ECS 110 Assignment: Beyond the Discourse of White Privilege

Beyond the Discourse of White Privilege
‘White privilege’ is a concept which is used to describe the societal hierarchy which benefits people with white skin in all the countries which make up ‘the West’ today. The concept itself is used to discuss the economic and political privileges which are given to people with white skin, and how the inherently racialised society this engenders affects people.
As we will see in this paper, McIntosh has created what she calls an invisible knapsack which carries all privileges associated with whiteness in it, as a means of discussing how they all work together. The overt privileges which are easily distinguished are therefore intertwined with (and most likely strengthened by) the more implicit ones which more easily slide under the radar.
The reactions to the creation of this sustained idea around the concept of white privilege have been mixed. It is undeniable that problems exist for people who do not have membership of the dominant racial phenotype in their area, and the invisible knapsack is a good way of showing the various privileges which those dominant people can enjoy. Having one method of gathering the privileges together is a useful jumping off point for discussions of that privilege.
There are, however, people who disagree with the invisible knapsack and its use in these discussions. The most prominent argument against the knapsack is that it limits discussion – this form of privilege boils white privilege down into one particular format, and also assumes that it negates any other form of disadvantage by presenting whiteness as a homogenous entity without its own nuances. Having such a view of whiteness necessarily limits the discussion to a viewpoint which can only discuss the surface elements in each case. This paper will discuss discourses beyond white privilege – while McIntosh and her work will be used as a stepping-off point, other work from various fields will be used to extend that discussion into something which hopefully will see how discussions could be broadened to incorporate more than what is seen on the surface.
The discussions of white privilege given by McIntosh are all-encompassing in that they can be and are applicable to almost every walk of life.
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… I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege. (McIntosh, 1990, 3)
As we can see, McIntosh covers many of what are generally accepted as the bigger expressions of white privilege. However, her knapsack also contains many of the smaller expressions of privilege, such as having history told (McIntosh, 1990, 3), or being able to speak out without (much) in the way of opposition (McIntosh, 1990, 4), which will have knock-on effects down the line in terms of how people view their own culture and themselves.
Perhaps the most important point made by McIntosh is the way in which the overarching premise of whiteness as something which is the norm can lead to situations where that culture is the only one spoken of. When other cultures are reduced to deviations from the norm, it is true that this w...