Peggy Mcinntosh White Privilege And Male Privilege

The short story White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies written by Peggy McIntosh focuses on the advantages that white people, males, and others have over their counterparts. In the story, McIntosh listed forty-five ways that white people have privilege over others who are not white. The other aspects of the story talk about males and homosexuals having privilege but is not listed out with bullets like the white privilege. As a double minority of being an African American female a lot of things that were mentioned in the story by McIntosh, I can relate to because I have experience them in my everyday life. However, having privilege is not always a bad thing and …show more content…
With the act of being, prejudice comes privilege. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the definition of the word privilege is, “a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor.” McIntosh stated different conditions that she never had to experience as a white person. As an African-American, many of the things that she did not go through I have personally gone through. McIntosh feels that of all the varying privileges, that racial privilege is seen the most and she felt that she could connect to the topic more. Condition number five that McIntosh pointed out was, “I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.” I, unfortunately, cannot say the same. Often times I go into stores and realize that a security guard is following me or see people staring and watching every little move I make to see if I am going to steal something. One day I was in the mall in the store Claire’s just looking around trying to find me a ring. I tried the rings on to see how they would look on my hand and would put them back once I finished. While continuing the process of trying on the rings one of the sales associates came over to me and asked me what I did with one of the rings I had. Even though I put the ring back way before the associate came over, I got so angry and just left the store. Out of everybody that was in the store that day, the sales associated decided …show more content…
Everyone wants to have privilege but unfortunately does not get it. “The word privilege carries the connotation of being something everyone must want” a quote made by McIntosh. Privilege is not something that someone grants to individuals but to large groups of people that connect in some way. Privilege is neither a good nor bad thing and everyone probably has some type of privilege whether they know it or not. As a Caucasian female McIntosh tells the truth about her having a privilege and realizes that it does exist. However, not everyone feels the same way as McIntosh. Some people believe that there is a thing such as black privilege. In an article from CNN, it talks about how white people feel that African-Americans get better treatments and are able to do more things. The person interviewed for the article states, “Blacks can belong to clubs and organizations that cater specifically to their race, but there's no National Association for the Advancement of White People because such a group would be deemed racist. Blacks can call white people "honky" and "cracker," but whites cannot use the N-word.” This article shows that people who do have privilege really do not recognize it. Moreover, when stated that they do have privilege they try to deny it and claim that someone else has