White Privilege Pros And Cons

“As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something which puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage” (McIntosh, p. 55). Growing up white, I was never taught or shown that being white had “advantages” over other races. However, I started to notice these advantages in middle school. My middle school, Arts Impact Middle School in downtown Columbus, was 76.8% black and 11.2% white. Because my school was predominately black, it opened my eyes to things my peers were going through that I might never go through. The first time I noticed that I had white privilege was when my best friend told me about his experiences in a convenient store. He told me that anytime he goes to the Speedway near his house, he would always notice that one of the clerks would follow him around the store. At first, I did not understand why they would follow him around the store, but he informed me that only the white store clerks that would follow him. Later that day, I decided to walk to the Speedway near me and see if the store clerks would follow me; they never did. To this day, I have only been followed once around a store, but they followed everyone due to their high theft rate. When I went to high school, I went to a very open and diverse school, so we never had an issue with someone’s race. However, when I went to college I was in my First Year Seminar class and we started to talk about race. That is when I discovered the word, “White Privilege” and what it meant. We read, Peggy McIntosh’s, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” and it opened my eyes once again. I became more aware of the disadvantages that were occurring around me to people who are not like me. “The pressure to avoid it is great, for in facing it I must give up the myth of meritocracy” (McIntosh, p. 56). I really had to focus on others and look for the injustices that were happening around me. Once I did that, I was shocked. When I would hang out with my best friend, who is black, I became hyper-observant about what was happening around us. We have been followed in stores, I was given more leadership opportunities than he was when we were in an organization together, he was told that he was needed when they needed diversity. It was not until my first year in college that we both decided to speak against the organization that was oppressing him and not …show more content…
“I understood that much of their oppressiveness was unconscious” (McIntosh, p. 55). McIntosh made White Privilege very easy to understand. However, I do believe that she could have done a better job describing how White privilege was like an invisible knapsack. McIntosh says that, “White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks” (p. 55). However, it was not really explained anymore after that. I am left questioning why McIntosh was trying to relate white privilege to an Invisible Knapsack. I understand the invisible part, but the knapsack was unclear. Are they trying to say it is something you carry with you? If so, it was very