Blog Post #6

As a white female myself, reading McIntosh’s essay had some effects on me regarding how I see my own identity and how I see the cultural context in which I live. The majority of what she included on her list of “privileges” were facts that were already evident to me, but that I could not have identified on my own nor would I have gone out of my way to list one-by-one in this format. However, one point on this list that I’ve thought about on my own terms was number six: "I can turn on the television of open to the front page of the paper and see people of my own races widely and positively represented.” The media today has a tendency misrepresents people, and as a result, this causes tension and resentment from different parts of society. However, unlike education, the media is not an institution — it’s an industry. This is troubling because it seems as though media and education have the same impact on people’s beliefs and perspectives. For example, McIntosh states that one of her privileges is that she was taught about mainly the accomplishments of her own race when shaping our national heritage without ever noticing how other races remain, for the most part, unaccounted for. Likewise, she turns on the television and sees white people — reporting the news, acting in scripted shows, etc — without ever noting their race. In both of theses examples, she makes us aware of how society has subconsciously taught us to see white as the norm and most dominant by portraying white people significantly more frequently than other races, implying that white is the majority when in reality it is not at all. By listing privileges like this, she also makes the reader aware that they have been interpreting the appearance of characters of other races as unusual and progressive based solely on their race/ethnicity. 

McIntosh also drastically altered the way I see the word “privilege.” Before reading this paper, I associated “privilege” with being lucky or blessed in a positive way. However, McIntosh disputes this notion by declaring it a word that is negative because it creates a divide between those who are privileged and those who are not — particularly on issues of race and sex. In other words, having “privilege” implies that somebody else does not and should want to obtain it but cannot. The word creates a boundary that I wouldn’t have otherwise noticed if I hadn’t read this essay.