McIntosh Reading

I found the Peggy McIntosh reading to be very enlightening and interesting. I have always tried to be aware of my social privilege as a middle-class white individual living in a first-world country, but after seeing all the ways my privilege is manifested written out in a long, itemized list really got me thinking. I guess that's the point: in day-to-day life, I don't have to think about being treated unfairly because of my race, or avoiding certain areas and events because I know I won't be welcome there. I definitely appreciated the detailed way in which McIntosh expressed her privilege because it made white privilege easier to identify in my own life, and easier to understand for people who have never had to think about it before. Overall, her approach to exploring social privilege was effective because she uses a tone in her writing that is not bitter and accusatory of white people, but at the same time does not try to skirt responsibility or blame her culture's faults on others. This is a piece of writing that can teach any reader something and made my privilege clearer and more explicit to me. During the writing process for my personal narrative, I would like to come up with a list similar to McIntosh's to further increase my awareness on this topic.