My knowledge of my own white privilege is miniscule. Don’t get me wrong, I know that my skin color brings me benefits, but I do not know the breadth of those benefits. Peggy McIntosh, renowned author and scholar on white and male privilege, proved to me that everyday my white skin lifts me up and dangles me above others. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to hear Dr. McIntosh speak on campus earlier this week.
The majority of white privileges are not obvious. They are easy to ignore and they are easy to not believe in. As I sat in my biology class the day after Dr. McIntosh spoke on campus, I looked around and saw only one African-American student. I thought about, for the first time, how hard it must be to be in that student’s shoes. With this new thought came instant embarrassment of my white privilege ignorance. I don’t ever have to worry about feeling out of place in a classroom and that is white privilege. When I laid in bed that night and opened Netflix, white faces lit up my screen. I never have to worry about feeling underrepresented.
Feelings of guilt are hard to combat when I think about my white privilege. Yet, Dr. McIntosh made it clear that blame is not the answer. Privilege is much deeper than individuals. It is within society’s institutions. For instance, think about education. Students come to class and day after day they are handed material written by white men. This starts at a young age and continues throughout most of our lives. This routine ingrains the idea in our minds that white men are knowledge. White men are society’s intellectuals. What does that make us do? A black man and a white man apply for a job that they are equally qualified for. The white man gets hired because he is associated with intellect.
Blame cannot be handed out, but responsibility can. Dr. McIntosh showed me how strong my white privilege is, how it is a part of my everyday life and, most importantly, she taught me that I have to keep learning about my privilege. Doing so is uncomfortable. Dr. McIntosh made us do an activity in which we were given one minute to talk to a partner about our disadvantages. Then (the hard part) we had one minute to tell our partner about all the privileges we have. This was uncomfortable. This was hard. But it has to happen. Once we acknowledge systemic racism and privilege, we can collectively begin to fight it.