Furthering the discussion of racism by understanding white privilege

By Louise Ritchie

Ask Wellesley Professor Peggy McIntosh why her work on white privilege is important and the 71-year-old white woman replies, “I believe that the discussion of racism can’t be carried any further unless white privilege is understood. It’s a missing link.”

McIntosh, who is scheduled to lead a two-hour workshop Oct. 31 at the two-day Mayor’s Conference on Race, Culture and Human Relations, explains, “Individual effort matters, but circumstances beyond our control in social systems that we were born into, they also matter. So, the newness of my work has to do with helping people to see circumstances they were born into, and to do so without blame, shame or guilt.”

In 1988, McIntosh published the ground-breaking article, “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences through Work on Women’s Studies.” This analysis and its shorter form, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” published in 1989, have helped add the dimension of privilege to discussions of gender, race, and sexuality in this country.

Those articles are autobiographical, she emphasizes, saying they contrast her personal daily experiences with those of African-American women in “my own workplace and my line of work. My work is not about all white people’s privileges relative to all people of color in all places.”

Raised in New Jersey in an upper middle class Quaker family whose ancestors included Virginia slaveholders and the Massachusetts’ colony’s first governor, McIntosh graduated from Radcliffe summa cum laude, studied at the University of London and earned a Harvard doctorate in English. She is associate director of the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.

Among the things that her articles say are true for her are: “I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
“I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty, or the illiteracy of my race. “I can be sure that my children will be given curriculum materials that testify to the existence of their race.”

Some well-meaning people have misused her list, not giving white people an option about whether the 46 items are true for them. That, she says, can do more harm than good.

Instead of forcing people to identify with her list, McIntosh says, “I encourage each person to make their own lists. Males to make their own lists. Heterosexual people to make their own lists. Those born to wealth, those born in the U.S….write down what the privileges are that they can see from their own autobiographical experience.”

The founder and co-director of the United States S.E.E.D. (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) Project on Inclusive Curriculum, McIntosh says that “even things like your place in the birth order – that can be a privilege factor or a disadvantaging factor or your body type can be a privileging or disadvantaging factor.”

McIntosh says that she bends over backward to avoid generating a frightened response as she helps people recognize their privileges.
“I do a description of what it is like to have power that one didn’t earn,” she says. “I try to do it so that people experience their own version of it as factual rather than accusatory.”

Some of what she describes as the “bravest” audience members respond by asking what they can do about their privileges.

“That’s a premature question,” she says. “The first order in noticing privilege systems is to see that they are there. The second step is to realize that and if one is benefiting from one of them – whether the male privilege system or the heterosexual or the racial privilege system or the class system – if one is benefiting, one is taught not to recognize the system.”

It is impossible to eliminate one’s privileges, she says. Consequently, “the third major step, after seeing and describing where one was circumstantially placed within power systems, is to know this: ‘Even though I have privilege that I didn’t earn within the system of white privilege, that doesn’t mean that I’m to blame. That doesn’t mean that I’m guilty. And it doesn’t mean that my first response should be shame.’”

The next step? Replies McIntosh, who consults worldwide on issues related to gender and multicultural-fair curricula: “I can only speak for myself here. Unearned power is almost like a bank account. …. I hadn’t asked for it and I hadn’t earned it, but I found I could use it to create a world closer to the one that I wanted to live in.

“Once you see that you have some unearned power, you can make more of a difference in the world than you think. You can ask, ‘Did doors open for me without my pushing them open? Can I do that for others, not necessarily the same way? For example, because of my class and race privilege, teachers worked hard to help me learn to write effectively. Can I now use my writing ability so that wisdom, tenderness, empathy and clarity on race and class systems can spread?’

“That’s the next step,” she adds, “and the benefits of taking it will last you all your life.”

The summit will be Oct. 30 and 31 at the Civic Center. For those who register by Oct. 15, the cost is $35 for one day, $60 for two days. The cost afterward is $40 and $80. For more information, call 891-8290.