White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

“White Privilege” is a personal essay. McIntosh uses the first person “I” and “me” as she describes her growing awareness of racial injustice. She uses her background in women and gender studies as a lens for thinking about race. In gender studies, “male privilege” refers to invisible advantages men have that women do not. They are invisible because they are so ingrained in social practices that people fail to see them or, if they do recognize them, they regard them as natural or necessary. McIntosh asks if there isn’t a similar privilege that she, as a white person, has been blind to. She says, “As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something which puts others at a disadvantage, but I had not been taught to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage” (Paragraph 2). She sets out to examine the ways being white eases her way in life but “about which [she] was ‘meant’ to remain oblivious” (Paragraph 3).

She argues that people in positions of advantage do not necessarily intend to deprive others, but the deprivation happens nonetheless. If it is unintended, where does it come from? She answers that those who are privileged have the benefits of systems that disadvantage others.