White Privilege and Male Privilege - Assignment Example

White Privilege and Male Privilege Peggy McIntosh published her prodigious article, “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences through Work on Women’s Studies.” in 1988. A shorter mode of this inquiry was then published in1989 as, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” which again raised her contentions about the unfair balance that rests within the American society and its attitude (that of privilege) to gender, race, and sexuality. At the first reading the article sounds well rounded and the inherent assumptions seem quite without any contradictions. But I am motivated to ask certain counter questions while reading it so as to critique the nature of “white” privilege she assumes to be directly a by-product of nothing but a segregated education of the whites for the whites and also most importantly skin color. Skin color not only becomes an unknown privilege, but makes the white population (at large) curb colored races and their privileges. This assumption though is quite ideal and superficial also needs deeper classification and considerations about what constitutes whiteness- is it only skin color or is it also a certain way of ideological progression or point of view? Is race an unified monolithic division based on skin-color? Is whiteness or privileges that it bears excluded from all members of its race and vive versa? Peggy first discusses the “interlocking” system of “unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon” which helps to maintain the status quo of the hierarchy. Also this privilege is meant to be an attached “weightless knapsack” that brings in a world of comfort and unaided or unasked advantages for the white man. But her main argument is just not about underscoring this whole phenomenon, but to call for an end to it. But the challenges are many; since defeating the whole purpose also means fighting an unknown, unacknowledged and oblivious privilege and also to gain awareness about the ways in which it is invisibly “conditioned” to become a part of a the white skin color. She then adumbrates the effect of a “white” schooling that necessarily teaches the “White” students to think it normal, that they are the centres of a moral and ideal world and that they must try to make others more like them. The “us” and “them” parallel epitomizes the centrality of their view that immediately makes everything outside it, the periphery. Schooling is not just classified to white and racial politics. Infact schooling also initiates the whole process of inculcating various imbalances in the society. In that case not only is the race subjugated, but the degree of subjugation imposes greater concerns. Like the subjugation of a single colored economically weak female (working mother say) will yield a host of hostilities both in society and her workplace, which necessarily has not been just set into motion just because a white man/or woman has unknowingly cashed in on his/her unbridled freedom of whiteness. Again her immediate subjugators may be a colored man of the elite class who may be her boss and choose to sexually harass her. On the other hand a colored man may be sexually harassing a white woman and here the balance is quite not right in the basis of gender prowess and racial slander might not be quite the right way of addressing the situation. What I want to reflect is that she overemphasizes the complications between different races on the basis of their skin color. To assume that power structure is uniform is also an oversimplification. One must consider gender and economic probabilities that combine with such inequality of power play. Peggy then counts the “daily effects” of being benefited for her skin color, and the ways in which she remains under its thrall too, to mistrust and derive unnecessary advantages from the sheer ignorance. Instead of listing the rights denied to a person of color or the ways in which their skin color make them marginalized in a supposedly free society, Peggy remains disturbed about having amassed undue and unearned privileges. The simple privileges that she lists are also quite categorical. She gives examples of situations that do indeed occur, but they also happen to people of the same skin color or within the racial class also. There are discriminations against one’s capabilities, or sex or economical or familial upbringing. Yes, here she says that despite all that a man/woman of color faces additional setbacks. Therefore the excess nature of her advantages as a white skinned person makes her contemplate the insidious nature of its existence. Point 32 succinctly summarizes the extent to which a white skinned person can afford to remain or is encouraged to not remain aware of the presence or contribution or history and standing of other people of the race who constitute a majority in the entire globe. “My culture gives me little fear about ignoring the perspectives and powers of people of other races”. Here she equates ignorance to downright manipulation. Thus she acknowledges that most of the dominance is being carried out without the knowledge of it being carried out. This is a very convincing idea as she writes certain points about the unconditional nature of white privilege that seeks to eliminate any kind of social, professional, economical, or even psychological attachment with being a “white” person and reduces all those privileges as a “normal” precondition for being a “man” (essentially, obliviously, and