Talking Points 1

"White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack"

By: Peggy McIntosh

Peggy McIntosh's opinion on the topic of this article is the difference between the races and genders, and how they are recognized. McIntosh's viewpoint on the article favors the woman's privileges over the men's privileges and shows how the men are favored over the woman.

A quote in the article that means something to me is the number 7 topic that states, "I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race." This quote means a lot because of the Service Learning that we are doing in class currently. This quote shows how the education differs because of race. People believe that because of the race of the person, the education level should be lower, but this quote proves that there should be a standard level of education no matter what race, religion, or gender.

The second quote in this article that means something to me number 4 that states
"I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed." It has been proven that African American people get judged more when they go shopping than white people. This quote means something to me because it is not always true, and just because of the color of a person's skin makes assumptions for them. The third quote that means something to me that is stated in this article is number 22 that states "I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having coworkers on the job suspect that I got it because of race." In this day and age, it is much harder for African American people to find a job. Most white people get hired over African American people just because of their skin color. This means something to me because some of the most successful people are African American such as our current president Barack Obama.

I understood that this article makes a legitimate argument about the ways some races are favored over others, and how men are overprivledged over women. McIntosh made a good point on how she thinks that men are overprivledged over women and how hard it is for men to admit that they are overprivledged. This article was very easy to read because there are many problems in the world that have to do with racism and gender issues that we have heard of and the issues are very common. This article addresses many of the problems that we have read throughout other texts including gender issues and racism.