#UNPACK THE KNAPSACK SKIN#
Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.ġ4.
I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can cut my hair.ġ3. I can be casual about whether or not to listen to another person’s voice in a group in which s/he is the only member of his/her race.ġ2. I can be pretty sure of having my voice heard in a group in which I am the only member of my race.ġ1. If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.ġ0. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.ĩ. When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.Ĩ. I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.ħ. I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.Ħ. I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.ĥ. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.Ĥ. I can avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my kind or me.ģ. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.Ģ. As far as I can tell, my African American coworkers, friends, and acquaintances with whom I come into daily or frequent contact in this particular time, place and time of work cannot count on most of these conditions.ġ.
I have chosen those conditions that I think in my case attach somewhat more to skin-color privilege than to class, religion, ethnic status, or geographic location, though of course all these other factors are intricately intertwined. I decided to try to work on myself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of white privilege in my life. By Peggy McIntosh, associate director of the Wellesley Collage Center for Research on Women
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