obviously “white”). Thus she forgets to mention that the oppression that is fighting is a general and dominant idea of a “white male who is the center of all representation” and it cannot be fought at the physical level but at the level of the discourse. Yet, her acuteness of understanding is reflected in her sensitivity as a person of deeper awareness when she mentions points like “I can choose blemish cover or bandages in "flesh" color and have them more or less match my skin” (point 46.) A place where white “civilization” is widely represented, the “racial” duties of a white man are nil or only directed at himself and not for bearing the consequences or upholding the name or entire “type” of their race, like dressing ill or even eating with their mouth full. Thus she essentially points out the extent of short-sightedness with which an entire race is viewed and partially categorized from individual and often trivial traces borne by a person born of that race. In contrast the white person can choose to remain uninformed about the extent of freedom a white skinned person can enjoy by simple “weightless”-ness of their racial surrounding and its attendant and often, unknown privileges. The social behaviour or demands of a white person does not necessarily boil down to the nature, character or inconsistencies of her entire race. But Peggy forgets to question the reverse, where the white person’s individual traits also taken as the definitive mark of her race too, in case of a non-white surrounding. What about the oppression of white people at the hands of their own “dominant patriarchal” image? The part which she names “Elusive and Fugitive”, is about denouncing the myth of a government ruled by people with inherent merits or talents but comes from the very grounds of unfair selection amidst whites. Is it true for the whites of all classes or the whites of a certain elite class? Isn’t she talking about plutocracy? Though she at first thought these “perquisites” to be a justified component within the environs of a “just” society, she is apprehensive about its “taken for granted” attitude in most white people. She advocates a “taxonomy of privilege”, thereby acknowledging herself as being part of the “main culture” and therefore in a position to criticize it too and not being severely condemned for it or castigated like anyone of some other race. Thus she questions the true meaning of privilege; especially as it seems to over power and thereby “systematically” dominate particular sections (marginalized) of multiracial “Others”. Even then she forgets to derive an exhaustive idea of what consists of the racial class she is talking about. Is she talking about a colored factory worker who is relegated to the ghetto? Or is she talking about the colored factory manager (who may not be allowed any further promotion by law and not by the ignorance of his white boss) who avoids the public park in fear of being stared at, but has no problem usurping any privilege that comes his way (like reservations in employment or job opportunities), even if it means oppressing his own kinds more? Is that kind of unearned power too? The section named “Earned strength, unearned power”, charges the notion of “unearned power” as a ploy to escape “conscious” domination. What about blatant and conscious domination? And even if the whites drop all negative privileges, can one assume for sure that the colored people, who are given the same idea about white supremacy, cease to not think it in those terms. I mean say for instance the phenomenon of acculturation (by the French Imperialism in North Africa). Has the process of decolonization been successful yet? The benefited bourgeoisie who have been made “white” in their minds and not in their “skin” still think in the terms of white supremacy and there they are part of white domination. Thus when Peggy prefers to give up or reject “negative advantages” that will only seek to reinforce the age-old differences between the whites and the “others” she only talks in terms of superficial disparities in shade and not in psyche. With primary difference in the nature of their advantages and thereby in their extent or depth of disadvantages, the classification in class, economy, age, sex and religion may make the task of lessening and relinquishing advantages difficult, that Peggy admits. But to her whites are demarcated by skin and therefore by their thoughts. But there is also another area where the demarcation is not just skin deep. Peggy further proposes that a redesigning of social systems must be supported, keeping in mind the “unseen” factors in mind and by that she sadly means ignorance. It almost feels that she is exonerating racist attitude of most people with ignorance and unseen designs of their secular or universal education. And hence it also has an adverse effect on the other non-white masses too. This she does not regard. But she proposes a “reconstruction” from such a premise of awareness, which should be the ultimate aim anyway. Thus the article has certain general ways of addressing many critical and complex racial issues, which do not just depend on ignorance and the lessening of certain “negative” privileges. There are a lot of socio-economic and ideological forces that operate in multiple ways to create racial inequalities and thus call for a more expansive approach other than a categorical one where all whites are deemed superior and all colored man/woman weak and seen to be as only inferior. Read More