I am a white female living in South Mississippi. I come from a middle class family. I'm heterosexual. I don't have any disabilities. I am a Christian, but I don't regularly attend a church. When I tell people this, there is always the chance that they will judge me because I don't conform to the norms of where I come from.
Growing up in a rural town has been easy because I've always been around people the same race as me and people that I have known since childhood. Some unearned privileges of my location are much the same as the ones McIntosh discusses in her essay titled White Privilege. I am almost always associating with people like me. My neighborhood is quiet and safe. I can be sure that I am in safe company when I go to school or go shopping around where I live. Without even realizing it, I have come to expect to have many of these privileges and the privileges that McIntosh mentions in her essay. Before this class, it had never occurred to me that people of my race had so many unearned privileges.
The privileges I have can be very oppressive because they limit my views on things. I haven't experienced many different cultures because I never really had the chance to get out and travel until recently. I never pushed myself to explore different things until now.
I agree with McIntosh when she says, "I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege." This is something we pretend not to have because if we uncover it, how will we react to it? Like McIntosh says, "Having described it what will I do to lessen or end it?" Being ignorant of unfair advantages gives us the impression that we earned what we have, but did we? How did we get to where we are today?
Reading this essay has brought a lot of things to light. I have never given a lot of thought to just how many privileges white people have. It is true that we see these privileges as invisible, and we are completely oblivious to the advantages we have and take for granted everyday. This essay definitely makes me view things differently.
