Effects of White Privilege

I find Peggy McIntosh’s “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” to be extremely insightful. Her ideas make me think about every day, ordinary life, and actually contemplate the privileges seemingly handed to people with white skin. I definitely agree with McIntosh that growing up white, you learn that racism disadvantages people, but you don’t see it from the other perspective of white skin being an advantage. I think that her analogy between white privilege and an invisible knapsack filled with supplies is brilliant. When reading her list of daily effects of white privilege, I realize that my world, as a white person, is in stark contrast with that of a person of color.
I believe that one of the strongest concepts McIntosh brought up was the idea of an individual’s actions reflecting their race. She speaks of a white person with poor manners, sloppy appearance, and disrespect for others, but this does not hurt the reputation of white people. In the exact same scenario but instead with a person of color, his actions will give his race a bad name. An uncleanly, white person does not have his appearance attributed to his race, but if he were for instance a Black or Indian person who had body odor, it would be associated with his race. The same association occurs in innumerable instances. These false assumptions are repeated over and over again. It is not right by any means, but because most people do acknowledge race as one of the first visual things they see, this skin color is immediately associated with the individual’s behavior.
Whiteness is the theory of white being viewed as not a color in the racial world. Because white is not seen as being a color, the actions of white people do not lead to generalizations of their race. A white person’s every move is not analyzed and interpreted, and his actions do not need to be justified. Just because he is white his actions will not be critically judged and the explanation for them will not be attributed to his race. This does not hold true for people of color; it is the opposite. From a white perspective, people of color are seen differently. A white person does not think, oh I am white and these specific actions are reflecting poorly on my race. The thought does not even occur to him, because he himself does not even see white as a color. It is the absence of color.
The idea of the convenience of being white crosses my mind. McIntosh states, “I can choose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more or less match my skin.” The band aid example really makes me think about how crazy it is that I have never, in all of my 18 years, ever seen a brown or black or any other shade band aid besides those that are light tan. Besides the fact that band aids seem to basically come in one skin tone color, unless they have designs or bright colors, I couldn’t believe that the color itself was called “flesh.” This makes me think of the example in class about the “flesh” colored crayon and its dispute since it was only representing white people, and people of many colors all have differing shades of flesh. Because I am a girl, I use what McIntosh calls “blemish cover” including foundation, cover up, and powder. When I go to Target to buy my makeup, there is a wide variety of companies that sell makeup, but each company only has a very limited selection of actual skin tones to choose from. Because of this, I find it extremely difficult to even find a shade that matches my light to medium skin tone, that of a white person. Makeup shades do go to bronze and dark and such, but when I look at the bottle or container I realize that wow, this color really isn’t that dark at all, and I wonder how girls of dark skin can find a shade sufficient enough to match their skin. It is so easy for me to walk into a convenience store and pick out band aids and makeup that match my skin, but people of color don’t have it quite the same.
White people are represented frequently in the media, on television, and in magazines. I get a Cosmopolitan magazine in the mail, and I can flip through it and almost every single woman is white. Because I am white, and don’t see white as a color, I think nothing of this. But if I were to pick up Essence magazine, it would take one glance to know that this magazine is marketed towards black woman. It is clear to me, because all of the women are not of my color. Whenever I see a Dove commercial or advertisement, I see them incorporate different races and body shapes, because Dove believes that all women are beautiful. Dove appeals to many races, because they acknowledge women who are white, black, Hispanic, Asian, and more. It features the beauty of all colors. Even with the Dove example, I can flip through a magazine that does a feature article on beauty tips for girls. Let’s say the article focuses on 8 different beauty tips. As a general statement, I can say that probably 5 of these 8 girls will be white and 3 will be girls of color. When I come across something like this, I feel as though the article is not catering to the interests of all girls, but rather simply including the girls of color as to not appear to be discriminating against those of color. It boggles my mind to think that being white has given me this advantage of something as simple as having beauty tips in a magazine pertain to me rather than to girls of color.
These minor aspects of everyday life are diverse among differing skin tones. A person’s color alone has enough of an impact to make a difference in how general happenings throughout his day are perceived. Until reading McIntosh’s article and analyzing her ideas, I had never thought about how the daily life of a white person contrasts with that of a person of color. Yes, I knew that discrimination is always present, but I never viewed the flip-side of things, that quite possibly, white people have certain advantages that people of color do not possess. Although this is not right or fair, the advantages are present.