{"id":26846,"date":"2010-09-02T10:16:23","date_gmt":"2010-09-02T15:16:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=26846"},"modified":"2013-12-05T03:58:16","modified_gmt":"2013-12-05T08:58:16","slug":"white-privilege-how-lucky-they-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2010\/09\/02\/white-privilege-how-lucky-they-are\/","title":{"rendered":"White Privilege, \u201cHow Lucky They Are\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In 1989 Peggy McIntosh published an essay that is assigned in nearly every Sociology of Race and Ethnicity course in America.\u00a0 Titled <a href=\"http:\/\/www.case.edu\/president\/aaction\/UnpackingTheKnapsack.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><em>White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack<\/em><\/a>, the essay included a list of things that white people, but not others in a white-dominated society, can count on.\u00a0 Here are a few:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I can avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my kind or me.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.<\/p>\n<p>I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.<\/p>\n<p>I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.<\/p>\n<p>Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I thought of Peggy McIntosh when I saw this personal confession at PostSecret:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2010\/08\/lucky.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-26851\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2010\/08\/lucky.jpg\" width=\"443\" height=\"319\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>For more on white privilege, see our posts on <a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2008\/10\/20\/colin-powells-endorsement-equated-with-treason-by-cartoonist\/\" target=\"_self\">Colin Powell being called a traitor<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2009\/07\/18\/stephen-colbert-on-sotomayor-and-white-privilege\/\" target=\"_self\">Sotomayor&#8217;s Supreme Court hearings<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2010\/05\/24\/the-flip-side-of-racial-profiling\/\" target=\"_self\">the privilege to shoplift<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2008\/08\/03\/white-privilege\/\" target=\"_self\">&#8220;flesh&#8221; and &#8220;nude&#8221; colors<\/a>.<\/p>\n<span class=\"ft_signature\"><em><a href=\"http:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/\">Lisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/American-Hookup-New-Culture-Campus\/dp\/039328509X?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">American Hookup<\/a><em>, a book about college sexual culture; a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Gender-Interactions-Institutions-Lisa-Wade\/dp\/0393931072?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0\">textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/lisa-wade.com\/intro\/\">Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a><em>.\u00a0You can follow her on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lisawade\">Twitter<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/lisawadephd\/\">Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1989 Peggy McIntosh published an essay that is assigned in nearly every Sociology of Race and Ethnicity course in America.\u00a0 Titled White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, the essay included a list of things that white people, but not others in a white-dominated society, can count on.\u00a0 Here are a few: I can avoid [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[283,285,1757],"class_list":["post-26846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-whiteseuropeans"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26846"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26846\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59792,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26846\/revisions\/59792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}