privilege, whites can help themselves to reveal this distorted culture. They have to recognize the problem before they can lessen it and work to end it. The most obvious privileges are that white individuals are assumed to be affluence, civilized and morally neutral. The white community is perceived as a group of people who interact pleasantly and peacefully and that their country enjoys a widely represented state and its people enjoy many of its freedom. These perceived and unearned privileges are not only preserved from other people, they are also used as weapons to oppress others.
However, even if white individuals do not approve the way which white dominance has been awarded to them, they could only moderate the phenomenon as this dominated culture is used as a powerful political tool against people of other colours. Since education is by far most influential in altering people’s thinking, changing the social system is crucial to end the silences. People are to see where they are, how they are conditioned to racism, how their government participates